Thursday, November 29, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
 |
| Lisa Alpern-Cucinotta, courtesy of beautypluspower.com |
It wasn't a trip to Jerusalem, the Ganges River or Mecca. No, the plus-size fashionista, then 25, had arrived for the first time at the altar of Torrid at the Garden State Plaza.
Alpern-Cucinotta, a Washington Township native with a degree in design, found herself strapped for clothing options. She had always been a "curvy girl," usually wearing sizes 12 and 14 available in mainstream stores. Though she lived in the limbo between "straight" sizes and plus sizes for a long time, a few extra pounds gained in college put her squarely into the plus-size category.
She thought she would never be able to find trendy clothes again. Plus-size fashions in the early 2000s were, in her eyes, disappointingly dowdy and unflattering. But the selection of clothes at Torrid was different.
"Here were the funny, funky T-shirts that any twentysome-thing girl wants to wear," she said. "They had sexy skirts and sexy shirts. I have never been that excited. I probably took 45 things in the dressing room and spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars."
Plus sizes online
Here are some online options for plus-size apparel.
• Alight.com: The online boutique now has a brick-and-mortar presence in Long Island (998B Old Country Road, Plainview).
• Alloy.com: The Web store serves up extended sizes in jeans, with inseams up to 37 inches.
• Beautypluspower.com: This site links to trendy items that are hard to find, like wide boots. Also see the blog at beautypluspower.blogspot.com.
• Fashionoverdose.com: With an icon featuring a crowned skull and rose garlands, this is not your mother's plus-size clothing line. The fashions skew young and fun.
• Kiyonna.com: The closest stores that carry Kiyonna brand clothing are Herban Legend in Hammonton (Atlantic County) and Lee Lee's Valise in Brooklyn.
• SizeAppeal.com: "Be Bold and Sexy Because You Can" is the motto of this line for plus-size women. The collection specializes in party wear.
A fashion desert
Although the demand for plus-size fashion has been growing for at least a decade, many women like Alpern-Cucinotta are still wandering in a fashion desert -- especially when shopping brick-and-mortar stores. Specialty stores are still a tiny minority in shopping centers, and mainstream clothing retailers never seem to have room in their stores for special sizes.
"They simply don't carry the sizes we're looking for," said Christine Alt, a plus-size model who does consulting for Lane Bryant's newly renamed catalog line Woman Within.
Can plus-size women ever find well-designed, quirky clothes that fit their bodies and their personalities? Or are they doomed to shop at a handful of specialty stores?
The answer may be at the click of a mouse. For those who eschew the commute and crave variety, cyberspace may be the new dressing room. Web site portals dedicated to plus-size fashion like beautyplus power.com -- founded by Alpern-Cucinotta after her Torrid adventure -- direct you to deals online and smaller plus-size lines that haven't made it to the malls, advertising their friendly phone and Internet sales services. There are blogs, bulletin boards and countless shopping Web sites that collect the best of the trendy plus brands.
"The Internet is a great sales channel for niche markets because of the laser-like marketing accuracy it provides," said Scott Silverman, spokesman for online retailer network shop.org.
According to projections by Silverman's organization, 10 percent of all clothing sales -- plus-size, regular or otherwise -- are expected to occur online this year. Apparel, accessories and footwear sales reached $18.3 billion in 2006 and are expected to hit $22.1 billion in 2007, a figure that surpasses online sales of computers for the first time in history.
 |
| Image courtesy of keepitoff.blogs.com. |
"With more and more designers realizing that the majority of American women are plus size, the fashions have gotten hipper, cooler and much more accessible," said Alt.
Bigger sizes online
Because they are able to ship products from warehouses for online sales, mainstream retail companies also are widening their range. The youth apparel store American Eagle, for example, sells XXL and sizes 16 and 18 only on its Web site, ae.com. Ann Taylor Loft goes up to size 18 online at anntaylorloft.com.
Alpern-Cucinotta added that plus-size women can do a lot better at a mall nowadays than five years ago. "There is a current trend in body consciousness, in more form-fitting clothing," she said.
Teens are still out of luck, she said, but new lines like Fashion Overdose (fashionoverdose.com) are starting to fulfill their needs online.
It's just in time, apparently, since the next segment of the population that increasingly needs plus-size apparel may be juniors and children. The CDC reports 17.4 percent of Americans ages 12 to 19 are overweight; so are 18.8 percent of those ages 6 to 11 and 13.9 percent of children ages 2 to 5.
"Every third dress we make is for a plus-sized child," said Marge Hyland, formerly of Morris County. Hyland's company, Pegeen .com, tailors formalwear for children. Now based in Florida, she creates perfect fits for young girls by sending out a bodice pattern to the customer for a trial fitting before making the dress.
"A girl might feel like she can't be in a wedding party because she's too big," said Hyland. "It's horrible. ... All little girls want to feel like a princess."
An additional problem for girls now is early development, she added. Girls who develop adult-sized bosoms at 9 or 10 have a difficult time finding a good fit, especially when they are only about 4 feet tall.
Plus sizes for kids, too
While Hyland provides a tailoring service, children's clothing company Gymboree has online-only slim and plus sizes for everyday clothing. JC Penney offers "junior pluses," and Limited Too has "half sizes" in stores. The trend has pushed up to teen brands like Aeropostale and American Eagle -- but in both cases, extended sizes are only online.
 |
| Lee Lee's Valise, courtesy of leeleesvalise.com. |
While shopping recently at a plus-size boutique in Brooklyn, Lee Lee's Valise (leeleesvalise.com), Alpern-Cucinotta had an illuminating experience. She noticed that thin women who were attracted by the window display were walking into the store -- only to be disappointed when they discovered there was nothing in their size.
"It's usually the other way around," she said with a chuckle.
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment