Fashion industry as sizeist as ever

[HereticFA]

Interesting article on the mainstream fashion industry and their ongoing rejection of "plus" sizes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/p...er-vogue-isnt/

[Leem]

Thanks for posting this article. I think however they do reflect the sizest view in society, and I suspect high society is even more sizest and that is who the fashion houses service the most. The most interesting thing to me is that they do this even though they are losing money. I guess for them "the look" is everything even if they go out of business.

It is interesting that they can't see the beauty in other forms, but true artist can see beauty in many different types of forms, so really they are just mirrors for society, not the trendsetters that they like to think they are.

I might have to make my next bag a coach.

[Orchid]

It is just wishfull thinking but I wish it was like back in the days of the seventies when there were still seamstresses available who made dresses and skirts to fit curves.
What little big fashion is sold does not fit well around curves it is cut too boxy,square, odd.

[HereticFA]

Originally Posted by Orchid

It is just wishfull thinking but I wish it was like back in the days of the seventies when there were still seamstresses available who made dresses and skirts to fit curves.
What little big fashion is sold does not fit well around curves it is cut too boxy,square, odd.

Unfortunately it just reflects the extreme commoditization of clothes. New clothes are sold so cheaply vs the cost to make them in 1st world countries that most people aren't willing to pay the real local cost of properly fitted garments.

I'm not familiar with the situation in European countries with larger size clothes. In the US the clothing proportions are based on the mythical "average" BBW and tends to be more apple body style. But some of the smaller retailers will have clothes proportioned more to certain body styles like pear shape. Myles Ahead is one boutique retailer that comes to mind, but I'm not sure if she's even still in business.

[Leem]

You can still find people to make clothes but it can get expensive, or you learn to make your own which I have been contemplating. My mom loves to sew and while she has never done it professionally ever article that she has made for me fits much better and than anything store bought.

[agouderia]

Originally Posted by HereticFA

I'm not familiar with the situation in European countries with larger size clothes.

In Europe most plus-size lines go only to sizes US 24 or US 26 - very few go up to US 30. Above that you can only find very little, a few stretch basics and such.

Main issue though is that EU plus-sizes mainly design for very tall bigger women.

EU fashion by standard tailors to 1.70-1.72 m = 5'7"-5'8", so significantly taller than the US female fashion market where the standard is 5'4"-5'.5" (1.63-1.66 m).
This is true specially for the large markets Germany, NL, Poland, partially UK. And on the side of the largest retailers naturally H+M being Swedish - but also increasingly Spanish Inditex (ZARA, etc.).

But it more extreme on the EU plus-size market, where even southern European designer specialists like Elena Miro or Marina Rinaldi (Italy) or Greek MAT. seem to be tailoring for > 5'8".
I'm 5'7" - and I often literally drown in material in some of the clothing even in what is my size.

[Dr. Feelgood]

Originally Posted by Orchid

It is just wishfull thinking but I wish it was like back in the days of the seventies when there were still seamstresses available who made dresses and skirts to fit curves.

My wife once went into business for herself doing just that. After struggling for a couple of years, she had to throw in the towel and get an office job: there simply weren't enough customers to keep her business going. Her choices were either to price herself out of the market or go broke.

[Tad]

I’m currently wearing a shirt I bought through this company, who swing through North American cities a couple of time a year taking orders and measurements but then sewing everything in Hong Kong. I think all in it cost me about $50 for a shirt that actually fits me properly and is made with a very nice 100% cotton. And I have a suit form them too, I’m not positive on the cost, but I think that suit plus three shirts came to about $700 plus tax, maybe less. Can I buy stuff cheaper than that? Yes. But any bigger name would actually be more expensive, so paying in the middle for something made with good fabric and sewing and which fits me properly is pretty reasonable, IMO. But that is for items that I’ll probably wear for a decade (barring substantial weight changes).

They do some women’s suits, too – but any of the times that I’ve been at one of their local visits I’ve never seen a woman there getting fitted (although there are plenty of women there with husbands, boyfriends, young adult sons, etc). I think between rate of fashion changes and expectations for wardrobe variety, women just are not mostly willing to put similar amounts of money into one or a few articles of clothing, nor as interested in things in the heavier cotton and wool weaves that are going to last for many years – and not so many wear that sort of style these days outside of a few professions, I think.

Could you extend that sort of model to dresses? Maybe -- I don’t know what the labour on a dress is, compared to a shirt or a suit, but the amount of fabric would be closer to a suit and I I’d guess the sewing effort to be somewhere in the middle? Maybe in that model you could do dresses for a couple of hundred dollars, and after fitting and choosing fabric you’d be waiting a couple of months for it to arrive. I can’t imagine that would have a huge take-up, either.

[agouderia]

Originally Posted by Tad

Could you extend that sort of model to dresses? Maybe -- I don’t know what the labour on a dress is, compared to a shirt or a suit, but the amount of fabric would be closer to a suit and I I’d guess the sewing effort to be somewhere in the middle?

With dresses it totally depends. They can be very intricate, fitted and extremely complicated to sew. Or they can be the easiest things ever to come under the needle of a sewing machine.

If as a plus-size woman you really have problems finding things that fit your shape, learning to sew your own dresses is a worthwhile endeavor.
It will give you great, unique, flattering results - and you're instantly literally perfectly dressed with good shoes and a few accessories.

Because there are some really easy, but flattering patterns, where you can add structure with a few tricks in fabrics and cut. Without having to get it outright fitted or become incredibly advanced in sewing techniques.

As I haven't shopped around much in the US for fabric (my university hometown has a fabulous fabric & sewing accessories store, so it's the go to place. But that's what probably comes from having an art department & an opera with own costume department on site ...) - so can't tell how much of a challenge finding the material might pose.

(I can give anybody who needs it an extensive run-through of fabric shopping in the EU though .... in nutshell: go to the Netherlands and their wonderful itinerant fabric markets!)

[socrates74]

Originally Posted by Leem

.....The most interesting thing to me is that they do this even though they are losing money. I guess for them "the look" is everything even if they go out of business. ...

After dissecting the article, the rest of this well commented thread, my economics-nerdism:,clothes store and warehousd experience, street-smarts; this is false.
"What if you want to drop some serious cash, and buy better made, better cut clothes created to last.Your options are still frustratingly slim. Ridiculously, while the luxury fashion market falters, it still steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that by servicing all women who might like to wear their clothes they could perhaps up their declining sales.". says the linked article.
Key words to a businesswoman : might, could, perhaps. This is expensive clothes, luxury clothes. Fashion is fickle. It changes on a whim. It is an industry. Business doesn't like " might, could, and perhaps". It spends its efforts on sure things, and the bottom line. Such things as "unsold inventory" are real things. Call it risk adversion-ism.

End of part 1

[socrates74]

Plus size women like all women network. They know which stores have the inventory that they desire.They talk at work, school, church, childcare, each-others-house,:wherever they meet and especially the telephone or social media. Women are not going around naked. They just want more clothes for less money and right now. User: freethinker's wife even started a business for plus-sized women but they didn't buy. IMO, she is more entrepreneurial than most. Economics says if she was successfully, people would be copying her. For every risk taker, there are twenty people watching with-no-skin-in-the-game. Investors want a return on an investment. They are not going to let any '-ism' stop their profit. This author is just telling a story. She has a conclusion: Lip-service did not have her size that was in the window. But she lists the 13 other brands that have over size 16 versions of their petite versions.