Fashioning Fat: Inside Plus-Size Modeling (19 page)

An advertisement for firming products in Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty.”

How does the display of joyous, sexy, and voluptuous women, alongside fashion editorials where skinny is beautiful, desirable, and devoid of expression, transform aesthetics and commercial clothing markets? Who is
this
fleshy woman in the advertisements and catalogs? With the fashion industry as a site of production and circulation of an idealized woman, how do plus-size-oriented fashion professionals challenge negative images of the fat body? To combat thin privilege and develop plus-size models, these fashion professionals create a new identity for fat women by manipulating the image of a stigma.

One area of the retail clothing market poised to reinvent the image of a fat woman is plus-size intimate apparel. The revitalization of plus-size intimate apparel began in February 1996, when Lane Bryant launched a line of plus-size intimates called Intimates by Venezia in its stores.
⁴
Positioned to be the “seductive equivalent” of Victoria’s Secret’s offerings, Lane Bryant revamped plus-size lingerie while focused on functionality and fit, as well. The company’s designers produced a line that presented a younger and curvier customer with more options than the traditional offerings of large white underpants, i.e., something her grandmother would wear. Advertised as, “Sexy. Luxurious. Sensual. Pure Magic,” and “Practical? No. Sensible? Who Cares. Have to have it? Absolutely,” the line promised to enhance the natural curves of a Lane Bryant woman.

Then, in 1997, Lane Bryant produced Cacique-branded lingerie and sold it exclusively in its nationwide stores.
⁵
In 2006, Lane Bryant expanded Cacique, the brand, into the first exclusively plus-size lingerie store. With the opening of fifty Cacique boutiques in 2006 and an additional three hundred planned, curvy women found undergarments “with pizzazz, color, and unabashed sensuality.”
⁶
Available online (at
www.lanebryant.com
) and in Cacique boutiques, Cacique offered bras in sizes thirty-six to fifty-six, with cup sizes A through I, and intimates in sizes twelve to thirty-two. Once under the same corporate ownership, Cacique mirrored the marketing tactics of its “little” sister Victoria’s Secret, while catering to the consumer that Victoria’s Secret neglects.

Resembling the store layout of Victoria’s Secret, Cacique built upon basic store design to add elements that catered to a curvy woman, namely extra-large dressing rooms, a “fit salon” manned by trained associates who offer one-on-one assistance in the selection and fitting process, and their famed size sixteen mannequins clothed in the latest lingerie offerings.
⁷

Unlike at Victoria’s Secret, Cacique’s goal was to cater to the curves of a fat woman. The layout of the store allowed larger size bras and panties to be displayed throughout the store, instead of hidden away in a drawer or only available for purchase online as was the norm at other retail stores. Beyond the seemingly standard offering of bras in shades of purple, blue, and chocolate brown, Cacique sold less conventional yet spicier items, such as bras with detachable fake-fur trim and crotchless panties.
⁸
Cacique prepared to fulfill every curvy woman’s sexual fantasy. As the Cacique brand advertised, “What language does your body speak? Sensual, Classique, Physical & Flaunt.” Given Lane Bryant’s established history in the retail of women’s plus-size clothing, Cacique posited itself as the authority in intimate apparel for the curvy woman. Cacique boldly asserted that it was “the brand that knows your curves.”

Lane Bryant’s foray into intimate apparel influenced a broader commercial trend toward developing plus-size-specific lingerie. Retailers pushed to build inventory, selection, and a bra fit that achieved both comfort and sufficient support. They sought out bra styles in cup sizes up through G, H, I, and J, as well as those with larger cup sizes yet smaller band sizes, possibly explained by the surge in breast augmentation procedures.
⁹
While the style and fit of lingerie lines such as Cacique improved, ready-to-wear brands have not been as accommodating to the plus-size customer.

Sales and image guide the business of fashion. While profitable sales entice designers to enter the plus-size market, fears of brand spoilage halt their embrace of “larger” women. Meanwhile, the plus-size clothing market, comprised of a large consumer base, has grown continually since the early twentieth century, when Lena Bryant began making garments geared toward women with figures that were more buxom. A Lithuanian immigrant who immigrated to New York City in 1895, Lena Bryant first sold maternity garments in 1904 in a shop on Fifth Avenue in New York City. After Bryant and her husband, Albert Malsin, conducted a survey of 200,000 women from an insurance company and 4,500 of her customers, she found that women with more buxom figures made up a significant portion of the population. Therefore, Bryant shifted her focus from maternity to larger figures in order to clothe this underserved customer. She incorporated the business, Lane Bryant, on June 12, 1914, with stores opened in Chicago, Detroit, and Brooklyn.
¹⁰
Today, as the nation’s largest and oldest plus-size retailer, Lane Bryant operates over 800 stores across the country that cater to women size fourteen through size thirty-two and opened a sister chain of lingerie boutiques and outlet stores.
¹¹

The store design and layout of Lane Bryant’s lingerie store, Cacique, resembles a Victoria’s Secret yet offers amenities for plus-size consumers such as larger mannequins and extra-large dressing rooms.

