photo by Sharon Alagna Photography
I’m a size 16. Been this size most of my adult life. In high school I was a size 14 or, if my heart was broken that month, a size 12. I was born in this body, handed down to me by my paternal grandmother. And as I look at old photos of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers, we all have one thing in common — the same thick, round ass. This is our family’s legacy. It’s not much but I’m sure proud of it.
All my ancestors came from solid stock — farmer’s daughters from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England via the Netherlands. If you needed a woman to tend to the animals, split firewood, haul stones for a cow pasture fence, birth babies and make sweet love to you in the darkness, that was us. As far as I know, my grandmothers’ ass size never held them back in life or from male attention. But that was back in the day of unflattering dresses and skirts that routinely disguised body parts. It was also a time when women made their own clothes. Deckers, we’re crafty ladies and I’m sure every piece of clothing was custom made custom to fit their ample bottoms. Luckily, I’ve inherited their craftiness but unluckily, not for the sewing arts. So I am forced to buy my clothes in regular department stores, which, as we all know, are not custom fit – especially for big asses.
I’m middle-class so I buy my clothing at department chain stores. Most modern day clothing stores only carry size 0-14. Some, like the evil Abercrombie and Finch, only carry up to size 12. The more realistic thinking stores like The Gap carry up to 16. Its cousin, Old Navy goes up to a size 22! Clothing stores like Lane Bryant that cater to larger women start at a size 16 and end somewhere in the later 20’s. So a size 16 lands right in the middle of two very different size charts and two very different types of chain stores. And you know what happens to those in the middle — they get squeezed or forgotten about.
Having worked in retail for two years at Express (back in the late 80’s when it was cool), I know a little something about retailers’ core customer and it ain’t those of us on the 16 end. Both the below 16’s/above 16’s stores cater their advertising to their ideal customer – oddly enough, the middle-sized ladies. For the below 16’s – it’s the size 6’s to 8’s while the larger size stores pitch to the 20’s to – 22’s. These ladies, however, are never ignored. No matter how many studies come out saying that the average size for a woman in America is 14, these retailers are steadfast in making sure a size 14 is not who they fawned over.
Now, one might deduce that if clothiers consider anyone bigger than an 8 afterthoughts then they also ignore those under a size 6. If you thought that, you’d be wrong because these stores (Banana Republic, for instance) almost always carve out valuable floor space for a PETITE SECTION. Doesn’t matter that every time I go into a BR store, the petite section is virtually empty – they make sure that section is the most up-to-date and stocked with all size. Once, I even saw a size –0 there. Yes, a negative zero. What? Are there women who are inside out?
You’d think a hugely popular brand like BR would recognize the revenue potential in also having a section for the other end of the size chart in their store but they don’t. Instead, their standard line given with a smile to anyone asking is, “You can get it on-line.” Really? Do you know any size 16’s gal that will buy a dress, let alone a pair of jeans on line without trying them on first? Cause I don’t. C’mon!
At one time, Banana Republic did flirt with carrying size 16 in their stores. It lasted only a year and a half. During that time I bought many things and wore most of them out. I’m a huge fan of the brand and of the service, coupons, bonus points, etc. And I was proud of them for carrying the size since so many other stores had refused like Anthropology andH&M. When I go to any of those stores, I can only shop from the waist up because even trying on dresses and skirts, I’m afraid I’ll rip a seam, tear a zipper or pop a button. Sadly, BR yanked all the size 16’s from the stores, which cause me to yank about half of my buying power. I’ll admit once or twice I’ve gotten brave enough to buy a dress on-line but only after I’ve tried on the smaller version in the store and can guess by the unzipped zipper that it will fit. These days, back in the stores, I’ve resigned to accidentally coming across a size 16 that another customer has returned after buying it on-line and discovering the jeans fit weird in the crotch. Getting nice clothes at a great price has turned into a horrible sale section crapshoot, one that I lose most the time.
