TikTok user and beauty influencer Nikki Apostolou posted a video on TikTok in September 2020 about her experience shopping at David's Bridal, a corporate wedding dress company. She posted another video in May that got more than half of a million views and eighty thousand likes.
Apostolou found multiple dresses on the company’s website that she wanted to try on in the store. Upon arrival, the stylist she originally had an appointment with was switched with an older, plus size woman. Apostolou said she believes this is fat profiling.
“[Fat profiling] basically means that when you enter a store or you go anywhere, [a] doctor's office, and they look at you, and they adjust their attitude or their service based on your size,” Apostolou explained to her viewers. “Just because I’m plus size doesn’t mean I need a plus size woman helping me,” She said.
Because of the shift to a different stylist, Apostolou said she failed to feel her aesthetic was understood. Apostolu claimed the stylist pinned extra pieces of fabric onto the dress straps to cover her shoulders, and said that the dresses they gave her were “atrocious.”
“We are a brand that values love, joy, celebration and inclusivity above all,” David’s Bridal said in response to the claims. “We are proud to offer inclusive sizing in our wedding dress collection ranging from 0-30W. To create the most flattering styles, our exclusive design team has developed proprietary fit technology that is modeled off thousands and thousands of women.”
The fashion industry has been accused of creating clothes for plus size women that are out of trend.
Tim Gunn’s Washington Post editorial titled “Designers refuse to make clothes to fit American women. It’s a disgrace.” identified many problems in plus size fashion. He notes that close to ninety percent of women would purchase more clothes if trendier options are available.
Ryan Jacobs, a rising sophomore at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City majoring in fashion business management, said she has seen the lack of fashionable options available to plus size women.
“Not every plus size person thinks the same. Nobody thinks the same,” Jacobs said. “I don’t think that it’s wrong for a plus size person to want to wear a crop-top. I think that’s fine, and if it compliments them and if they like it, I don’t see the problem with it. I don’t think that you should cut the shorts longer just because [the industry thinks] they don’t need to show their stomach.”
Jacobs said she has seen several improvements with brands’ inclusivity to plus sizes.
“I feel like definitely brands have tried to like, you know, up-it-up with the style and stuff like that and make stuff more appealing and more in style,” Jacobs said. “But I think [the fashion industry] still has work to do.”
Makenzie Nero, a high school student with an interest in fashion,said she notices persistent problems that plus size women face, despite attempts to be more inclusive.
“When [designers] make these clothes, and you know you put them on and stuff, you kind of just aren't feeling yourself,” Nero said. “When I say that, I mean, am I supposed to wear these clothes that I don't really feel cute in because they cover me up and because I look modest in them? Am I not supposed to wear the clothes that I feel myself in and that I feel confident in, even though it shows a little more body?”
Nero said she believes women should be proud of how they look and explore fashion as a way to express themselves in a body positive way. However, Nero said she believes that the fashion industry has been slow to embrace this perspective.
“I think [the fashion industry creates conservative clothing] because they feel like we shouldn’t show our body off,” Nero says. “They think that it's weird, and they think that we shouldn’t be proud of what we have on our body. They think that we shouldn’t be proud of our stretch marks, or our pudge, or our chubbiness. Or maybe it’s not even that. Maybe it’s just they don’t want to see it. Maybe they don’t want to see our body like that. Maybe they want to see our body all covered up.”
Summertime can be a particular concern for plus size women.
“Summertime is coming up,” Nero said. “Ain’t nobody got time to be wearing blue jeans, black jeans, long-sleeved shirts. People want to wear shorts. People want to wear tank tops,”
Nero said that she believes that clothes made for plus size women are not what she would consider to be on-trend.
“I feel like [the fashion industry] deteriorates their trends. I feel like what they do sometimes is once [women] get to a certain size, [the industry] just don’t care,” Nero said. “They just put stuff out there that won’t even look right on someone. Or [fashion designers] put stuff out there that’s not meant to really flatter someone’s body.”
Plus size fashion accounts for more than twenty billion dollars in sales annually and is the fastest growing segment of clothing sales according to The Business of Business. Retailers could see an increase of sales by catering to the needs of plus size women to greater fashion forward options.
“My body is different from yours. Your body is different from hers.” Nero said. “Her body is different from the next. So it's not okay to just put us all in this one bubble.”