Overall, the plus-size clothing market represents only 14 percent of the $104 billion total revenue in women’s apparel; however, in the words of the chief industry analyst of the market research firm the NPD Group Marshal Cohen, “opportunity is brewing.”
¹²
In 2005, the plus-size clothing industry grew by 7 percent compared to the 3.4 percent growth in total sales of women’s clothing.
¹³
Market analysts expect sales to rise to 5.2 percent annually compared to a 2.7 percent increase in overall apparel sales over the next five years.
¹⁴
By 2017, market analysts expect plus-size retail to earn $9.7 billion (up from an estimated $7.5 billion in 2012 and $6.6 in 2009).
¹⁵

Beyond the staples of plus-size retailers, such as Lane Bryant, Avenue, and Ashley Stewart, more designers and retailers have noticed the sales potential and jumped onto the plus-size bandwagon. For example, Old Navy, Lands’ End, Wal-Mart, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, Lucky Brand, The Limited, and H&M sell plus-size clothing.
¹⁶
Old Navy sells “fashion that fits in sizes 16–30” on their website; Lands’ End sells up to size 3X (equivalent to a size twenty-four or twenty-six); and Wal-Mart sells women’s clothing up to size 5X (equivalent to size thirty or thirty-two). Other stores, such as Ann Taylor and Banana Republic, increased their size offerings up to size eighteen and size sixteen, respectively, in order to appeal to the plus-size market.
¹⁷
Lucky Brand reached out to new customers by launching a plus-size collection featuring trendy items such as skinny jeans and leopard-print cardigans.
¹⁸
Young women have more options with Torrid, which targets fashionistas ages fifteen to twenty-nine. Stocked with merchandise in sizes twelve to twenty-six, even the mannequins are plus-size at a size sixteen or eighteen.
¹⁹
In 2012, the Kardashian sisters entered the plus-size market with their denim line called Kurves.
²⁰

Despite evidence of growth in the plus-size clothing market, the design community has resisted dressing “larger” bodies. Angellika, the
first plus-size model inducted into the Modeling Hall of Fame, noticed this stagnation in the marketplace:

The plus-size industry hasn’t changed as far as clothing options. We have the same stores like Lane Bryant, The Avenue and Ashley Stewart but no “high-end” clothing like Valentino, Chanel or Armani. It’s the same ol’ story with Madison Ave. Marketing can’t get with the curves of the average woman.
²¹

As Angellika observed, many in the design community fear the stigma of plus size.

This backlash against plus size is because, according to David Wolfe, creative director at Doneger Group, a consulting firm dedicated to the fashion industry:

The fashion business is having a hard time being honest. Fashion has kamikaze tunnel vision about women size six and under, ages eighteen to thirty-four, with perfectly proportioned bodies. The whole thing is predicated on a lie.
²²

In light of this “skinny vision,” it is not uncommon for more high-end fashion designers to claim that fat women are “not their market.” They fear that these undesirable customers would taint the brand’s image and, therefore, scare away their core customer base. For example, the notorious Karl Lagerfeld claimed to design “fashion for slender and slim people.”
²³
In 2004, Lagerfeld terminated his cooperation with the Swedish clothing retailer, H&M, in part because the retailer produced his clothes in sizes larger than he originally intended.

While Lagerfeld exhibited an extreme case of size snobbery, other designers and retailers acted in more subtle ways to prevent fat women from tarnishing their image. While Chico’s, a private branded apparel chain aimed at thirty-five- to fifty-five-year-old women, tried to appease their customers’ size insecurities by using a unique sizing system in
which, for example, their largest size three is equivalent to a size fourteen/sixteen, the company does not want to be associated with plus size. Jim Frain, Chico’s senior vice president of marketing, explained:

It’s a business based on fantasy, on entertainment. Yes, we are dressing real women for real situations. But in marketing images, if we err on the side of overweight models or underweight models, we want to err on the side of underweight . . . We do not want to be mistaken as a plus-size company; that would be very bad. It’s a matter of perception versus reality.
²⁴

According to Marshal Cohen, chief analyst for the market research firm NPD Group, this form of retail prejudice is not surprising since “some brands don’t want the image of their product to be associated with a larger-size gal, because it doesn’t portray an image of a cool, young, sexy brand.”
²⁵
For example, Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F), the brand for the “cool” and “good looking,” only sold women’s clothing up to a size ten. In a 2006 interview, A&F CEO Mike Jeffries snapped:

A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny.
²⁶

Jeffries apologized for these comments in May 2013, after this interview resurfaced and sparked public outcry over the brand. Spurred by this wave of criticism and declining sales, soon afterward in November 2013, A&F announced that they would expand their sizing options, with larger sizes offered online for some of its women’s clothing as early as the spring of 2014, indicating that this exclusionary policy may not have been cost-effective for the company.
²⁷

Designers build their brand around escapist imagery centered on the ideals of beauty, glamour, and style. Fat, unfortunately, does not fit in with these ideals because it is not beautiful, glamorous, or stylish. Fat is not cool and sexy. Fat is not fashionable. For some designers, any
connection with fatness would tarnish their brand image. As a result, they limit their designs to no larger than a size ten or twelve.

There are exceptions of course—if a customer has enough cash to order custom-designed clothes. When Velvet D’Amour entered a designer atelier in France, she noticed the large forms of their regular clientele. Velvet was impressed that there was a curvy Princess “So-and-So,” who had her own form there, as well as several other forms of fat women. At a price, one can get haute couture fashions:

The notion that because Gaultier put me on the runway, therefore he should open, you know, a size twenty-eight plus-size line immediately or he’s a total dick, is kind of laughable because, the echelon of people capable to afford haute couture is so limited. I am not saying they shouldn’t make them. I would love it if they did, but I also know that if I go in and I have eight billion dollars in my pocket, someone will make something for me.

With regard to the ordinary consumer, more retailers acknowledge the growth potential of the plus-size clothing market and expand their offerings to lure a new customer that, traditionally, has been underserved.
²⁸
Independent designer Jen Wilder understood this potential, being a larger woman herself. “As a plus-size woman,” she explained, “I saw a void in the market that under-designed, underappreciated and under-marketed to us.”
²⁹
After her straight-size line failed during the recession of 2008, Wilder switched to an exclusively plus-size collection. By June 2012, she established an activewear apparel line called Cult of California in Los Angeles.