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What Is Plus Size? PLUS Model Magazine’s January 2014 Issue Bridging The PLUS Divide

What is ‘Plus Size’?

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As PLUS Model Magazine continues to grow, more and more people are asking us the question. What is ‘Plus Size’?

In the fashion industry, plus size clothing begins at a size 12.

Of course, when you see a woman that wears a size 12 you are not thinking PLUS SIZE, but the fashion industry is ‘not’ also inclusive of her all the time.

The HOT TOPIC in 2013 was model sizes. I’m a size 22/24 woman and I find it VERY difficult to shop online because most of the models are very small. Years ago when I started my career in this industry there were models size 18 on the cover of catalogs and being seen in campaigns.

Scan 2Scan

As the brands continue to compete for our dollars and mainstream acceptance, they have been hiring and asking the modeling agencies for smaller and smaller models. There are brands that do not use plus size models at all and occasionally will use a size 10 or 12.

We do not understand why an industry that is based around selling to plus size women refuses to be SEEN as such. There may be people inside of these companies that love, and are passionate about selling to the plus size woman, but if what we are seeing is not speaking to the customer, then why do it?

In a survey taken by PLUS Model Magazine in 2010 the customers spoke out.

  • 1,722 women took the survey
  • 91.3% of women said they would like to see models larger than size 12 in plus size advertisements and campaigns.
  • 94.8% of women said they did not consider size 6, 8 and 10 models to be representative of the plus size market.
  • 64.5% of women said the size of the model affects the way they shop.

Check out all the results here

If you are a brand or designer offering plus size clothing, you should be proud of that and cater to your customer and stop being so scared of being seen as different, we are not.

So what is plus-size? Plus size is relative to each individual. You can be a size 12, 16, 24 or 32 and we are all plus-size and that is perfectly okay. To the size 12 customers who cannot buy off the rack at their favorite boutique, they ARE plus size. If you are the size 22 woman who has to visit the 7th floor of her local department store, she is plus-size. No one knows what it’s like to be plus-size, unless you are a plus size woman living in today’s society.

The reason we put this issue together was to Bridge The PLUS Divide. Let’s stop the hate between the smaller plus size women and the bigger plus size women. We are all in this together and if we do not focus on those things that matter, we will not have an industry to talk about at all.

We hope you enjoy the January 2014 Issue of PLUS Model Magazine going LIVE on 1st.

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