Back on March 11th, on my drive either to or from school (it has all blurred together), NPR’s Marketplace report ran a story about how ‘plus-size’ retail has become a growing trend and how professional clothing is still hard to find. With Vogue Curvy and other magazines showing ‘plus-size’ models on their pages and even noting that they are hiring ‘plus-size’ columnists. The latter I am assuming are probably a few fat bloggers I read.
But this story left me annoyed and slightly bitter about the reasoning that one of commentators gave for why retailers leave fat people in the dark. They gave their normal answers like designers not wanting to see their clothes on fat people or larger sizes don’t look good on the rack. This was their main answer,
Which means shoppers who wear much bigger sizes are still a small group. And that group is divided into even smaller groups, because different women want different clothes. Some, like Deb Holland want professional clothes. But others want sun dresses, or maybe jeans. Riley says, for big retailers, selling to those narrow markets doesn’t make economic sense.
There might have been a small amount of rage building up when I read this person’s reasoning for why they don’t have clothing for different sizes. While I don’t have the statistics for how many women fall below the size 14 dress size that makes up the ‘straight’ size category I would ask why are thin women allowed to want different kinds of clothing and fat women are not?
I’m pretty sure all of the thin people I have met want different kinds of clothing. I know for a fact that not all thin women want professional clothing or sun dresses. But the fact that they made it seem like asking for jeans is this crazy notion really pissed me off.
Listen/read for yourself here, the story starts at 12 minutes.
Fat Body Politics 
I was in Christopher & Banks this weekend with my mom, as she was looking for a couple of shirts. They had SO many different styles for the 18 and under sizes but for their Plus section, they had two racks and a small sale section with next to no cute clothes at all (when 16s weren't working for her, she had me look for X and there was NOTHING).I'm a 28-32 and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it is that plus-size manufacturers can't produce a bunch of cute clothes IN MY SIZE. I mean, seriously – is it that hard? Really?!It's depressing every time I shop with my mom or sister because they have so many more options.
I'm around the fifth centile for weight for my age group and I'm pretty sure I have more affordable clothing options than someone at the 95th. If manufacturers are happy to make clothes that are too small for 95% of their target market just to get the custom of that 5%, the argument that there's not enough demand for plus sizes to justify making them looks pretty weak.
Announcement to the clothing industry: the first one of you that makes and markets a good variety of cute, quality clothes in plus sizes will make LOT'S O' MONEY!!!!!!Go to it!
Well, I went to Torrid the other day and they've started selling jeans that fit rather well, stretch jeans that actually stretch and don't have that pleated waist. So I guess Torrid is sticking it to these morons, who think fat people should stick to mumus.The reality is more people are plus sized, because that is the size many people are genetically programmed to be healthy at. I mean, I dislike Martania for the reason they force feed thin girls to make them fat which is what's considered cool over there, so it's wrong both ways. Everyone of every size should be able to buy clothing, saying people only of a certain size should be able to is setting an unhealthy standard. It's ridiculous that, let's see, there are only 3 stores I can buy clothing at that will fit me, Layne Bryant, Fashion Bug, and Torrid. I really wonder what thin people would think, if they were faced with the reality that only a few select shops would offer them clothing. It's like Eye of the Beholder from Twilight Zone, except about clothing! LoL