As far as the above 16’s stores go, I’ve ventured in on many occasion only to be just as disappointed as with the below 16’s stores. They didn’t cater to their smallest sizes (16/18’s) like the below 16’s stores do. In fact, the size 16’s had the smallest selection to buy from. When I did find a size 16, the choices were often blousy, non-form fitting. I guess, to these clothiers as well, the size 16’s just isn’t worth the bother either.
You can tell how much a store understands their customers by looking in the sale section. If there is too much of one particular size in there, you know they aren’t paying attention to the customers buying their clothes. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing a design I like, on sale or in the sale section and only finding it in size 6/8/10’s. Even I, who doesn’t have a fashion degree, can figure out that a majority of customers buying your clothing are size 12 and above or under 6. It also tells me, you aren’t buying enough of size 12/14’s or – if you carry them – 16’s. When I worked at Express, a shipment would come in and I’d count the amount representing each size. Always, the size 12/14’s were in the single digits with quantity, while all others were in the double digitals. This tells me that not only are we not important enough to design for, but even when these chains make an attempt to include us we aren’t even important enough for them to have a – pun intended – large enough supply to go around. This thinking also forces me to pay the higher price for a clothing item because who knows if it’ll be around when it does go on sale. So I guess these chains, while taking our money, want us to feel shame for being the size we are as well as fight over the paltry supply. Or maybe they just think we should be grateful they even make their clothing in our sizes.
Speaking of style, no matter how hard you try to convince me, the below 16’s clothing designs don’t translate to women of a larger size. Yes, Tim Gunn has spoken about this issue recently, but I’ve been yelling about since I bought my first The Limited sweater. You just can’t take a design made for a size 2, size it up to a 16 and think it will work.
A big problem is these chains aren’t thinking past the “naturally thin” or eating-disorder bodies out there. Perfect example of this insane thinking was the debacle LOW-RISE JEAN fad some years ago. Designers and corporate store runners never thought about the stomach rolls most women’s mid-sections have so for three years, the whole world was assaulted with butt cracks and guts sticking out and waving to us as if saying, “Hi, what’s your name?” I personally wore out all my old jeans and pants, re-sewing the area by my crotch where my thighs hit over and over, waiting for low-rise to pass. It was during this time that someone informed me that the majority of designers of female clothing are gay men. I screamed, “How could you gay men?! We fat girls were your only friends in high school! We protected you at lunch. We went to the prom with you knowing we weren’t going to lose our virginity just so you could dance to Depeche Mode. You owe us a pair of pants that fits!!”
Size 16’s have curves that make us women, not androgynous goons. Yes, I know Macy’sand Nordstrom’s carry bigger sizes but that’s not our style. We want to dress in The Gap,Banana Republic, H&M, Anthropology and J. Crew. Why can’t we have the same rights to buy cheap, fad-driven clothing as everyone else? Why can’t we live in a world where people want to design for the average sized women and not have a chip on their shoulders about it? Oh, and we want the clothing designers hired by Target to make sure their designs are actually the size they say they are, not two sizes smaller. Why is it so hard for you to understand that I want a pair of pants that doesn’t give me a camel toe?
I’ve read enough articles about the whole “average size 14” issue to realize that the media thinks women don’t embrace their size but rather are ashamed of it. If you believe that, you are dumb, naïve and a weightist. Stores don’t carry size 16 because they don’t want a larger sized woman representing their brand. Why not? We’d rock your clothes hard and have brand loyalty because you’d made us feel good about ourselves. I’m not ashamed of my size at all. This is the body I was given and I work with it. I’ve seduced men, won awards, made people laugh and been given the heart of my husband – all in this body and with this butt. The only thing that makes all of these accomplishments better is when we put on stylish article of clothing that actually fits.
The only way to make clothing chains pay attention to us size 16’s is to stop buying smaller clothes that don’t fit. To stop buying into the idea that we’ll lose 30 pounds to fit in to that size 12. And to force chain stores to stop thinking of us as an after thought. We need a store that caters to us middles. Because we are worthy and deserve to be treated as such.
