Plus Sizes Becoming More Mainstream

[fortyfeetunder]

http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2006/04/23/375284.html


"...As waistlines expand across America, fashionable plus-size clothes are proliferating and moving into the mainstream. In some cases, plus sizes are leaving the outer fringes of the store floor to hang next to "regular-sized" clothes as the average American gets bigger. Where they remain separated, plus sizes are being displayed in specialized boutiques like petites. "Plus-size women are very, very loyal to brands. They have a lot of spending power," said Barry Zelman, general manager of specialty retail at Liz Claiborne.

...Retailers are expanding into larger sizes because demand has grown: Two-thirds of American adults are either overweight or obese today compared with 46 percent a quarter century ago, according to the American Obesity Association in Washington, D.C. But it took decades for many retailers to see the light.

...Maxine Monroe, the 37-year-old publisher of an upcoming booklet called "Curvaceous Fashion Guide for the Plus Size Woman," said retailers have taken this market for granted for a long time. At least in the past, larger-size sections tended to be tucked away in less-visited parts of stores. "It's horrible, just horrible," said the size-24 Philadelphia resident. It's as if retailers were telling her, "'I'll sell it to you, but I don't want to see you at my store,'" she said.

...Size snobbism, however, is shrinking as retailers realize that outfitting the Rubenesque shopper is a growth niche in the mature women's apparel market, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at The NPD Group, a consumer research firm in Port Washington, N.Y."

[KitchenWitch]

1. I am glad to see this, even though I am no longer part of that demographic

I used to wear size 20, now I am in a 14.

I used to hate shopping, because many of the stores carried clothing that was either cheap looking (not well made) or would make me look like Mimi from the Drew Carey show. I tend to like more tailored looking clothes.

[flamingyouth]

2. I'm in a similar boat

Used to be an 18-20, now a 14 too.

I'm also glad to see nicer, tailored looking clothing in larger sizes and not just muu-muu type dresses. Lane Bryant started this a few years back when the Limited bought them. I could buy work clothes there. The Encore department at Nordstrom has some lovely (and pricey, unfortunately) clothes, and now I see a lot more options out there, which is great.

It also "trickles down" to consignment shops too, for those on a budget - I see more and more nice plus-sized stuff when I go hunting around those places as well. :)

[KitchenWitch]

3. Oh yeah!

I am very tall as well as being a "formerly large" woman. I never get to pay clearance price for anything...Although I have been lucky a few times at the Eddie Bauer outlet, in finding stuff on closeout in my size.

Shoes are another matter. I wear a women's 12 or 12-1/2 (Men's 11). Thankfully, right now some of the men's casual styles are similar to some women's casual shoes, so I can get them at a discount (and men's shoes are made FAR better than women's) but if I need a girly shoe, I am paying full price (I refuse to shop at Payless, because I am picky about how well my shoes are finished).

[politicat]

4. Sigh... Size inflation strikes again.

I have access to a LOT of my elderly female relatives' clothing (and they never threw away anything). Technically, because I have a huge ribcage (I ran, swam and played a wind instrument at about 7000 feet altitude for quite a number of years and now I'll live longer in space without a spacesuit than most people) and hips made for birthin' babies, I'm in the upper end of the size range. I'm proportional, I have a very nice .7 waist to hip ratio, I'm healthy and my doctor is happy with me (for the most part) but there is no way I'm going to ever have the figure that women who experienced severe malnutrition as children had. My great-grandmother was 4'9" and weighed 87 pounds when she got married, and had lived most of her childhood and adolescence in a rather notorious orphanage. Of course she was tiny! She never got anything to eat! Her daughter, who was born in 34 on a farm and never went hungry, is 5' 7" and was 150 pounds at marriage. She and my grandfather had some serious hard times when my mother was a child, and my mother did go hungry on a not infrequent basis as a child. She is very short and puts on weight easily.

But the size and weight charts were developed in the 40s and 50s, and significant numbers of people had been suffered some level of malnutrition in the preceding 25 years, either during the Depression or due to rationing during WWII. We haven't had such a nutritional disaster since then. We really can't know what is entirely normal. And clothing sizes are based on size-weight charts. Twenty-five years ago, at least half of the population had been alive during the Depression, and even if only one in 10 ended up with malnutrition, that is enough to bring the averages down.

And of course, there's the difference in what we did then versus what we do now. Just hanging out the wash is a decent amount of exercise that hardly anyone gets anymore. We have robots and help to sweep floors, we don't really cook, and we don't scrub bathrooms the same way.

[JI7]

5. does anyone know why plus size clothing doesn't go on sale as often

as other clothes ?

btw, anyone checked out a store called Torrid ? they have a lot of trendy type stuff in plus sizes.

[politicat]

7. I'm not so happy with Torrid's quality, sadly.

Their stuff is cute, but I've had seams and hems fall out too often to be happy with them. (I'm a 12-14-16, depending on cut, so things are kind of random what fits and what doesn't.)

[hippiechick]

6. Sad that they only pay attention to us when they realize we have MONEY.

:spank:

[justgamma]

8. I need to rant here.

I've been looking for just ordinary black dress pants. I'd even take casual pants. Just black freakin' pants. For 3 weeks! 3 Shopping trips! About 15 different stores! But Nooooo.
They have racks after racks of the "skinny" stuff. If, so many Americans are overweight, why are there 2 racks for us and 50 for everybady else?? The few things they do have are rediculus looking.
Why do we have to go to specialty stores? I finally had to send for them off the net. Something is wrong with this picture.

[Karenca]

9. "...As waistlines expand across America,"

Of course, fashionable larger sizes should be made more available, but
this article makes me wonder why " waistlines are expanding across America".
This does not seem to be a healthy sign.