, I knew that statistically I had every right to be. Nearly 70 per cent of women wear size 14 or up, and size 18 is the average size; despite those numbers, fashion largely stops at size 12 and plus-size fashion makes up less than a fifth of apparel sales. Translation: Over 100 million plus-size shoppers — including me — are without sufficient clothing options. Three? Not even close to enough.
, you know that our clothing options are mostly dowdy, outdated and cheaply made. If you’re new here, take my very exasperated word for it. Over the years, brands have tried to improve the plus-size shopping space, but few have succeeded in the long run. And don’t get me started on the extensive list of designer brands that haven’t even tried.During my time as an editor, I set out on a quest to uncover why fashion kept missing the mark on this obvious business opportunity.
First, there were issues that our team was able to overcome simply by strategizing, such as the aforementioned absence of investment, a lack of skilled pattern makers due to inadequate education in size-inclusive design, mills that didn’t cut fabrics wide enough for plus-sizes, factories that hadn’t made garments above size 14, retail partners that hadn’t carried significant plus-size assortments in-store and expensive niche-customer acquisition costs.
We had a number of ideas to overcome this hurdle. For starters: Six months ahead of our product launch, we created anto show the brand-building process, opened a private Facebook group wherein community members could interact with one another, sent out educational newsletters in which customers could reply to me directly and held in-person events and focus groups. With these efforts, we wanted to show our customers that Henning would be unlike any shopping experience they’d ever had before.
Another goal of these initiatives was to make our business operate on a two-way street, since another issue that plagues plus-size fashion is that brands don’t often listen to their customers. Throughout the life of the business, we asked them about everything from their trim preferences to bicep measurements to colour choices — and really implemented the feedback — in order to ensure the best product-market fit.