After a hectic month of August, (I helped my mom move to DC, a week later I moved to Detroit and have unpacked and organized to the max) I am finally having a mini vacation before school goes into overdrive spending the weekend with my mom in a city that she now calls home, Washington, DC. We did everything this weekend, a duck tour, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, National Textile Museum, and lastly Georgetown Shopping! What I was sad to find was the lack of size diversity in all of the clothing options that were present in the shopping area, to say lack would say there actually was any but there was nothing of the sort!

What I have always found to be the most annoying was the lack of clothing options at athletic stores where one would think that they would want fatties to be active, instead they only offer clothing up to size 12 maybe 14 but the options are minimal at best. I found this to be true of LuluLemon Althletica, which had a beautiful store design, and so many clothing options that I would wear in a heartbeat but had to skip because they didn’t come in my size. After a small chat with one of their employees about the clothing options where I was told that there pants do stretch and might fit my size 18 body I explained that I prefer to wear clothing how it was meant to be worn for women at all sizes not stretch something out because it is all about the principle of it.

All of this would have ended if I didn’t look at there website and notice how they had a blog post about loving your body. While I believe that all women no matter their size should love their body, it seems to be very small minded that a clothing retailer who only offers the smallest straight sizes would have this as on their website. This turned into my normal letter writing, as I cannot help it when I feel like it’s needed. The blog post in question I will link to at the bottom and please pay special attention to the highly idealized females in the photos they chose to put with the post.

Today I had my first experience with your stores while shopping in Georgetown Washington, DC. What enrages me is that your stores don’t offer all body types a chance to have well made athletic clothing that they can live an active lifestyle in. With major health concerns as of late with our nations ever growing fear of the so called ‘obesity epidemic’ wouldn’t giving access to your store be the first step in having a healthier nation? How do people expect others to gain healthy and active lifestyles without the clothing to do it in?

The other issue with your lack of size diversity is why you would only offer up to a size 12 when that is smaller than the average female who lives in the US. The majority of women are size 14, and larger sizes that than are so under represented with clothing manufacturers that they will more than likely flock to any store that offers them well made clothing no matter what the price.

On your main page you have a post about loving your body, which reads, “The human body is beautiful. It curves; it moves; it’s soft; it’s strong. It should be celebrated in all its forms.”
Certainly with your lack of size diversity you mean all of its forms up to a size 12, am I correct?

To view the blog post, click here.