We live in an era where size seems to be everything. Being a size 6-8 is considered beautiful and anything else is ostracised but in all honesty the average size for British women is now a 12. How do we feel about this?
We'd all love to be this size and being a guy I guess its a little different, size is less of an image we feel the need to aim for. But rather than talking about how much of an issue size is I wanted to talk more about how much is actually on the market for women of plus sizes. Size 12 women make up almost 31% of the market, so they're no longer a niche market so should we aim to design for them more specifically?
With Stars such as Beth Ditto gracing the cover of LOVE in 2009 we also have to think about the idea that size is something which should be embraced rather than turned away from. If you have a client like Beth Ditto are you going to turn her away and tell her to get an outfit from somebody else, or are you going to try and suit her needs?
Talking about women and size a mention has to go to Mark Fast who grabbed headlines in 2010 by walking both 'normal' and size 12 models down the catwalk, firstly he had to go to a specialist agency to get the models. From other uni projects looking at the future of fashion and modeling lots of people said to me that they think the future of modelling is going to see a rise of more modelling agencies who deal with more 'specialist' modeling, including plus sized.
My main gripe with just sending these models down a catwalk in size 12 is the clothes are still designed for a smaller silhouette, they're just in a bigger size. If you're going to use size as an issue and tackle it why not create something which is more flattering for the women wearing it. This is where I feel the issue stands with size and fashion. We have noone designer for bigger women and noone designing anything which will suit their body size better and also something which could cover areas they have more of an issue with.
After a talk with David Sassoon at uni something he really made a point about was that he was designing for people who problems with parts of their body and it was his job to tackle these problems. He highlighted that actually not every outfit is going to fit any woman and its exactly the same for fashion which is designed for thin women. If the average size is a 12, why not design for it clearly a massive target market is being missed here.
Take these designs from Elena Miro Fall 2012 for example, here you have someone designing for larger women but also taking size into account unlike Mark Fast who seemed to create a desgin for a smaller size and put it on a size 12. She's managed to do as I said and look at people's problem/insecurity areas and do something about them and still create something which I think is both beautiful yet stylish for the women.
I think fashion designers and especially students really need to think about size as something that become a real issue and something which could easily be tackled and faced. Brands like Asos have brought out Asos Curve, they understand the market and thats probably the secret behind their success. We need to have less being just aiming for luxury brands and make people realise there is money in other areas of fashion too i.e. highstreet and aiming for a bigger market.
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