Why don't clothing designers appeal more to plus sizes?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Geography seems to play a role in plus-size availability. I’m a large grizzly bear type guy with Cajun duck feet. Finding shoes of any kind that fit me required an all-day shopping expedition when I lived in El Paso. Two years in a row I took a trip to Grand Junction Colorado. Each time, I walked into the first shoe shop I came across, and each time I left with a pair of sneakers that fit me perfectly. It would appear that shoe shops in El Paso cater only to customers with smaller feet.

I have since moved to the fair city of Austin, where I am no longer forced to shop for shoes (or other clothes, for that matter) by catalog.

42

Console yourself: womens’ random sizing appears to have infected mens’ clothing.

Since I lost ~40-lbs. at 30, my pants size hasn’t changed – I can still wear the same 10-year old pants comfortably.

But when I got to get new jeans, I’m anything from a 32" to 34" waist… and they don’t always fit comfortably. My actual waist is 32", but with straight-cut, loose-fit, lowrider, highwater, just-falling-down, or whatever styles, what I need is all over the place.

Gods! Men weren’t intended to try on pants! We’re supposed to go in, spend 10 seconds, pick out something, and ring out! It’s our only revenge against girlfriends making us go shopping with them, and it was sweet! while it lasted.

Last time I noticed the jeans legs were a bit too short… they’re probably screwing with inseam sizes now. In a year I’ll go in and find out I’m a “size 3” at the Gap, but a “size 1” at Nordstroms.

At least you women will have someone keeping you company now, from over in the men’s changing rooms.

43

I wear a 16 (and, strangely enough, am also a D cup) and desperately avoid “plus size” stores because their fit doesn’t work too well for me. I’ve tried on pants and felt like I was wearing a tent, and I’ve tried on tops that provided more problems than the “equivalent size” in “regular” stores. I’m fat all over with the exception of my tummy, so it’s often just easier to go to stores that don’t consider a 16 to be a “plus” size. Still can’t fit into an Ann Taylor 16, though; it fits like a 13/14 at most of the stores I shop at. Shoes can be an even more fun expedition, as I’m a size 10 womens in shoes, with the occasional need for wider widths; my current largest frustration is that I can’t stand toe cleavage and that seems to be what’s popular in ballet flats right now.

I’m only two or three sizes bigger than my ideal range, and my proportions are mostly in line with the pants that places like The Gap sells. Of course, I can’t afford to spend a lot of money on clothes, so I tend to go to Target/Old Navy for all my clothing needs. I do, however, try to make my clothes more flattering, but it’s tough when, even at the nicer shops, the clothes just don’t take into account that some of us fat girls are made in taller proportions. This mostly means that I tend to stick to nicer tees and cardigans rather than get embellished stuff or tops with “bustline details” in order to look professional and well-dressed. It doesn’t always work out, but I try.

44

Have you tried Frederick’s of Hollywood? They have a wide range of bra sizes and their stuff is built to last. I bought there when I was still plus-sized and remain a loyal customer. I just tossed two bras that were two years old - one was just plain worn out from carrying the girls for a few years and the other one popped an underwire 'cause I pushed it above and beyond the call of duty (two years of regular use plus I wore it on my last roadtrip, which was pretty much the end of the road for the poor thing). And a nice variety from the salacious to the (mostly) practical.

45

Huh. From the window, you can only see the salacious. I guess that’s probably their intent. :stuck_out_tongue:

46

There is a classic tale by the founder of the Ford Modeling Agency. She was a model chosen for some major store like Saks. They told her to put on a couple of the dresses and when they were too large they clothes-pinned them behind her back to make them fit.
When she saw the ad, it was for plus sizes, although she was a regular skinny model.
But they outsold all the other plus size dresses, and she was the new darling of the industry, and got an instant sponsor to fund her opening a new agency.

47

Sorry - maybe I shoulda marked it with “NSFW”, but I thought with lingerie that went without saying. :smiley: :stuck_out_tongue:

48

Actually, I meant the window of their real-world stores. Any time I walk by one, I always go geez. :eek: :slight_smile:

49

Oh! Yeah I see what you mean. They look like your one-stop-Slutsylvania*-shop. But they make other stuff that’s not as in-your-face. Like I just got a few of this style and they’re fantastic. And the Extreme Cleavage collection works as advertised…actually one of the ones I just tossed was of that model.

