A hoodie can measure out fine on paper and still look wrong in the mirror, which is usually the cut talking rather than the size. Almost every fleece piece listed on Gallery Dept Italy is drawn relaxed and put on one unisex chart running S to XL, so reading the label the way you’d read it anywhere else can land you the wrong letter. Happens a lot.
One chart for everyone, S through XL
There’s no men’s column and no women’s column here, just the single unisex chart with four sizes, and your body measurement decides which one you take rather than the letter you’ve always bought. Which sounds obvious right up until you’re squinting at the page wondering whether an S on a unisex chart means the women’s S or the men’s S — and it isn’t either of those. It’s just the shop’s S, the only one there is.
So measure yourself once, stick the numbers in a note on your phone, and after that it’s mostly holding them against the chest, waist, hip and length figures the size guide prints in centimeters. There’s a small method to the measuring part and the guide covers that, so I’ll stay on the bit people actually ask about — how the thing behaves once it’s on you.
What relaxed actually does to the shape
Relaxed isn’t a size, it’s a pattern, and that does more work than people expect. The body of the hoodie is cut wider than your chest, the armhole sits lower, the sleeve is set further out — so a relaxed M can look bigger on you than a slim L, even though the label went down a letter.
The shoulder seam lands past your shoulder
On a fitted hoodie that seam is meant to sit on the bony point at the top of your arm. On these it doesn’t. The seam falls further down the upper arm, the sleeve head is softer, and the top of the garment hangs rather than perching. Once you know that’s the design you stop tugging at it in the mirror (we’ve all done it).
Length you only notice once you sit down
The body runs longer than a gym-style hoodie, which you notice in dull little moments: on a tram in Milan the hem doesn’t ride up over your belt, and worn with joggers it covers the waistband instead of finishing just above it. There’s a length figure for every size in the guide, and if you’re tall that’s the one to look at — chest tends to sort itself out, length never does.
Your usual size, or one size down
The shop’s own rule more or less fits in a sentence. Buy the letter you’d normally buy, and you get the roomy version the pattern was drawn for; knock one letter off and the same hoodie sits nearer your body instead. Neither is a mistake. They’re two fairly different garments on one person, and that’s the part that trips people up.
And going down one doesn’t turn a relaxed hoodie into a fitted one, before anyone panics. It takes out about a step of volume — the body stops billowing, the shoulder seam creeps back toward where your shoulder actually is, the cuff lands on your wrist rather than halfway over your hand — and that’s it. Still relaxed, just less so.
| What you’re after | Size to take | How it ends up sitting |
| The roomy look it was drawn for | Your usual size | Seam well past the shoulder, body skimming the waist, long sleeves |
| Something nearer the body | One size down | Seam closer to the shoulder, less cloth at the waist, cuffs at the wrist |
| Between two sizes and you like it soft | Go up | More room through chest and hem, longer body |
| Between two sizes and you want a leaner line | Go down | Cleaner through the torso, sleeves still past the wrist |
A few things worth knowing before you pick a letter:
- Don’t guess from the last hoodie you owned — this cut is wider, so your old size and this chart may not agree.
- Chest landing between two sizes? Take the bigger one if you like fleece loose, the smaller one if you’d rather see your own shape through it.
- For joggers and full tracksuits the shop says go up instead, because the waist and hips need the room — that rule doesn’t carry over from hoodies.
- If something turns up wrong anyway, it goes back unworn with tags attached, inside the 14-day withdrawal window Italian online purchases carry.
Thick fleece has an outline of its own
Fleece this heavy doesn’t really drape, it holds — the part people miss while squinting at a chart. Thin cotton collapses onto your body and reports back everything underneath it, whereas thick fleece stands a little away from you and keeps a soft, squared-off line across the chest. On the white Logo hoodie it’s obvious at a glance — the body reads as a block rather than a silhouette.
Which is also why sizing down works better here than on a t-shirt: there’s enough substance in the cloth that removing a size doesn’t leave it clinging anywhere. Every hoodie on the Felpa Gallery Dept page sits at €70, so choosing the one that falls the way you like costs you nothing extra.
One more thing while we’re here. A lot of these pieces are garment-dyed or vintage-washed, so the color doesn’t come out flat, and two pieces of the same model can land a shade apart. On a grigio mélange that mostly reads as depth across the shoulders. Not a flaw, and probably why the cut looks softer in person than the measurements imply.
Key Takeaways
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is the S on a unisex chart a women’s S?
No — there’s only ever one chart and one S here, the same for everyone. Measure your chest and waist, hold them against the centimeter figures in the guide, and then the only thing left to decide is whether you want that size roomy or a letter tighter.
Does going down a size still count as relaxed?
Yes. You lose a step of volume, not the pattern, so the dropped shoulder stays put, and the body is still wider than your chest — it just stops looking quite so oversized in photographs.
Is it worth sizing up for the thick fleece?
Only if you actively want more room. The chart is already drawn for this weight of fleece, so adding a size on top of a relaxed cut usually leaves you rolling the sleeves all day.
Measure once, work out which of the two looks you’re after, and the S–XL chart handles the rest. Glance at the guide before you order rather than after, and you’ll spend less time in front of the mirror — or at the post office with a return.