Recently(ish), BFD reader cb wrote in to share part of a survey she’d filled out after shopping at the Gap’s online store, and the response she received. She rated her online experience 5 out of 10 and when they asked why, here’s what she said:

I am a plus-sized shopper, and wear a size 20 or XXL. While I love many of Gap’s products, I am unhappy that I can’t go into a store and try things on in my size. This is a sizeist attitude, and one that I don’t appreciate. It means I have to pay (shipping) to try something on, whereas people wearing smaller sizes can (barring an item being sold out) walk in and try things on.

It would be greatly appreciated if you would bring the plus sizes back into the stores. You have a great line of products through both Gap and Old Navy (Banana Republic does not offer plus sizes), and I would like to feel that my business is important enough to warrant being welcome inside your stores. You are turning away women who are willing to hand you their money by not catering to your plus sized market. My
online shopping experience is as good as can be expected, but I don’t like paying to try on clothes.

The Gap responded:

Thank you for your feedback regarding our women’s plus line not being
carried in our stores. As a company, we are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating our business, and customer feedback like yours is a vital part of the process. We hope you know that it is never our intention to frustrate customers with what we are able to offer in our stores. We can assure you that your feedback will be shared with the appropriate company personnel.

Cb was surprised that she got a response, and added “I really feel like we in the plus-sized community have an opportunity here to tell these companies that we want the opportunity to shop for items IN-STORE.”

I was reminded of her email in the postcard comments thread, when The Binge Diary suggested writing a letter of complaint to the company that produced the postcard—a good idea that simply hadn’t occurred to me.

I confess I don’t really write any letters of complaint at all, although I have really been tempted to write a letter to the Harry Potter theme park, since I really really really want to spend a lot of money to travel to Florida and ride their ride, but I probably can’t. It made me wonder: Do you write complaint letters yourself? Do you think they make a difference? Have you ever gotten results?

TORRID
For a long time, my favorite pair of jeans was a pair of l.e.i. flare-leg jeans from Torrid, extra-long inseam, because I am tall. So what do they do? Right when I’m about to go and order ten million pairs? THEY DISCONTINUE THEM. Heart: broken. Torrid has a lot of jeans, and I’ve had some hits and misses from them. The big downside is that they’re pretty spendy, and I don’t have a Torrid near me, so it’s that online buy-and-send-back thing. Annoying when jeans range anywhere from $50-$90. (I see they’ve added $200 Ed Hardy jeans. Hmm, had no idea they were doing plus sizes. I wonder…)

LANE BRYANT
Lane Bryant has the Right Fit jeans, in a variety of shapes and styles, which have worked out for a lot of people, but not really for me. They’re okay, and I have a couple of pairs, but one wash fits really differently from the other. Not only that, I was told time and time again to buy them tight because they’d stretch, but I bought them tight and then they never did stretch, and they dig into my waist kind of uncomfortably because of the curvy cut that I need.

OLD NAVY AND TARGET
I’ve also bought jeans from Old Navy, which 1. is hit and miss anyway, and 2. pulled plus sizes out of their stores, which annoyed me, and 3. once sent me a pair of jeans with creepy mesh pockets, which, why? And also, so creepy. The largest sizes of their “regular” jeans sometimes fit and sometimes don’t, and those are decent jeans, but their “plus” jeans have been uniformly awful, when I’ve tried them. So, no. The other brand I’ve tried is of course my beloved Target. I have two pairs of jeans from them, one is a little “mom jeans” for my liking (but comfortable) and one has a very cool wash, but no stretch in the denim, and isn’t very comfortable. All of which leads me to…

LEE JEANS
Lee contacted me a while back and offered to send me some of their new plus-sized jeans, with the DEEPLY UNFORTUNATE NAME of “slender secret stretch.” I think it is this pair, actually. As a fan of free clothes, I said HELL YES. And you guys, horrible name notwithstanding? I seriously love these jeans. They are a little stretchy and comfortable, without being creepy. They are delightfully curve-hugging. They come in long, regular, and petite. If they sucked, I would tell you (see above). But they do not, they do not suck!

GIVEAWAY
Lee Jeans, as you may have surmised, is giving me jeans to give away. TEN PAIRS, to be exact! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment describing your favorite pair of jeans. I’ll choose winners at random, and e-mail you to get your size (they go up to 30W). Deadline is Friday!

I wear a size 22/24. And because of you I’ve recently developed a love for dresses. Before I would maybe only wear a dress a couple times per year. I’ve just graduated college in May so I’m definitely on a tight budget. I work in an office. The dress code isn’t super strict but I still want to look professional. Also, maybe a couple ideas for what to wear when going out with friends or on a date? Thank you!

And her answer was pretty much awesome. She assembled, as she notes, “20 pieces for around $465 that create 40+ outfits,” and then she outlines her choices and mixes them up in a series of fashion collages that suggest ways to mix and match and play with color and silhouettes and lengths, and have I said the word “awesome” yet? Because it is.

And it’s not awesome because you have to immediately go buy all the pieces she suggests–especially if you do not want to shop at Old Navy or Walmart (and I do wish she had ranged a little further in her retailer selections, though that’s hard in a little budget). What’s important, in her roundup (and what I love about it) is that it is a good selection of ideas and inspiration–how to build a wardrobe you love out of pieces you select carefully and deliberately, and feel comfortable and good and classy in, with the mixing it up and the matching and mis-. It’s inspiration for building, and inspiration for taking a new look at what you’ve already got. It’s especially good to remember that on days when you feel like you have nothing to wear. Maybe you’ve worn outfit A a hundred times, but have you ever tried that top with those heels layered over that dress? LET’S SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

Fun times! Seriously. Now go play.

