We Want Cute Plus Size Clothes, and We Fucking Want Them Yesterday
LatestI make fun of ModCloth on the regular; it’s kind of impossible not to. At times, their sheer tweeness is enough to make Lisa Frank look like Axl Rose, and there are only so many bespectacled cats you can fit on one outfit. But I have a (truly adorable) secret. The same day I wrote this article, I ordered this, this, and this. Because you know what? I want to put a fucking bird on it, too.
Yes, that’s correct. I want to wear adorable shit — and so do a lot of women above a size 10. According to the CDC, the average American woman is 5 foot 4, 167 pounds, and has a 37-inch waist — roughly a size 14. