NEW YORK — It’s the fear factor.
At least, that’s a big piece of why most of the struggling fashion sector keeps ignoring women who wear large sizes, choosing instead to stay focused on a considerably less populous customer base, those size 6 and under. Nearly half of American women, or 48.8 percent, wear a size 12 or larger, while only 12.8 percent are sizes 0 through 6, according to Port Washington-based market researcher NPD Group.
“There’s a fear about how a plus-size consumer will buy. She wants fashion, but a lack of information [about this customer] is feeding fear in the industry,” advised Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group.
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“There’s a lot of risk involved in the apparel business, and fashion designers are playing poker based on fear,” he asserted. “Are they going to grow their business by being meek or by taking a calculated risk?”
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Indeed, plus-size volume could grow to 30 percent of the apparel business by 2009, Cohen projected. Starting in 2005, the sector’s share will advance by between 2 percent and 4 percent a year, he forecast, based on companies’ forward plans. That rate of increase would have meant additional plus-size business of between $1.8 billion and $3.6 billion, based on the $90.8 billion in apparel sold during the 12 months ended this July, for example.
Yet fashion has been slow to respond because of fears that begin with the unfamiliar tastes of the large-size customer, and extend to styling that starts to look disproportionate in sizes north of a 10. In addition, there’s an unwillingness to muddy marketing imagery immersed in a fountain of youth. Meanwhile, long lead times make it tough for most manufacturers to break a vicious circle of commitment to smaller sizes at the expense of larger ones.
Other sectors are seizing the moment, however.
The automotive and movie businesses are eyeing wider seats as a means to create more comfortable environments. Similarly, office furniture specifications are being reconsidered, as are those for the tiny buttons on cell phones and PDAs, which some find hard to handle.
TV advertisers, which, like fashion designers, focus intently on the 18-34 young adult demographic, are being offered new data from Simmons Market Research Bureau, which has begun indexing viewership of prime-time programs by body type. The idea is to win commercials for products like pharmaceuticals, food or special sizes of apparel, aimed at customers, in part, by body type. Simmons indexes viewers described as either normal, underweight, overweight or obese. For instance, the biggest share of viewers of CBS’ “CSI: Miami” and NBC’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” are obese, and are 20-30 percent more likely to watch the shows than those with a normal (average) body type. By comparison, the largest share of NBC’s “Friends” audience is underweight and the largest share of those who watch Fox’s “The Simpsons” are of average weight.
“The currency of the TV business has been built on buying age and gender,” noted Brad Adgate, a senior vice president and director of research at Horizon Media, a Manhattan-based media planner and buyer. “Simmons is suggesting there may be better ways to [identify] attitudes and lifestyles, things that reveal more, like body type.”
For their part, though, fashion designers and retailers have remained largely unmoved.
“In a sense, it’s easy for designers to ignore the issue because they don’t see people trying on clothes in the stores,” offered Susan Ashdown, associate professor of textiles and apparel at Cornell University.
In contrast, the Liz Claiborne brand recently undertook a body scanning project, overseen by Ashdown, with the goal of learning how well its sizing is meeting the needs of its target customer, women, ages 34 through 55, who wear misses sizes 4 to 16, and women’s sizes 14-24. The verdict? The sizes do not fit the full range of the target market well. Claiborne officials had no comment.
The sizing challenge facing fashion brands like Claiborne is getting steeper as the country grows more ethnically diverse and mature. A case in point: Roughly 72 percent of Hispanic women are overweight and 78 percent of African-American women are overweight — two rapidly growing populations — compared with 58 percent of non-Hispanic white women, according to American Demographics. Simply selling more plus sizes will not be enough to satisfy such emerging customers, whose body shapes tend to differ significantly from white women.
And even their body shapes have changed compared with the existing guidelines for sizing patterns and grading up of those patterns, which date back to body profiles developed in the Forties. Evidence of the need for an update can be found, among other places, in data from America’s Research Group. Ten years ago, when asked if they felt they had to try on a second item from a manufacturer after finding one that fit in the same size, 89 percent of the women surveyed by ARG said they did not, noted Britt Beemer, chairman at the Charleston, S.C.-based market researcher. Today, only 68 percent say they do not.
Many industry observers claim it’s not feasible to develop a standardized fit system — both because of fashion’s creative, eclectic, individualistic nature and the vast variety of body types. At least one group begs to differ. Dallas-based MbrioWear has created new fit specs and grading-up guidelines, coupled with general product preferences by age, ethnicity and body type. “We’ve learned women usually prefer jackets that hit above their hip, if they’re a size 10 or smaller; just below the hip, if they’re a 12 to 16; and mid-thigh if they’re larger,” said MbrioWear president and general partner Cricket Lee, who has worked with a variety of development partners, from Nautica to Cornell’s Ashdown.
