Bringing a Personal Touch to Plus-Size Fashion

It never ceases to amaze me that every 20 years or so the fashion industry "rediscovers" the plus size woman. It makes a flurry for a while and then disappears again. As someone who has worn plus sizes for years I have felt a fair amount of frustration over the lack of good quality attractive clothing in my size. My go-to is Lands End as they have the kind of causal clothing that usually fits me and is right for my lifestyle. I no longer have the need for fancy party frocks or sophisticated business attire. As a matter of fact as a retiree I am no longer buying clothing as I have plenty of clothes to wear. I will buy replacement items when needed. It is true that the fashion industry basically hates fat women. Major retailers hide their plus size departments in out of the way areas of their stores like they are ashamed of us - though they don't mind taking our money. By the way plus sizes are very profitable departments due to the lack of options. There seemed to be a major sea change around the end of the 90's. Brand name clothes and department stores decided to jettison true plus sizes and instead substituted the 14-20 size range instead with the occasional size 22 thrown in for good measure. They decided that it was more profitable in those upper end missy sizes than the extended size range. I found that brands I used to be able to wear were too small. They decided that we could go to specialty stores and not darken their doorsteps.

Been size 14, been size 6-- And I'm probably the most physically average US woman Some important practical points from life at size 14 1. Nothing was available fit me and so nothing looked good on me. Added weight did not make me grow taller-- just more spherical. 2. (As other commentators have noted) the quality of plus-size clothing was horrendous-- cheap fabrics and synthetic fabrics, with bad stitching. 3. I want to look pretty and presentable. The plus-size clothing I see promulgated as new and wonderful is tight and ostentatious. Usually, after age 22 one no longer seeks "flirty" clothing in "bold" colors or designs. Yet still one must go forward clothed. Disingenuously sexy might be nice. 4. When I was skinny (in an earlier era and incarnation) I would see plump women whose bodies I envied because the clothes they wore "worked" with their body-type. A right-minded designer can imagine clothing created specifically to highlight a rounder figure. Why not have a new generation of designers who know how to clothe full-bodied woman?

To say finding well-designed Plus-sized clothing is a challenge is an understatement of plus-size proportions. Once upon a time, there was a wonderful shop called The Forgotten Woman. It provided larger women with beautiful clothing including high-end evening wear. It had clients like Julia Child whose height (6’2”) made finding clothing that fit very difficult. I shopped at The Forgotten Woman in San Francisco and was both surprised and dismayed when it closed in the late 1990’s. The manager shared with me the same frustration as mentioned in your article. Designers did not want to create for the so-called Plus-Size market. It was not appealing either personally or how they wanted their brand to be perceived. Good luck to these new entrepreneurs.

Lands' End is my go-to for clothing. Lane Bryant for undies and bras. Ava Viv at Target for anything else. And, yes, it makes me FURIOUS to get a catalog that doesn't have my size. Grrrr...

The article omits two online companies, predating Dia, focused on plus size women, one for fashion, one more oriented to exercise clothes, which Rochelle Rice (author of “Real Fitness for Real Women”) mentioned to me: Making it Big https://www.ontheplusside.com Juno http://www.junonia.com Both companies use plus-size models , and that includes women who are 4X

This is so wrong. It makes being heavy (!) fashionable. It's still unhealthy, and is to be decried, not accommodated, and certainly not encouraged. We don't sit back and declare drug overdosing as acceptable because it is so common. We shouldn't accept food overdosing as "normal" just because so many have so little self control. The first kills. The second leads to additional health problems that then increase medical costs and, from that, more expensive health insurance premiums for all, including those who not indulge in overeating. How about a tax on "plus sizes", to be used exclusively to subsidize the buyers' medical premiums, with a concomitant reduction in the premiums the rest of us pay.

Great article! I had the opportunity to hear Nadia speak at The Curvy Con in September. She is truly passionate about offering stylish options to plus size women to help them look and feel their best. The fashion industry is finally catching up and offering stylish well made clothing for the plus size consumer. Now if only Eloquii would do a pop up shop in NYC.

The lack of clothing options for plus size women is truly astonishing. There are lots of women who would eagerly spend lots of money, but there's nothing to buy. I hope this article is correct that things are changing, but I've read similar articles in the past and nothing improved. Actually, things have gotten worse, given the closing of many retail stores at the malls.

