"What Is Up With The Plus-Sized Banishment?"
That was the subject line of an e-mail from Laurie in response to the news that Ann Taylor is joining retailers like Old Navy and making their plus-sizes “online only.” (Not that they offer a lot of plus sizes anyway, as far as I know.)
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…
Posted by mo pie
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Is this really happening at Ann Taylor? “The news” is from May and I continue to see plenty of 16’s and also a few 18’s (which have always been just tops, as far as I can tell) in my local Ann Taylor store. When I ask the staff there, they say they haven’t heard any whispers about eliminating size 16… Seems like it would be a stupid move in terms of both sales and PR…
There was a really interesting article behind the economics of plus sized clothing in DoubleX:
http://www.doublex.com/section/life/real-reason-ann-taylor-hates-plus-sizes
That said, it really sucks. I went to Ann Taylor and had a hard time finding even size 14s. Even though I’ve lost weight and can shop in “normal” stores, I’m continuing to patronize stores that have great clothes for *all* women-small, plus, petite.
Hmm… I know Ann Taylor Loft pulled all their 16s from the stores this past summer. I hadn’t heard AT proper was going to do the same thing? I have never found many 16s at regular store anyways – they usually only get 1, which sells out right away.
The plus-size selection at Target, at least the ones near me, sucks. Wal-Mart has a bigger variety, sad to say. If Target loses their plus-size section, it will be no great loss.
I actually did have one local boutique retailer tell me that when he stocks designer jeans in a size 32 (12-14) they “don’t sell” and always end up on the sale racks – and that’s why he only buys one pair per style in that size. Um, if I’m looking for the size, and it’s gone, then you have at least two people who want the bigger size. This guy also apparently doesn’t have a problem overstocking on teensy sizes (24-25, which equals a size 0-2), since the sale racks were full of them. *sigh*
I don’t even wear plus sizes, and there are stores I can’t shop in because a ton of designers don’t go past a (small) size 10. I know it’s easier for me since I can usually wear straight sizes and shop in brick and mortar stores, but this is getting ridiculous.
I just don’t understand this. Fashion Bug has changed their layout, with all styles available in both misses and plus, the biggest size being a 32, and they have lowered their prices. I’ve seen more women shopping at my local FB than ever before because of this change.
Maybe it’s because they are a lower-end retail store, but if they have no qualms catering to plus-size, especially deathfats like myself, and not making me pay ridiculous amounts of money for clothes, then why are other retailers pushing plus-sizes online only or not carrying them at all?
I work at Target, and I have to say that plus sized clothing is in very little demand there too. We try to push plenty of them out too.
I can tell you what’s going on here — AT has recently done some revamping to shed its “dowdy” image due to poor sales. There’s an AT near my office, and I’ve been watching the dummies’ outfits and the marketing copy change in the windows. It’s the “New Ann” now, and she’s going to wear short skirts and not admit that there are any sizes over 14.
Here’s an article on the new strategy: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125085648231249183.html
I have to say, I don’t think they advertised the fact that they had 16s very well. I used to shop there when I was a size 14, and I remember being surprised to run across a 16. They didn’t have many, and they weren’t separated from the 14s.
Bullcrap! I have only shopped online for t-shirts. I’m SO afraid to buy anything without trying it on! This is horrible!
Seems like an INCREDIBLY stupid move, business-wise.
Hmmm…let’s see: we’re in a recession, fewer people are buying, so let’s alienate some of our best, most loyal customers and tell them we don’t want them in our stores! yeah, that’ll work!
Idiots.
Let me also take a moment to point out that pushing things online is classist as well as sizeist. Not everybody has reliable access to the internet or credit cards for online purchasing.
It just kind of sends the message that “well, it’s ok to be fat, I guess, as long as you’re rich.”
Does it change this that they removed 00 too? I really can’t decide-on the one hand, a genuine shift to the middle seems less obviously fatophobic, on the other, deciding we’re only going to clothe the middle range of sizes? stupid.
