Rise

Rise is the distance on a pair of pants from the crotch seam to the top of the waistband. It decides where the pants sit: a high rise reaches up toward the natural waist, a low rise sits lower on the hips. Pants have a front rise and a back rise, the back one usually longer to go over the seat.

How to measure

1. Lay the pants flat, front up, the waistband smooth.
2. Front rise: from the crotch seam, where the four seams meet, up the center front seam to the top of the waistband.
3. Back rise: turn the pants over and do the same along the center back seam.
4. Follow the curve of the seam, and say in the chart's caption that you did.

On a size chart

Rise is a garment measurement: it shows up in garment tabs and product specs, rarely on body charts. None of Ruban Size's 39 templates has a rise row. It explains a gap you can see in the numbers, though: the outseam of pants is roughly the inseam plus the rise, so two pants with the same 32 in inseam can differ in overall length.

The rise also changes which waist a pair closes around. On a low rise, the waistband sits below the natural waist, where the body is often a different size: measure your body on the line where the waistband of pants that fit sits.

In Ruban Size

A rise row goes in a garment tab like any length: give it a unit and the cm/in switch converts it for shoppers. Find my size doesn't ask for the rise; it sizes pants by waist and hips and reads the inseam as a length. To show where the tape goes, add a How to measure block to the garment tab, set its drawing to "My own image, or none", and use a photo of the pants laid flat.