So, there's this article in the Washington Post about how there are more plus size shoppers than ever but some retailers are either cutting their plus size lines or are only selling them online. It offers this statistic:
Plus-size apparel sales last year rose 13.2 percent, and teen plus-size rose 14.2 percent, compared with 5.6 percent for all women's clothes, according to one survey. Yet many young, plus-size women say they are belittled in stores, relegated to buying online -- or ignored, period.
As for H&M cutting their plus size line in the US, I say "Good riddance!" It was total crap anyway, believe me. H&M isn't the highest quality apparel. I'd really put it somewhere between KMart and Target. That might've just been the experience I had with the plus size clothing but to me, everything there is disposable. You wear it for one season and then donate it to Goodwill.
I can't bring myself to hate Karl Lagerfeld because he is who he is and he's a little pathetic. I would drop dead if I ever heard a super high-end designer say "Fat women, they are zee beautiful!" It's not going to happen so we can all just stop holding our collective breath.
I am still pining away over Isaac Mizrahi, though. I really think Target could make a LOAD of money if they stepped up their plus size section. I alone could make it worth their while. I love Target's *image* and can't walk into that store without spending at least $35 on brightly hued pieces of crap. It's just very confusing to me that they DON'T have a better 14+ selection.
There are very few "regular" stores that have wandered into plus sizes successfully. The only non-plus size store I shop from on a regular basis is Old Navy. They at least realized that they can't just make their misses clothing in slightly bigger sizes and slap a plus size lable on it. The clothes are actually cut for a curvier body. The selection isn't as huge as I'd like but it's better than the nothing that most retailers offer.
Does there need to be a collective decision? Do we shop from "regular" stores that just happen to offer plus sizes or do we remain loyal to plus size only retailers? This is a little too black and white for me. I support Old Navy because they've done very well with their plus size line and they seem to "get it." If other retailers see that Old Navy's plus size line is doing well (items sell out within days or even hours on the website) maybe they'll jump on the bandwagon, too.
But these things never work the way you expect. Torrid is doing extremely well but there hasn't been huge growth in their market. Lane Bryant remains the leading plus size retailer in the US but there are very few companies that try to emulate it. I can't say that I really understand what's going on. Is being fat so horrible that companies don't even want to sell clothing to fat people because it will make skinny people not want to buy their clothes? Could that really be the case or are popular retailers just paranoid? I don't get it.
The article is being discussed at Big Fat Blog and Chubby Girl Brigade. It also brings to mind this post and ensuing conversation at CGB, in which I try to explain why Lane Bryant employees are sometimes not so terribly friendly to slimmer customers and ended up sounding like a total jerk. My bad.