This is so frustrating. They keep on making the size that is plus size smaller, too, putting ‘tweeners like myself in a predicament.
This sort of crap is what made me decide to leave Victoria’s Secret almost entirely – they stopped carrying nearly every larger bra size in certain areas, or just limited it to only basic colors for anything over a C cup. So, I am changing my bra shop to Soma, which has everything in every size that I could wear.
Ridiculous.
I don’t think Target has low demand for plus size clothing exactly, it’s just that (at least at the Targets near me) they separate the plus sizes and put them right next to, or mixed in with, maternity clothes. I’m not sure why but I’m offended to have to shop in maternity just because my chest won’t fit in dresses under a 16.
Ashley, you must not work at any Target in central Texas, they ALWAYS have a huge fast turnover of larger sizes. The clothes used to be great, I still have two 20 yr old shirts from there that still look good. The stuff now, what there is of it, is crap. I’m happy to go back to wearing t-shirts and jeans, but alot of women want more.
The plus size selection at Target is getting smaller and smaller…no pun intended! I just want to scream with frustration when I see a cute piece of clothing in the “normal” sizes and go to the plus size only to be disappointed once again. And, hey, btw, I’d also like to see plus size pj’s etc at Target that are actually attractive.
The sad thing with Fashion Bug is that “most” items are in sizes 6 to 30. Dresses stop at 26. The cute shorts stop at 26 or 28. Most of the shirts go up to 30/32, but I can’t find pants to wear with them. What am I supposed to do, go naked on the lower half?
It’s the same deal at Walmart and Target. Stores will size up the shirts, but not their bottoms. What’s up with that?
Target has a plus size selection?
Target doesn’t carry my size. Fashion Bug doesn’t carry dresses in my size. The only things I thought were cute out of the Target collections all needed a strapless bra, which isn’t possible when you wear a 44F/G/H (where the F starts after a DDD). A lot of plus size clothing is either massively overpriced or doesn’t take into account the fact that actual fat women might have a hard time finding the same bra styles as thin women. So when a retailer goes into a snit about the sizes not selling, I sit back and say “duh, you didn’t get anything we can wear”.
I’m sorry for the people in a size 16 that are affected by the Ann Taylor change. Back when I wore a 16 (almost a decade ago) finding nice work clothes in that size would have been wonderful.
1. I’m mad because Fashion Bug made this change AFTER closing the location closest to my house. The only location left inside Houston’s bus service area is on the exact opposite end of town from where I live.
2. I hate the fact that Target, FB, and Walmart offer tops and dresses up to a (small, IMO) 28/30/32, but stops their bottoms at a (small) 26.
I’m getting to the point where I need to just suck it up and just assume B&M stores don’t have anything for me anymore and just shop entirely online or out of catalogs. LB, Avenue, and Catherines are the only physical stores that carry bottoms in my size(28, except Avenue). Places like Ross and Marshalls only get the occasional rogue pair of LB or Avenue jeans, and I have enough jeans.
kb, speaking as someone who worked in a costume shop, eliminating size 00 is nowhere near as idiotic as eliminating size 16. A woman who wears a 00 can have a 0 tailored to fit, but the nonexistent seam allowances in commercial clothing means that a size 16 cannot have a 14 altered to fit her.
I’m not saying that eliminating any size is a good thing. It’s that the degree of bad is worse when it’s a bigger size that’s eliminated because while something can always be cut down, there’s no magic wand that makes a piece of fabric get bigger.
It’s ridiculous; one real problem with it, for example, is that sizing varies widely. I’m lucky to be an “inbetweenie” — and because Old Navy runs SO LARGE that my size 6/8 friend fits with room in an XS and I could reasonably fit into an L (and have to size down a size on pants), I can try things on there. But I only know this after two different online orders, neither of which matched the size charts, and most people just wouldn’t try again after that.
