The Plus-Size Business Is Breaking From Its Past. That’s Good.
By most estimates, more than 2/3 of American women are plus-size consumers. So you’d think there would be a large number of great fashion choices for large women to choose from. But if you ask them, they will tell you that while it’s gotten better in the last few years, the choices are few and often not very good. To put it simply, there are two reasons why the choices are so poor: culture and fit.
For many years until recently, the assumption about large women is that they had something to hide. Fashion products for plus-size women weren’t meant to make them look great, they were meant to make them look like they weren’t there. The lack of great fashion for large women was a vicious cycle; fashion companies said, “large women don’t want their bodies to be seen, what we’re offering is good enough.” It didn’t help that most fashion companies were run by men.
Now the culture has changed. More positive attitudes to diversity and body inclusivity is translating into more choices for large-size women. The problem now is that what’s on offer usually doesn’t fit very well.
Here’s why: When most garments are designed, they’re created for one size. Then the designs are scaled up and down for larger and smaller sizes. The problem is that scaling that way only goes so far. If you design for a slim woman and extend the design for a very broad range of sizes, by the time you get to plus sizes, the fit is awful. Nadia Boujarwah, Co-Founder of plus-size company Dia & Co., told me that historically it’s common for plus-size garments to have “sleeves that are too long, arm openings that gape,” and many other fit problems because the human body doesn’t scale the way designs do. pg168
A bra company called SHEFIT, which makes sports bras in about as wide a variety of sizes as any brand could, has a different solution. They never extend their designs beyond three sizes at a time. When they get to the fourth size, they get a new model and create a new design and that ensures that the fit is always in proportion to the body. The company sells only direct-to-consumer and revenue approximately doubles every year; returns are a small fraction of industry averages. That kind of performance can only happen when the fit works for the consumer almost all the time so it’s clear that their strategy works.