MbrioWear is scouting for retailers to apply the system, called Brand Fit, to product they source directly. Initially, apparel sizing has been redeveloped for women ages 35-55, for whom even a size 8 fits differently than it did when they were in their 20s, Lee noted.
Then there’s a need for consciousness raising, or at least a readjustment of aesthetic sensibilities, which would spur fashion brands to market openly to large-size women, without fear of sullying the brands’ image.
Specialized collections, like Max Mara’s Marina Rinaldi — aimed at women sizes 12 and up — and proprietary store brands, may help designers reconcile the exclusive nature of traditional fashion images with populist fashion needs, sources projected. Fashion-right plus sizes could gain greater acceptance, for example, via Isaac Mizrahi’s just-introduced proprietary label for Target or the Bisou Bisou line exclusive to J. C. Penney, a chain credited for tailoring a wide range of sizes to specific trading areas.
Marina Rinaldi recently extended its offer, with this year’s launch of the sporty MR range, as reported in WWD. Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger are giving large sizes a try as well, having quietly added them late last year. Executives at Lauren and Hilfiger declined comment.
Among luxury retailers, Saks Fifth Avenue has been a pioneer in plus sizes. Its Salon Z department, launched 10 years ago, offers women looks from Marina Rinaldi, Ferre Forma, Stizzoli, Sunny Choi, Carmen Marc Valvo, Lafayette 148, Dana Buchman, Ellen Tracy and Eileen Fisher, among others, and under its own Real Clothes and Saks Fifth Avenue labels. Salon Z’s bestsellers in its gold and bridge ranges are Dana Buchman, Ellen Tracy and Lafayette 148. Beyond the gold and bridge groups, the department carries eveningwear, casual wear, outerwear and swimwear. Sizes begin at 16 and go up to 24.
“Salon Z has become a key business for us,” said Jaqui Lividini, senior vice president of fashion merchandising at Saks Fifth Avenue, without specifying. But the extent of the effort implies success: Salon Z occupies the entire 10th floor in the Fifth Avenue flagship, and is in three-quarters, or 47, of Saks Fifth Avenue’s 62 doors, including its new locations in Indianapolis and Richmond, Va., opened Sept. 10th and 17th, respectively.
The evidence is the same at the other end of the retail spectrum, where plus-size discount customers have been clamoring for style. At Kmart, for example, although 2X (the equivalent of women’s size 20-22) this year surpassed 1X (women’s 16-18) as the bestselling plus size, the chain has been selling more Route 66 casual tops in 1X, since their styling was made more trendy. “This tells me we’ll attract a more contemporary, fashion oriented, plus-size customer with the infusion of more fashion in the apparel,” projected Mike Lewis, Kmart’s divisional vice president of women’s wear. “In plus sizes, we’ve moved to more casual styling, like a relaxed blazer, shell and easy-fit skirt, rather than emphasizing tailored looks.”
Today, plus sizes represent 20 percent of Kmart’s women’s business, Lewis said, close to the 21.5 percent share they account for within discount stores nationwide, according to NPD. Kmart’s sales of 2X tops and bottoms have climbed about 8.5 percent this year, versus 2002, lifted by an expansion of the assortment, a reduction of brands carried and the new emphasis on casual styling, Lewis noted.
Kmart generates about 3.8 percent of the country’s plus-size volume — totaling $182 million in the 12 months ended this July — but Lewis acknowledged discount and department stores have been losing share in the category to specialty stores, such as Lane Bryant, Catherines Plus Sizes and Torrid. And there could be more specialty competition ahead, from Chico’s, where the largest size, 3, is equivalent to a misses 14/16, and executives have flirted with, but have yet to move on, adding a size 4, or 18/20.
By all accounts, it will take a shock — big success achieved by a newcomer to the niche, coupled with some serious consciousness raising — to spark a significant upswing in the plus-size fashion offer. “It will be a slow process,” predicted Lois Huff, a senior vice president and consumer behavior specialist at Columbus, Ohio-based consultant Retail Forward. “It’s a huge leap of faith. Fashion is all about image, so there’s a big risk in being representational,” she said.
“Even if you throw statistics at fashion designers, they’re likely to remain aspirational,” Huff added. “Designers may get more and more out of touch with most consumers.”