Ann Taylor, on the other hand, isn’t likely to deal mostly in jersey and have no idea how to size their products, so I doubt I can buy anything in their stores.
And that’s the problem: once you make it impossible for people to try things on, they get increasingly impatient and unwilling to buy things. There are dresses I would literally never own if I hadn’t tried them on. There are t-shirts and jeans that I wear in sizes that are completely different than my usual. And in this economy, who wants to take the risk that a customer just is going to pass your store by because they can’t see what your clothes look like on them?
Add that to the “we don’t want THOSE kind of people in our store” vibe and I’m done with it. At least places like Forever 21, while they miss the mark completely in terms of a range of sizing, are willing to, I don’t know, let us fatties in the building.
It’s major retailers that entered the plus market but don’t understand it that are doing this – and most aren’t truly plus. Old Navy is a glaring exception. These banishments aren’t really banishments – they are cutting back a line after doing an extremely bad job of marketing it in the first place. The fat people weren’t coming in in the first place, and weren’t going to bother if they weren’t told the plus size clothing was there.
Can you imagine someone behind the Ann Taylor brand so humbling themselves as to advertise to fat people?
So while well-recognized brands are getting all sorts of media for “cutting short plus sizes” lesser-known brands like Silhouettes and Ulla Popken are providing more selections – but fledgling plus houses like Fashion Overdose have almost completely stopped serving plus sizes above 22.
Target vacillates over serving the plus size market. While I like the new sizing, the selection has been once again severely severed – and I live in their headquarter city! I like this fall’s stuff, and around Christmas they always have something cool, but compared to how they were in Minnesota about five years ago – well, I’m still very disappointed in them.
Hi there, everyone. Wanted to say hello and chime in.
I’m not sure what’s up with the retailers, either.
@Ashley- I wonder if the “demand” for plus sized clothes at Target has been diminished b/c Target’s plus-sized selection has, to be blunt, SUCKED steadily more hard over at least the past five years? Target made plus sized clothes that were comparable in style to the ones in their junior’s section for about five minutes. Then they started taking them away.
It really is unfortunate. I don’t shop at WalMart (anti-unionism and sweatshop labor) and I don’t shop at Old Navy for the same reasons.
I haven’t been shopping, period, for a LONG time, actually. I bought 2 shirts at avenue a couple weeks ago and it felt like Xmas.
I wonder why companies haven’t considered simply creating a separate plus-sized brand with a totally unrelated name. Max Mara already did it with Marina Rinaldi.
Yes, it’ll likely result in an entirely separate line that doesn’t carry the same things their Misses’ line does, but that’s when they should take notes from Hot Topic and see how they originally kept a similar aesthetic with Torrid. (Keyword: originally)
I feel like the concept of building multiple stores within a brand is lost on a lot of companies. Forever 21 has 5 or 6 separate store concepts in different parts of the country and even the world, all with different names. I didn’t even know Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy were the same company until I was 22 or so. Other than pride and fatphobia, what’s stopping the Ann Taylors of the industry from doing the same?
Uuuugggghhh! This drives me insane. I love Ann Taylor clothes. It is already hard enough to find plus-size clothing that is age appropriate. And I don’t mean too young. Why do retailers equate plus-sized with old lady?
Also, they trying on of an arcticle of clothing is especially important to a big gal. We can’t just buy a specific size and have it fit the same way all the time.
Curves need consideration! Wake up retailers!!!
I’d seen the original article and it showed that the writer didn’t do research.
Ann Taylor has extended misses, not plus sizes. Talbots also has extended misses, and plus sizes.
Since ANN introduced 18s, I have only seen them in stores via returned merchandise, same for 16s. I buy 18s online. I suspect it was a slow news day.
I’ve never seen anything over a 14 in Ann Taylor, and the salespeople won’t acknowledge my presence when I go in, anyway. Shame, I like their styles.