How Women's Clothing Should Have a Larger Size Range
“Admittedly, I’d been wearing a lot of oversized sweaters and jeans because my “dress for the job you want” investments—$500 printed floral maxis, whimsical wrap dresses, and silk button-downs—were now collecting dust in my closet, waiting for my weight to yo-yo back to a size 10 so I could squeeze into them again.” (Lindsay Schallon, 2019)
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“Unhealthy diets are responsible for 11m preventable deaths globally per year, more even than smoking tobacco, according to a major study.”
(Boseley 2019)
Women’s shape nowadays have a larger variety when there are more women with curvy lines. Also, in the modern world, the society is being more diverse and inclusive with women of all sizes, everyone deserves to look good and feel confident in their skin. In the fashion industry, there are two lines of sizes: straight sizes and plus sizes (Nittle, 2019). These two lines of sizes have created a gap in the fashion industry where women in plus sizes have less choice of style than the straight sizes people and also, the sizing is shaping the ideal image of a women is to be smaller and skinnier as well. According to Lindsay Schallon (2019):
“Admittedly, I’d been wearing a lot of oversized sweaters and jeans because my “dress for the job you want” investments—$500 printed floral maxis, whimsical wrap dresses, and silk button-downs—were now collecting dust in my closet, waiting for my weight to yo-yo back to a size 10 so I could squeeze into them again.”
The reason why there are less stylish design that could be made for plus size women in the fashion industry is mainly because of pattern cutting. Pattern cutting for plus size clothing are harder more complicated than straight size clothing since every plus size person has a different measurement. These measurements varies and there is less pattern premade for the plus size garments. The patterns for plus size women are harder to make, in particular, the patterns are harder to be graded. Designers often up size by using a size 8’s measurement and added an additional of -1 to 1 inches to different parts to produce a bigger size garment (The Huntsman 2018). Also, placing the right measurement on the right place on a pattern would benefit the plus size ladies who all have different body shapes. However, this is also a weakness to the plus size fashion designers. The plus size requires different design for each individual to suit well on the clients’ body. Therefore, producing and manufacturing more stylish clothing are more complicated to produce the final product. In the market nowadays, there are mostly black and white simple design clothing for plus size women. These women deserve to be confident and express herself throw her fashion aesthetic rather than just wearing black clothes or running after the beauty standard on social media and try to lose weight in different way. Most women try to lose weight in a faster and unhealthier way. According to The Guardian:
“Unhealthy diets are responsible for 11m preventable deaths globally per year, more even than smoking tobacco, according to a major study.”
(Boseley 2019)
Therefore, there should be more designers who would be willing to step into this industry, be patient and try to be creative. This would help plus size ladies looking more confident and would make them happy.
Women in the modern society should be given the same opportunity to feel confident, to be stylish, to be able to express themselves and to be able to work the job that they want by having the same opportunity to dress stylish and nicely with a more affordable pricing.
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References:
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Boseley, Sarah. 2019. "Bad Diets Killing More People Globally Than Tobacco, Study
Finds". The Guardian.
Nittle, Nadra. 2019. "Why Retailers Overlook Women Who Aren’T Quite Plus Or Straight
Size". Vox.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/12/18222409/retailers-women-in-between-plus-straight-size.
Schallon, Lindsay. 2019. "The Fashion Industry Has A Plus-Size Problem. These Women Want
To Fix It". Glamour.
https://www.glamour.com/story/what-its-like-to-be-plus-size-and-work-in-fashion.
The Huntsman. 2018. "Can We Talk? Designing For Plus Size Bodies Is Different |
Challenges Of Plus Size Fashion Design".
The Huntswoman. https://thehuntswoman.com/can-we-talk-designing-for plus-size-bodies-is-different/.
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