[harrall]

Yes but it’s multiple dimensions other than just waistline. e.g Some brands make boxier shirts and others use longer cuts.

Because “my style” prefers one over the other, I know when I buy from a certain brand so it’s going to fit on me better.

If if waistlines were standardized it wouldn’t really account for all the other measurements.

[Gigachad]

There's also different definitions of waistline size. Pant sizes "lie" because historically most pants sat further up your waist, now that many of them sit on your hips, they give you a measurement as if they were still sitting higher up so you can compare between the fits with the same number.

Really the only bulletproof solution here is to just go try them on in store and see which fits best.

[altairprime]

Pants sizes also lie because they don’t take into account the rise necessary to provide horizontal waistline on women with an angle at their rear waist-to-hip incline. A 14 low-rise waist that flops down at a thirty degree tilt in the front is a worse fit than a 12 mid-rise waist that doesn’t, for example.

[jcims]

It's a great point that I think the article also touches on. Bodies are of many shapes, so the sizing question is as much about, possibly more about, shape as it is mapping any particular dimension to a scale.