Nice try at justifying

The Real Reason That Ann Taylor Hates Plus Sizes
It has nothing to do with fat phobia.
Posted: Tuesday, June 9, 09 8:00am
By Virginia Postrel

See few story :http://www.doublex.com/section/life/real-reason-ann-taylor-hates-plus-sizes


The malls are empty, and retailers are crying for customers. American women are getting heavier by the day. Yet stores like Ann Taylor and Bloomingdale’s, and lines including Liz Claiborne and Ellen Tracy, are slashing their plus-size offerings—turning away potential sales and generating angry denunciations of “sizeism.”

“I will stop buying at Ann Taylor for anything,” declared commenter Savona in response to this Crain’s New York Business report on the retailer’s decision to eliminate size 16 from its stores, offering the size only online. “If they will not accommodate those who are willing to buy,” she continued, “then they don’t deserve our business for anything else—shoes, accessories, eyewear.”

Commenter Patricia vowed, “I will no longer shop at Ann Taylor until they cut the size 0 and size 2’s.”


Cutting back on larger sizes—or not offering them in the first place—is not only insulting, many people believe; it’s bad business. After all, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, in 2002 the average American woman weighed 164 pounds—nearly what the average man weighed in 1960. Why aren’t retailers serving this growing market? Are they just mean-girl fashionistas?


Cost is also a factor. Because they require more fabric, larger sizes are more expensive to manufacture. “The cost of clothing is disproportionately in the materials and not the labor, due to the shift in production to low-wage countries, which means that it is going to be more expensive to produce clothing for large-sized women, and more resources will be tied up in garments on the racks,” notes Susan Ashdown, a professor in the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design at Cornell and a leading researcher on improving apparel fit. Imagine the fury that would greet prices that went up with dress size.

The statistics also explain why plus-size clothes tend to be less tailored, even though larger women often look more attractive in body-skimming clothes. “You’ll generally see things less styled so each size can fit a slightly larger range of person, and you’ll see more stretch,” says Bruner. Designed to cover a wide range of bodies, a size 22 is thus more like a “medium” than a 10.

None of this analysis makes shopping for large clothes any easier, of course. But it suggests that the trend toward putting bigger sizes online, thus pooling shoppers from all over and turning niche sizes into large markets, makes sense. It isn’t an insult or judgment of personal worth. It’s a practical way to give women with relatively uncommon bodies clothes that might actually fit.