In spite of the fact that the average American woman is now considered to be plus size, retailers still don’t always cater to this growing segment of the market. While fashion designers typically design for the runway, where model sizes typically average from 0 to 4, the average American woman wears between a 16 and 18. And research shows that retailers only offer about 29 percent of new styles to women above a size of 14. A Bloomberg study found that a mere 8.5 percent of dresses on Nordstrom’s website were plus size in May, whereas at J.C. Penney’s site, it was just 16 percent. This gap is beginning to draw scrutiny from the fashion world and mainstream consumers.
I love the American fashion industry, but it has a lot of problems, and one of them is the baffling way it has turned its back on plus-size women. It’s a puzzling conundrum, said Tim Gunn, a design educator and the Emmy-winning co-host of Project Runway. There are 100 million plus-size women in America, and, for the past three years, they have increased their spending on clothes faster than their straight-size counterparts. There is money to be made here, $20.4 billion, up 17 percent from 2013.
As Gunn pointed out, there is money to be made in the world of plus-size fashion, which is something all retailers can and should be capitalizing on. All retailers should care about the fight to get plus-sized mannequins in stores, not just because doing so is an inclusive gesture, but also because it is good for business. Plus-size women should have the same options as their smaller-sized peers, and businesses should value their dollars just as much as those of any other consumer. The bottom line? Plus-sized mannequins are good for business in every retail store.
