Dressing Women
Of a Certain Size
August 21, 2008; Page D1
The average woman's size in the U.S. approximates a 14, but fashion designers generally don't make anything larger than a size 12. It doesn't take an economist to see that supply is out of kilter with demand for large-size designer duds.
This is precisely the opportunity that Tadashi Shoji saw when he began offering his collections in sizes up to 24. "It's money dangling in front of your eyes," he says.
Mr. Shoji is best known for svelte eveningwear of the sort that he'll show on the runway during New York fashion week next month.
Tadashi collection cocktail dresses and gowns tend to be figure-flattering, with gathers called ruching, darts and shutter pleats coyly masking all manner of flaws. These designs often show up on celebrities, helping to generate Mr. Shoji's high-end reputation.
He says, grinning, that the queen-size version of his Tadashi collection now accounts for about $5 million of Tadashi Shoji & Associates Inc.'s $60 million in annual revenue.
Queen Latifah is a frequent customer. Although her weight fluctuates, she is generally a size 16, he says. Phone calls to the representatives of the singer and actress weren't returned.
Where do you find well-made, stylish clothes in sizes that fit you? What do you need that you're not finding? Discuss.
I've spent months asking people in the fashion industry why large sizes are so rare. Designer Elie Tahari explained last year that it's expensive to offer bigger sizes, which require more fabric, as well as special patterns and a separate "fit" model, a model whose standard proportions are used to fit the clothes.
Mr. Tadashi, however, says large women are willing to pay extra for designer duds. His queen-size dresses retail for roughly $350 to $800, about 10% to 15% more than his standard sizes.
Perhaps more important, fashion-industry people are often fixated on their own ideals of beauty. Many designers just don't want to see their clothes on big people -- and many stores are complicit, displaying tiny sizes and keeping larger ones in back. Paige Adams-Geller, a former fit model for many high-end jeans manufacturers, told me in March that she urged designers to consider how their clothes would look on a woman who wore, for instance, a size 10.
"And the designer would say, 'Well, I don't want someone who is that size,' " she said, " 'They shouldn't be wearing my brand.' " Ms. Adams-Geller turned that into a profitable business, Paige Premium Denim, selling jeans for up to size 28 -- or "4X." "I'm like, there's a lot of people out there that size with money to spend," she said.
Sometimes, what fashion calls "plus" size seems out of sync with real life. I recently received an email from a "plus-size" model who noted that she wears a size 8 pant. That's my size. Gulp.
When Denise Brodey came on board as editor-in-chief of Fitness magazine two years ago, she began demanding that the magazine use real-size models. The magazine, she says, "was not a reflection of what's going on in the world out there."
At first, she says, Fitness struggled to find clothes since the designer samples were all too tiny for the new models. "The only thing that really works is shoes and handbags," says Celeste Brown-Wright, the magazine's fashion director.
But Ms. Brown-Wright says she now relishes working with women who devour pizza during fashion shoots. "They smile!" she says.
The first time I came across Tadashi Shoji's plus-size gowns, I was visiting myShape.com, an online retailer with an innovative sales approach: They take women's measurements and suggest clothing to fit. MyShape uses real women as models -- in every shape, size, age and color. They had a warehouse rack full of Mr. Shoji's big-size gowns.
Evans Vestal Ward for The Wall Street Journal
Cocktail dress on model Nancy Kruse is adjusted by Tadashi Shoji.
Mr. Shoji employs a size-18 fit model named Nancy Kruse to come to his Los Angeles studio several times a week for fittings. Because his "queen-size" garments are based on her proportions, she's careful to keep her measurements -- 48-39-48 -- from fluctuating. "You can screw up someone's company if you go up and down all the time," Ms. Kruse says. The model, who drives a shiny, white BMW, says she has a don't-ask-don't-tell deal with her doctor: "If I hear my weight, I'll want to lose weight and then I'll be poor."
Mr. Shoji trained as an artist in Japan before coming to the U.S. to make his fortune in fashion. He began making queen-size gowns about five years ago, after buyers from Saks asked if he'd be willing to make certain items from his collections in bigger sizes. Today, they're sold in the plus-size departments of stores that include Saks and Bloomingdale's, along with big-size garments from Anne Klein, Ellen Tracy, Harari, and Magaschoni.
Mr. Shoji adjusts the garments to offer more coverage for wide bra straps, less plunging necklines and extra coverage for the upper arms. Shoulder pads are often wider to de-emphasize hips.
He has ordered a garment-dummy custom-made to Ms. Kruse's dimensions to use for fittings when she isn't available.
The clothes are cut and sewn in Shanghai, where it has proved difficult to find a fit model with voluptuous curves. Hence, Mr. Shoji purchased shapely hip and breast pads at Frederick's of Hollywood and shipped them to Shanghai for the factory's model.
"Certain people have said, 'This is not our image,' " says Mr. Shoji. "But I said, 'We can sell it -- why not? ... We aren't doing art -- this is commerce.' "
Because I'm a little vague as to what the first size to be plus size is,if any of that makes sense (probably not)