*Yup, I just wanted to work Slutsylvania into a sentence.

50

OP, that is an excellent question. Since such a high percentage of women are overweight, you’d almost think the women’s clothing industry would make more money assuming overweight as the norm rather than 12 year old boy thin, but this is the women’s clothing industry we’re talking about - they wouldn’t know logic if it bit them in the ass and introduced itself.

51

I’ve noticed this when I got flyers from Laura. I’d flip through the petite and regular, scanning as I went, and when I got to the plus size I’d want to scream. The skirts that looks so cute on the skinny girls just made the bigger woman look even BIGGER.

My complaint isn’t so much that it’s hard to find plus size stuff, it’s that it’s hard to find plus size in tall. It’s like anyone with an inseam greater than 30", or a longer torso, can’t be more than a 14.

I’ll be very sad when tops get short again because I’ve been finding shirts that are long enough the past little while.

And I have noticed problems with the mens sizing myself as someone further up brought up. I sometimes buy mens pants as my only defense to get stuff long enough. Well, last time I tried the grab and go with mens jeans I had to bring them back because size 38 waist was no longer a 38 waist, it was more like 36, maybe smaller.

52

I am interested to hear you say this. I don’t shop there, because in my forays in the past, I’ve never been able to find anything in there that even comes close to covering my breasts. Those little crossover baby doll tops that are just as cute as a button? Well, the bottom of the cups on those ends up somewhere north of my nipples. So I try pulling the shirt down and stuffing the boobs up. Mostly the fabric won’t quite hold up to that anyway, but if I manage it, I have incredibly exposed boobs. Which go up to my chin. Seeing as Dolly Parton is not the look I’m going for, I leave without making a purchase.

Ticks me right off, and it’s why I mostly wear black t-shirts. I’d LIKE some nice cute shirts, sure, but I can’t find them anywhere.

Wow. Apparently I’m much more grumpy about that than even I realized.

53

I ask this same question every single time I go shopping for clothes. Those days usually end with me being pissed, wanting a drink and making my husband wonder if he should drop me at the loony bin.

General non-specific gripes:

+They scale the clothes up in size and make no adjustment in parts of the clothes. Take shirts for example, a size extra large shirt that has the same size sleeve as an medium. Yes, cause us big girls always have stick arms.

+Just because I wear a 16 pant doesn’t mean I am 7 feet tall or have bowling balls attached to my thighs.

+I am a big girl. I have a butt. It has been referred to by some as J-Lo-ish [in the right pair of pants]. Quit making plus size clothes to fit like a 12 year old boys clothes. Make them fit real women for a change.

+I do not want flowers, kittens playing with string, bugs, or wide sailor boy horizontal stripes on my tops. Nor do I want glitter, rhinestones or sequins. I am not ninety nor do I hang out in BINGO clubs.

+I really do not want tops made of clingy or flimsy fabric that accentuates my fattyness. I have enough problems as it is.
My gripes against certain stores:

Target- Please differentiate the plus size clothes from the maternity clothes. Also, why does everything have to be so boxy. I might be fat, but I am not shaped like a square. How about some darting on those tops.

Old Navy- Why can’t you make pants that actually acknowledge that I have curves. The pants fit through the legs, the ass and the hips, but the pants just keep going vertical from the hips. I have to cinch my belt all the way down to keep from getting that “pants pucker”

Lane Bryant- Make some tops that have more sleevage than flutter or cap sleeves for crying out loud. Also, fat girls want slightly longer tops, I don’t want the top’s bottom hem skimming the waist of my pants. I need to wear the 18/20 size tops so they fit through the shoulders, however, I do not have gigantic porn star sized breasts to fill the bust line of the shirt up

Banana Republic, Abercrombie, JCrew etc…- Why is it that your womens clothes come no bigger than a 12 or Og forbid a 14 but the mens pants sometimes go as large as a 44 waist and XXL…WTF???
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BTW: Fredericks of Hollywood bras totally rock. I had given up on Victoria’s Secret bras when those $38 were falling apart after 3 months. FoH bras are generally cheaper, fit better and the sales people are way nicer.

