“I went to the plus floor and I was certain I was on the wrong floor. I had to walk through all the mattresses, the home section, chairs, pillows, sheets; all this until I got to the very, very back, and there were like four racks and that was your plus section. And I thought, ‘Why are we in the back like this?’ The other floors are pumping music and have makeup stands and shoes and this one is up on the quiet floor with the bedding.”
This division is even more pointed when compared with the abundant options for smaller sizes, she says.
“There is a store I love to go to, it came over from London, it’s very popular. It carries everything: men’s, lingerie, purses, makeup, accessories, tall, petite, maternity, regular, shoes, amazing shoes — and no plus. So if you want to go in with your friend, a girls’ day out shopping, you think, ‘What a fun one-stop shop!’ They’re blasting music, you want a dress to go out tonight. ‘Well, I guess you could go look at shoes and a necklace.’ It is just a bit infuriating.”
A few mainstream retailers have started to embrace this consumer segment. Lane Bryant — whose entire customer base is 12-plus — has a new effort to make trendy pieces work for their customers, says chief executive Linda Heasley.
“We don’t want our client to be bounded by notions of what she can and cannot wear,” Heasley says. “Part of the reason we say we lead with fashion and not size is we’re telling our internal teams we have to make this work for her. How do we give her the latest trends? How do we make fringe work? How do we make horizontal stripes work?”
A major part of this push has been designer collaborations. Heasley and her teams have turned designs from Isabel Toledo, Sophie Theallet and Lela Rose into clothes that fit their customers. And by all accounts, they have been successful. Pieces of the Lela Rose line sold out the day it launched this spring. In June, the company announced a collaboration with Christian Siriano to much fanfare.
ncG1vJloZrCvp2PEor%2FHoqWgrJ%2BjvbC%2F02eaqKVfqLNwv9Oyo55nYmV%2BdnuPcWZqa1%2BptaZ5zKibnqRdp7KlscWipaKml2K1qrPHZp2aq5ievK97