Fashion : A Big Shift : Retailers Finally Recognize That Larger-Size Women Also Have Stylish Concerns
Ask America’s First Lady, Barbara Bush. Ask TV’s first lady, Roseanne Barr. They’re just two of the 33 million women in the United States who wear clothes larger than a Size 14--women who know the frustration of trying to find fashionable clothes that fit. These consumers have the dollars and desire to buy clothes. They just haven’t had much choice.
But stores are finally getting the idea. Based on the popularity of its large-size catalogue, For You, Spiegel opened a For You specialty shop in suburban Chicago 18 months ago, and last year combined retail/mail-order sales were $75 million.
After success with an avant-garde large-size department in its Costa Mesa store, Bullock’s opened Bullock’s Woman, a stand-alone store in the Woodland Hills Promenade, featuring better-priced merchandise and prestigious labels.
Carson Pirie Scott in Chicago did the same. I. Magnin has created upscale large-size departments and followed up with mail-order catalogues devoted to larger sizes. At Nordstrom stores in Southern California, large sizes are not confined to a special department. Instead, wherever they’re available, they hang with the regular merchandise or can be ordered.
All of this means that large-size women now have many of the same fashion choices available to them as do their “standard” size sisters. Pinafore jumpers; summery, full skirts with fitted jackets; Chanel-inspired looks, even shorts with gathered, “paper bag” waistlines once considered appropriate for only the trimmest figures, are available.
If she wants to wear bright colors such as marigold, purple or orange, they’re available to her now. And there are large-size clothes in floral-print patterns, many of them the same patterns used for Sizes 4 to 14 collections.
Retailers now treat large-size customers like style-conscious consumers, instead of fat people in need of camouflage and extra yardage. The New York-based Forgotten Woman, the 20-store large- size boutique with a branch in Beverly Hills, was the first to recognize the need 10 years ago and began to special-order high- quality, better-priced goods. But it took almost a decade for department and specialty stores to follow the lead.
After giving only lip service and unappealing clothes to large women, retailers have recognized that fashion can no longer be limited to Sizes 2 to 14, the sizes most often offered by manufacturers. Because the average American woman, at 5 feet, 3 inches and 138 pounds, wears a Size 12, store merchandisers have realized that there are big dollars to be made in double-digit sizes.
As a result, more retailers are demanding big clothes from firms known for their contemporary style.
This month, New York designer Adrienne Vittadini ships her first collection for ample silhouettes. In September, Liz Claiborne launches Elizabeth, dresses styled to fit big women. Designers such as Givenchy, Kay Unger for St. Gillian, Adrien Papell, Nancy Heller, Gene Ewing for Bis, and Eletra Casadei have all found ways to dress the woman sized 14 to 24.
The bottom line itself is convincing. Wardrobing large-size customers in the United States is an $8-billion business, says Christina Gruber, editor of Plus Sizes magazine, a retailers’ trade journal. “That includes everything from sportswear and evening clothes to underwear and panty hose,” she explains. Today, even jewelry manufacturers have scaled their designs to fit the fuller figure.
“Until very recently the perception was that all large-size customers were the same--that they all want the same look,” explains Jeannie Slusher, who devoted her master’s thesis at San Francisco State University to the problems and opportunities of dressing big women. While the stereotype has always been that the large customer is older, doesn’t spend money on clothes and doesn’t want to be noticed, “my research shows that the average customer is 25 to 34 years old, she feels sexy, accepts her body the way it is and has as much money to spend on clothes as other women her age,” says Slusher, who studied a group of 140 Northern California women who shop in stores that specialize in large sizes.
In response, firms such as Melrose, Cherokee and Wild Rose have begun producing clothes that are very similar to the styles they produce for the Size 4 to 14 customer. Both Speer and Cherokee president Jay Kester report that growth in large-size sales is far ahead of their regular divisions. “Cherokee women’s division is 40% ahead of any other and is outselling the petite division by 60%,” Kester says.
He adds that one of the best-selling items in the summer collection is a pair of all-cotton shorts. “Large women aren’t afraid to wear shorts and short sleeves anymore. They are starving for fashion. That’s why the business is on fire.”
Role models such as Mrs. Bush, Barr and Oprah Winfrey, before her 67-pound weight loss, have helped well-endowed women make some demands on retailers.
“Seeing other large-size women as successes has given large women a new attitude,” says Hara Marano, an editor and publisher who specializes in large-size fashion. “Roseanne is a character, for instance, for whom fashion isnot a priority, but she’s likable, she’s a mom, she works, she’s sexy. She handles things. She shows us that a large woman can be happy.”
Marano encourages women who aren’t finding clothes in their sizes to complain to store managers.
“When something doesn’t fit, she crawls out of the fitting room feeling depressed. But it’s not her fault. There should be clothes sized to fit the majority of American women,” Marano says.
Slusher is encouraged by the increase in attention to large-size women by manufacturers and retailers. And, she says, it can only get better. “By the year 2000, one in eight people will be over 60. If we accept that aging also means getting heavier, a lot of women who now are Size 12 or 14 will jump into larger sizes.”
And that means the major growth of the large-size industry as a fashion business is only in its formative stages. When designers known for their close-to-the-body fit, such as Yves Saint Laurent, Donna Karan and Azzedine Alaia, get the big idea, the battle of fashion versus the bulge will be over.
