PurposeTwo-dimensional (2D) measurement technology has become more popular than before, thanks to the widespread availability of smartphones and smart devices. However, most existing 2D body measurement systems have background constraints and may raise privacy concerns. The purpose of this research was to test the idea of designing a 2D measurement system that works with a color-coded measurement garment for background removal and privacy protection. Clothing consumers can use the proposed system for daily apparel shopping purposes.Design/methodology/approachA 2D body measurement system was designed and tested. The system adopted a close-fitted color-coded measurement garment and used neural network models to detect the color-code in the garment area and remove backgrounds. In total, 78 participants were recruited, and the collected data were split into training and testing sets. The training dataset was used to train the neural network and statistical prediction models for the 2D system. The testing dataset was used to compare the performance of the 2D system with a commercial three-dimensional (3D) body scanner.FindingsThe results showed that the color-coded measurement garment worked well with the neural network models to process the images for measurement extraction. The 2D measurement system worked better at close-fitted areas than loose-fitted areas.Originality/valueThis research combined a color-coded measurement garment with neural network models to solve the privacy and background challenges of the 2D body measurement system. Other researchers have never studied this approach.