Fashion brands must quickly reevaluate their sizing approach if they don't want to lose billions of dollars in the future.
Imagine a woman with a sense of style and money who can't find a clothing store that suits her and is unable to buy anything that she finds sexy, fun, or attractive. After all, such clothes are produced only in strictly defined sizes. All things of non-standard sizes are sold only in specialized stores, which are usually far from the world of fashion and offer, in general, a rather boring assortment.
But there are millions of such women. According to Euromonitor, in the US alone they represent 42% consumers who could spend up to $46.4 billion on clothing annually. In this case, we are not necessarily talking about overweight women, but about those who have a non-standard figure, for example, very tall or, conversely, with a small stature. That is, many potential consumers cannot buy fashionable clothes for themselves only for the reason that brands simply ignore their requests, creating collections designed exclusively for certain standards.
All this means only one thing - it's time for fashion brands to reconsider their policies. And new players are already beginning to appear on the market, such as Universal Standard and ThirdLove, which are ready to provide clothes for women with a wide variety of figures, presenting the widest range of sizes. And even retailers like target or Nordstrom are actively working in this direction, expanding the range of offered sizes and changing marketing strategies. Many analysts believe that this approach is the future of the industry. And brands that do not have time to adapt to new realities are at great risk.
We live in a time of global redefinition of the relationship between brands and consumers. And this will be especially noticeable in the fashion world. And while many brands, especially those in the high fashion world, are still not ready to accept the fact that there are many different body types in the world, the most progressive and trend-setting brands are betting on diversity and taking into account the needs of real buyers. And in the end they win.
Moreover, modern buyers are actively demanding from manufacturers (and in the era of the development of social networks their voice is becoming more and more audible) not only to take into account the interests of those who buy non-standard sizes, but also to expand the very concept of the norm. In this approach, plus sizes do not stand out as a separate segment that requires a separate approach to design and marketing, but are part of a general market where manufacturers separate women by their personality and personality, and not by clothing size.
Shoppers actively support retailers who do not divide store space according to size, do not force obese women to choose clothes in separate spaces or search only for certain brands, place mannequins with different body types side by side and broadcast such ideas in their marketing campaigns.
And even such a problem as an increase in the cost of production, which is often not designed for a wide size range (namely, manufacturers often refer to this) turns out to be not so relevant in reality. After all, the resulting profit significantly covers the costs, not to mention the invaluable loyalty of customers whose needs have not been satisfied for a long time.
