Is Plus Size Dead? Long Live The Queen, Size That Is

New York Magazine interviewed Marquita Pring, article headline: "Meet the New Girl: Marquita Pring Wants to Phase out the Term 'Plus Size'."
She's gorgeous, and she likes the word Curvy. I do too, but it's important to understand how we got to Curvy.
In the timeline of fashionable female body type silhouettes, curvy has a prominent role. Aside from the Flapper Girl of the Roaring Twenties, and sixites "it girl" Twiggy's influence on mod style, women have had some junk in the trunk or up front, depending on what century or decade. Bustles, corsets & farthingales are just the tip of the iceberg when we consider the lengths women have gone to alter their shapes.
BBW, the acronym for Big Beautiful Woman, was coined by Carole Shaw, who had been a broadway performer and singer, when she founded the magazine with this name in 1979.
The need for women's apparel in larger sizes at retail became glaringly obvious as women entered the workforce in droves during this decade. Carol Shaw was beautiful, proud and brave and she worked it, garnering a recognition for an acronym that has been co-opted as a term used mainly in online personals. Queen size was an attempt to be polite but cute. Queen size didn't really catch on, except for panty hose sizing and mattresses! By the year 2000, the term Real was being used more and more to describe a woman of size. I was an editor of one of the first online portals for this customer, RealSize dot com. Founded by Nancy Kaye, an early adoptor and not plus size herself, RealSize dot com was a fun and informational, magazine style portal with interactive sales features that let you purchase the clothing showcased in the fashion pages. Real Simple magazine (unrelated to anything plus size) was founded in 2000, capitalizing on the concept of authenticity. Fast forward to the 21st Century, and the online explosion of opportunity and options for every woman, but particularly the younger plus size grrrl, whose voice is as real as her authentic self. Taking a cue from the confidence women of size in ethnic cultures regally bare, curvy girls started popping up, strutting their stuff in cute, short, tight, colorful and sexy clothing, mostly available on the internet or in stores like Torrid. The Curvy movement has steam, stamina and sex appeal! Just look at some of my gal pals on Twitter! @CurvyMagazine, @CurvesandChaos, @Curvatude.
At the recent Full Figure Fashion Week LA, founded by Gwen Devoe, I met up with a lot of curvy girls.
The torch for Plus still burns bright, no matter what you call it, fueled by the ongoing need, passion and desire for stylish clothing that fits at all price points.

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The State of the Curvy Community at FFF Weekend LA

*photo courtesy of NOW

It was a passionate group who gathered to listen to a panel discussing The State of the Curvy Community as part of Full Figure Fashion Week, founded by Gwen DeVoe. Bold, beautiful and curvy Chenese Lewis, president of the Hollywood chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW) moderated the panel.  Lewis recently made headlines when she posed nude with America's Next Top Model Whitney Thompson as a battle cry for Love Your Body Day, launched by NOW in 1998.
An eclectic mix of representatives from the Curvy Community included actress Sharon Quinn, Reah Norman, fashion director of Plus Model Magazine, Heinrich Saint-Germain from Judgement of Paris, R&B artist Kelly Price, and Judge Karen Mills-Francis.
The mostly African American audience was very vocal about the general lack of availability of quality clothing that fit and what they perceive to be the cold shoulder given to them by Seventh Avenue. The bloggers, retailers, reps from clothing companies, stylists, photographers and plus size models also in attendance, agreed with the consensus that there's a pervasively negative attitude towards being associated with "fatties." Fatty is the new N word, and a recent provocative Marie Claire blog provoked over a thousand comments, some of which were full of fat venom.
The glaring issues facing what is said to be approximately two thirds of the American female population,
are real. A recent Los Angeles Times story discussed the some of the daunting challenges designers and retailers deal with in serving women who wear a larger size.
Nothing's changed in the more than 20 years I've been a member of this club. We've come a long way baby, but the average woman, who allegedly is about 5'5" tall, weighs about 163 pounds and wears a size 14 is still struggling to get dressed.
The few "real women" ad campaigns haven't generated any growth in the use of models and actors who portray the more realistic image of the average consumer.
One of the biggest gripes voiced during the panel discussion was a dearth of plus size models used in advertising, yet no one could answer the age old question, 'how big is big?' Is size 14 representative, size 18, or larger? When I went to work for Big Beautiful Woman (BBW) as the fashion editor in 1991, it was hard to find clothing samples large enough to put on a real plus size model. Subscribers to BBW constantly wrote in to ask how to get companies to use larger models. The same holds true today, and perhaps even more so with the global economy squeezing manufacturers and retailers.
The Internet has fostered entrepreneurship in this lively community. If you Google, you can find just about anything you could ever desire in just about any size. Whether the quality is great, the price justified or the fit accurate, at least it exists. In order for these special size businesses to succeed, they will need the support of the women who say they don't have enough choice. Three specialty fashion magazines, BBW, Mode and It Figures (published by Lane Bryant),  have gone out of business in the last twenty years, all for lack of advertising dollars, indicating the sales at retail just didn't add up.
According to NPD, a retail and consumer behavior research firm based in Port Washington, N.Y., sales of plus size clothing account for only 17% of all women's apparel.
But that raises a question. How are the sales calculated? Is there an arcane method, like the Neilsen Ratings, where only a limited number of house hold viewing habits represent the entire country? The Neilsen Ratings, derived from people 18 - 49, only recently added college students age 21 and up living in college dorms, yet surveys indicate the average age of the TV viewer is 50.
As the two hour panel wrapped up, Lewis called for solutions to resolve the dilemmas of this vibrant demographic.
The usual meet and greet fest afterwards was warm and fuzzy.  I hadn't seen actress Kim Coles  in a few years, we met in the "green room,"at one of the many TV shows I've appeared on. The owners of Abundance, an elegant and chic, large size clothing boutique in Los Angeles were passing out copies of the LA Times article I mentioned earlier. One thing was clear, the Curvy Community is a dynamic and friendly crowd ready for action!

Gwen DeVoe Launched Full Figured Fashion Week

Gwen DeVoe founded Full Figured Fashion Week. Congrats Gwen. I'm glad you had the balls to sally forth and conquer!
I was at the forefront of the BBW brigade in the eighties and nineties, producing plus size fashion shows in New York City, Las Vegas and Los Angeles and an annual national plus model search.
We got Entertainment Tonight to cover one of our plus size fashion shows in New York. It was exciting.
What you're doing is STILL groundbreaking and never before has the number of women who wear a larger size been bigger. Shocking as it may be, with everyone from the Surgeon General to Moms who police school campus vending machines bemoaning the perils of childhood obesity and comedians taking open shots on fatties, the fact is, women have money to spend, they want to get dressed, and that smells like opportunity to me. Some of the sexiest women on the planet, including Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, and Jane Russell, pictured here...have been a bit fleshy.



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