The Advertising of Plus-Sized Clothing
Plus size mannequins at a Target location. Photo from Philip Pessar via Flickr
The plus-sized clothing market is a $250.5 billion industry. With more companies introducing plus-sized options, these clothing options have become more available than ever.
However, with the rise in the advertisement of plus-sized clothing, there has been a backlash over the marketing of such items. While some modern-day responses to plus-sized clothing are coming from a place of being against obesity, this attitude stems from a history where body-bigger sizes were to perpetuate the othering of people of color. While plus-size clothing and plus-size body types are not seen widely as a racial issue today, it is still a continuation of the beliefs stemming from a racial history of health standards in the U.S.
Whether or not people know this important historical context, the issue is further compounded by the lack of a cohesive system for clothes sizing and a misunderstanding of what self-acceptance is in body images. The backlash towards plus-sized clothing is a misguided attack on a strawman argument based on discriminatory beliefs.
Back in 2019, a Nike mannequin was cited by an article in The Telegraph with statements like “I fear that the war on obesity is lost, or has even, as is fashionable, ceased to exist, for fear of upsetting people into an early grave.” In 2022, Abercrombie had an Instagram post featuring plus-sized models. The comments under this post were mixed, with some saying, “You look FABULOUS,” “Perfect model” and “Beautiful,” while others said, “You are irrelevant now for a reason. Keep speeding headlong into oblivion,” “You guys are trying too hard” and more outright hateful messages.
Understanding what is considered a plus-sized piece of clothing is hard to define since there’s no universal metric for measuring clothes. According to the fashion blog Technology Advanced Applied Service, the most common for measuring sizes is that all sizes between a zero and a 10 gain an inch in diameter per size, while anything 11 and above gain anywhere from an inch and a half to two inches per size. Despite this being the most common form of sizing, it’s not a standardized system, with stores being able to select their increases between sizes and choosing what a size zero represents. While this is an unreliable metric, it’s the best way to explain plus-sized clothing.
Using the definition presented by Statista, plus-sized clothing is any piece of clothing labeled as being over a size twelve. The same source also reports that around 67% of women in America wear a twelve size and above, meaning that a large portion of the country is already wearing plus-sized clothing.
This adds to the confusion of the backlash against plus-sized clothing. If many people are already wearing larger clothing, then why shame it? The most common argument against the rise in plus-sized clothing is that the advertisements of such products are “promoting obesity.” However, as Gianluca Russo of NYLON writes, “Under troll logic, plus-size models and influencers showcasing love for their bodies is, in and of itself, promoting obesity, as they’re allowing fatness to not only exist but to flourish. However, this mindset is ignorant of the message at hand.”
Obesity itself has several causes, but the most notable one, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), is a genetic factor. While diet, exercise and sleep all have a factor in obesity, different genetic aspects can increase a person’s food intake and hunger naturally, leading to a person gaining more weight. However, the reasoning behind the distaste for the self-acceptance of simple genetics is based on a long history of discrimination.
As an article published in the National Library Of Medicine states, “Historically, Black bodies have endured problematic representation,” with the example of Saartjie Baartmen, who was an enslaved Black woman of size “for white people to gawk at and touch for their own amusement.” The article further argues that in addition to race, gender and class oppression, the plus-sized shape of these enslaved women was used as another way to other enslaved Black women, which is one of the earliest recorded moments of systematic causes of fatphobia. This is not to call those who are opposed to plus-sized clothing racist but to call out the racist origin of fatphobia that should be grappled with.
The backlash surrounding plus-sized advertisements goes beyond the physical aspect of the people being advertised to. Acknowledging this combination that leads to the backlash of plus-sized advertisements allows for a more honest view of what plus-sized advertisements are truly trying to do: sell clothes to people who want to wear clothes without being judged.