54

Preach it, brother. Before Torrid, it was either Payless (woo, quality and selection!) or tranny shoes from the internet. Now, I like knee high red vinyl six inch platform heels as much as the next girl, but they ain’t exactly business casual, if you know what I mean.

And yet, it seems every time I go shoe shopping, I run into other girls who need a size 11 or 12, or the shop manager remarks that they get requests all the time, but the company just doesn’t make shoes that large. WTF? Am I a mutant for wanting some goddamn dress boots that aren’t Doc Marten’s?

55

They’re not? *Goddamnit!
*
grabs receipt and 6 inch, vinyl platform heels

56

I, for one, love how apparently we plus-size girls shop at the same stores, yet we all have different sizing gripes. I’m a big girl, with a decent though not particularly large rack, a long torso, long arms, narrow hips, and awesome slender though not really long legs. Nothing ever fits right. Every single thing I find is made for a woman with an hourglass figure, skinny arms, a short torso, and huge legs. The new Lane Bryant jeans styling made me very happy, as they were the only jeans I’d ever tried on since my days of wearing men’s jeans that weren’t made on the assumption that I had a relatively narrow waist and a giant, rounded ass.

57

This is why I shop on the internet. I can find plus sized gear for my barely 5 feet tall, chubby self than I can in a store, and I don’t have to worry about going insane at the lack of decent clothes.

58

I remember when I was a younger teenager and all the stuff in my size (14 or 16, depending on the year) was sized for someone with a 28" inseam. Thing is, I normally need either a 32" or a 34" inseam, so everything looked like highwater pants for a while. It’s gotten a lot better, but I still don’t shop in the plus size specialty stores because everything fits like a misshapen circus tent on me.

I still can’t get shirt sleeves that are long enough in most winter clothes, and I’m lucky that anything at all covers further than “grazing the waistline.” I shouldn’t be nervous about exposing my midriff if I bend over or reach with my arms to grab something. I’m not a mutant! :mad:

Telperien, this seems to be something that clothing manufacturers misunderstand in general, but gets exacerbated in the plus size shops. We’re all built differently, so sometimes it’s really a matter of finding the shop that mimics your fit needs best; the thing is, there aren’t a lot of plus size shops and they all seem to be catering to people that none of us are shaped like. I’m just lucky that I’m still within a size range where I can shop at some of the non-plus size shops, because otherwise I’d have worse problems with clothes than I did as a teenager.

59

I am a mutant, though; unless I am very careful about fit, I tend to end up with a sort of “constructed by Igor” look due to my odd proportions. I wore men’s clothes for years because that was all that fit anything like right, and believe me, that doesn’t really do a lot for one’s sense of femininity, especially if one is not particularly womanly-looking to start with.

At long last, I have accepted the fact that internet ordering is the way to go, and have been amassing bookmarks of sites against the day I decide to brave the servers. It’s either that, or let my mother pick out my clothes. :smiley:

60

I swear 90% of the times I see a woman with that kind of thing, the seam that’s supposed to be below the breasts isn’t in the right place. Those look great when they fit good (a Costa Rican coworker had a few tops in that style which would put an instant stop to any conversation including men) - but when they don’t, they can make the loveliest woman look secondhand.

A store in my home town carries sizes from “tiny” to “obese” going through “should be a model”, “big boned”, “hourglass” and “hourglass with short legs” (this last one is quite common in the area). They had to put a HUGE sign on the window, about 1m tall by the whole window’s width, indicating “we carry from X to Y sizes”; they also indicate for each of the items on the window on which sizes it’s available. This was because after being open for several months, they noticed they were only getting thin customers (and not doll-sized either); since the owned had made a point of getting stuff wearable by a wide variety of people, this was very frustrating. They figured getting mannequins on diferent sizes would be too complicated.

Part of the problem may also have been that the store is part of a string of half a dozen where the other five are likely to look at someone with a 14 and say “nothing in your size, dear.” People saw a store with clothes that didn’t scream “matron” in that row of stores and didn’t think it would have anything for a 24.