Another loss for the plus size woman. Ann Taylor announced that they would remove all size 16’s from their physical stores. Ann Taylor would have us to believe that the lack of demand the reason for its announcement yesterday that they are eliminating size 16’s from its stores. Really?

This continues to make no sense, given the market for plus-size clothing. I just hope Target doesn’t do this, since I would hate to have to boycott Target, my favorite store, where I shop every weekend. (Last weekend I found that they’ve switched over to Torrid-style sizing in their plus section, calling the sizes 1, 2, 3 and 4 rather than 18X or 24X or what have you. I also found a really cute top that I wore to class on Monday.)

Grr, this is so annoying. At least we have options for shopping online…

And you know, I don’t know much about fashion, or fashion retailing, or retailing in general, but that sounds pretty reasonable to me. Rational, well-considered, right. And yet, somehow, all that wisdom and rationality never seems to translate into action, and retailers–Old Navy in particular comes to mind–keep dropping their larger sizes or shuffling them off to the internet. Ann Taylor’s the newest of the bunch. They’re dropping their size 16s from all their retail stores, though they’ll still offer them on the internet.

When stores do this, their rationale always seems to be that the demand isn’t there for plus-size clothing (ha! ha!), and that women aren’t buying them (ha!). But women aren’t buying much in the way of Ann Taylor anyway–sales have been declining, and they reported some spectacular losses last year. Somehow, though, I don’t think dropping their larger sizes is really going to turn their business around–and it’s never occurred to them, apparently, that it might hurt them even more.

Oh yeah, FUCK YOU MIA TYLER.

FYI, Mia Tyler, (Steven’s daughter) posted a call-to-arms on her myspace page. It’s for all the big girls to overload old navy with phone calls and e-mails because we’re removing Plus sizes from our stores. Do you know who answers those calls and e-mails??? ME! And I’m tired of it!

The decision was made LAST YEAR. It’s because YOU BIG GIRLS didn’t buy enough. You say that there’s a market for it.. BUT WE DIDN’T MAKE ANY MONEY. THE MARKET ISN’T AS BIG AS YOUR ASS IS. SHIT HAPPENS! GET OVER IT!

Fuckin A…

This just adds such a sheen of sincerity to those form letters they’re e-mailing back to us. All of those “sincere apologies” for our “disappointment.” Doesn’t it make you want to write a charming all-caps letter to Ray?

I had a conversation with one of my casual carpoolers this morning, and she works in the design department of Old Navy that does plus sizes and maternity. I asked her if it is true that they are pulling the plus sizes from stores, and she confirmed it, saying that she thought it was becasue the line had never been properly marketed. Never marketed AT ALL, in fact.

I mentioned women’s comments that I had read here about the fit being odd in many of the plus size garments, and asked how many fit models they utilized. She said ONE. Ohmigod, no wonder they don’t fit most of us properly. Little, local Igigi uses all sorts of different fit models, recruiting people for new lines.

From Mia Tyler, via Wendy:

Today at the store on 18th street and 6th ave in NYC I was made aware of the plan and asked to speak with a manager. When I asked him why they were kicking us out of their stores the reason he gave was that corporate felt it was a poor business decision to incorporate plus sizes into their stores. I questioned how catering to the majority of the United States population was a poor business decision and he told me that I was not the first to ask.

He said the business wasn’t going well in the plus sector and I gave him a list of possible reasons why including their fit and lack of plus marketing. I offered that they should make an effort to fix the problem and find out why they weren’t doing well instead of banishing us to the internet. Turns out that the person I spoke with is also a Customer Service Rep and he’s in charge of feedback to the corporate offices. He encouraged me to get as many women as possible on board to overload Old Navy’s website and telephone lines with complaints about this move in an effort to halt it. Please, even if you don’t wear clothes from Old Navy take a minute to take a stand for all of us.

So there you have it. Take a few minutes now to send a note to Old Navy. Perhaps use more diplomatic words than “suck it.” Feel free to post the text of your e-mail in the comments for those of us who are lazy and want to take the words right out of your mouth.

i know a lot of women who depend on their plus sizes for decent, affordable work clothes.

Beyond plus-size discrimination, I have “digital divide” issues about this. If someone comes into your store, you shouldn’t send them home to buy your clothes.

The Old Navy near me removed their plus size line late in the fall but continued carrying their maternity line in the store. When a manager told me what the new policy was I told her that might be a bad marketing move. She asked why and I said that those women are only fat for nine months but I’ll be fat for the rest of my life. She didn’t even crack a smile.

This is not a good thing one of my best girl friends is a plus size and I know she shops at Old Navy.She is a very stylish lady and loves to shop and clothes make her feel good.

That’s too bad. I never liked their plus sizes at all…..torsos, legs, and arms always WAY too short and snug. But It’s too bad for women who could wear them. We Big Chicks have A LOT of money to spend, if only someone would give us something to BUY.

And now I see the rumor is they’re discontinuing size 20 and XXL in their regular lines. Aw, man. What is the logic here? Anyway, how do you feel about this? Do you shop at Old Navy? Will you continue to shop them online, or will you give up, since they clearly don’t want our business?