22w, the next-to-the-last size?

I am not familiar with women's clothing sizes, either, so we will have to wait an hope that an American woman comes to enlighten us. Next to last means that there is only one size larger than 22W.

It says in the ad at the bottom of this page that in the Womenwear plus shop advertized - the sizes go from 14-34.

So maybe 34 is the biggest size in plus size stores - you know like they have big and tall stores that specifically cater to big and tall men and carry larger sizes more customized for big and tall men- they also have stores that carry larger sizes specifically for larger women.

So maybe in regular stores that carry sizes for all except very big women, the largest size is 24w - and to get anything bigger than that you have to go to a specialty store and then it seems to go up to 34.
(I don't know what the w stands for ).

I've also seen women's clothing sizes that run XL, 2XL, 3XL, etc...

Plus-sized stores can definitely go into the 30s (and that number isn't related to anything, like number of centimeters or inches or anything, so the sizes can be very confusing). It's probable that the writer is referring to a particular store. I mean, I used to wear 26s and 28s and I was absolutely not the biggest woman around.

Most stores go to 3X or 24W. There are stores that specialize in clothing for larger women. This web page lists different size ranges.

http://www.avenue.com/Help/Help_SizeCharts.aspx