Fashion Labels for a long time have been focusing on designing and creating clothing for the ideal “barbie doll” look figure. When you look at their runaway shows, websites, and social media accounts, the people representing their clothes are close to perfect regarding their body structure and weight. Whether it be fast fashion or luxury fashion, both for the majority of the time focus on producing small sizes of clothing or ones that only flatter a particular body shape. While over the years many fashion labels have tried to improve this practice by adding more sizes to their products or having models look more “average” looking, the fashion industry is still known for its exclusivity with its lack of selections for all types of bodies. Social media contributes to this issue by promoting the societal standards for the ideal body type to be “fashionable”. This then leads to body dysmorphia and other body image disorders targeted to the non “barbie” looking individuals.
When focusing on the U.S, 14 being the average size for Americans supports the need for bigger sizes in the fashion industry. According to the NPD Group “the women’s plus-size market accounts for almost 19 percent of the entire U.S. women’s apparel sales, which was worth $113.8 billion, for the 12 months ending May 2021”(Ell, 1). Excluding such a big part of the U.S population from fashion, labels are not only unethical but remove a valuable investment for companies to gain more profit. With the large number of U.S individuals being a more significant size regarding their clothing, fashion companies creating plus sizes could become a successful and working sector. I believe part of this issue is because the fashion industry does not have a standard sizing chart to place plus sizes. Most companies have a sizing chart that they create based on the number of sizes they produce.
Social media also plays a big role in how we view and interpret the fashion industry. Luxury fashion “has been excluding masses of people from their brands. This exclusion has caused many people to feel out of place or unworthy”(Garbar,1 ). This exclusion affects a big range of individuals, especially in countries where people tend to wear bigger size clothing like the United States. In luxury clothing, there is already an exclusion towards socio-economic classes so adding another exclusion toward plus sizes adds more sense of unworthiness. Adding more plus sizes in the luxury fashion industry can help improve this exclusion and can make it fairer for people who have the financial component of purchasing a particular product but just need the bigger size. Further, expanding sizing within the luxury industry “would enable all people, regardless of size, to be able to enjoy well-made luxury pieces that make them feel confident”(Garbar,1 ). Having access to clothing makes one feel confident is such an important factor to have to feel confident in other aspects of life like work and social events.
I believe if we can improve the way society thinks about the perfect body size, we can see more acceptance towards all body types. Social media can definitely help with this if individuals, whether it be models, influencers, designers or even just normal human beings, show and speak out how someone’s body size should not matter or determine whether or not they can dress fashionably. If we can get a bigger demand for plus sizes, fashion labels will see this as an opportunity for a new target market to focus on. Understanding that both men and women come in different sizes and that they will feel their best when wearing clothes made for their body type is such an important fact to know and understand. The fashion industry needs to see this unethical behavior as an opportunity for them to become businesses and expand financially.
Sources
Ell, Kellie. “The Growing plus-Size Market Faces Itty-Bitty Assortments and Lack of Options.” WWD, 18 Aug. 2021, https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/the-growing-plus-size-market-faces-itty-bitty-assortments-and-lack-of-options-1234881354/.
Garbar, Jake. “Fashion's plus-Size Problem: Here's Why Size Diversity in Luxury Brands Matters.” The Daily Targum, https://dailytargum.com/article/2022/02/fashions-plus-size-problem-heres-why-size-diversity-in-luxury-brands-matters.
From a financial operations standpoint, fast fashion companies that mass produce clothing products likely stick to the most popular sizes that make up for the majority of sales. Manufacturing clothing for less popular body types would likely not be worth it in terms of money from these companies. Just food for thought.