Although I agree with the article that women who wear anything bigger than a size 14 are being ignored by the fashion industry, I think that there is a bigger problem here. Sizing does not take into account the differences that we have in body type and proportions. Even if you wear a size 8 or 10 you can still have a long torso or short torso, large or small bust, etc. I think that manufacturers need to rethink how they size clothing. There must be a way to achieve individualize fit, because mass fitting DOES NOT work!

I tried Dia and Co as I was so excited about the idea and ability to get hand picked fashion that was tailored to my preferences and would actually fit. The clothes that came were such poor quality and I was so disappointed. I cancelled my trial membership immediately. Sizing is great but without the right products to support the business plan it ultimately won't work.

After reading this article I checked out all of the websites for the businesses listed. What a disappointment. The article lead one to believe that the makers of the clothes actually had a plus-sized body in mind when they designed the clothes, but no what we have are more tapered pants, with low waistlines, not a good look for plus sized woman. And then the fabrics- did anyone tell them that big flowers and horizontal stripes only make one look bigger? Guess not. And then there are the baby-doll dresses- one site even has a billowy bright yellow skirt with a large-scale pencil pattern at the bottom- to accentuate the fullness of the models figure I suppose. Come on, this must be a joke. There is nothing on any of these sites that speaks to thinking about what actually looks good on a larger body. It takes a little more thought than what any of these companies are offering. Plus sized woman do not want to look like billboards, or baby dolls, or teenagers. Ridiculous article.

I can’t wait for the day we redifine the shape and size of the majority of women over size 12 is typical, not plus. The use of plus sizing is relatively new and the drop in access to quality clothing dropped when was coined. The fashion industry, still dominated by males, need to stop its infatuation with adolescent bodies and accept the full span of sizes and shapes of the average woman is the norm. Women of every size deserve to be treated as well as those who fall in the Barbie range of 0-barely 10. I see the plus label as a negative adjective coined by a biased industry enjoying the abuse of exclusion they have applied to the majority of women.

One of the rarely-addressed issues with the plus-sized clothing that is available, including many of those in the article, is that they are made of synthetic materials. Very little cotton or wool. A big omission in the article is the J.Jill line of clothing which includes clothes in natural fabrics and comes in all sizes (although their plus-sizes are online only, not in their stores).

At last!

All a woman needs is a Talbots catalog, visit on-line or to a store. Misses and misses petites starting at size 0, and virtually every style in "regular size" also available in women's plus and plus petite. Best selection in the world and decent prices. Outfits all put together so no thinking and great sales. My go to place since no longer comfortably fitting into the very high-end designer labels.

If the average American woman wears sizes 16 to 18, the clothing manufacturers, who want to stop at size 12, are leaving an awful lot of money on the table. Which seems kind of dumb to me from a marketing perspective.

I am a Size 0-2 and have difficulty finding clothes that fit well. Generally, I do best with companies from Asia but having the average American woman be a Size 16-18 is problematic for those of us who are a bit smaller. It doesn't help that I am 5'8" tall with long arms and legs either. Most of the clothing that I find that fits my torso, is too short or has sleeves that are too short. It's difficult to find clothing is one is outside of the "averages". Just because I am slender, that doesn't mean my life is perfect too. Shopping for clothing is more difficult these days for all of us who are not "average".

I find this article really confusing. If the point is "the personal touch that shoppers seek," it's not clear that any of the brands you've listed here really deliver on that. Also, there were some fairly glaring omissions from your list. I'm currently wearing a dress and jacket from MM LaFleur, an online retailer who has gone out of their way to expand their size range without using terms like "plus size" and that has a personal shopper service that is tremendously helpful. The brand Universal Standard has also done a huge amount to bring personalized and out-of-the-box fashion to larger-sized women. I get it, plus-sized fashion is still a "wow! gee whiz!" concept to the Times. But even a cursory read of some of the many plus-size fashion blogs out there would have given you a dozen companies more committed to and interested in the needs of larger women than some of the brands you've mentioned.

This is so needed. When I was a size 14, I couldn't find even blouses that were fit to wear. Nothing with any style to it. I can't believe it has taken this long for the industry to just begin to catch up to this need.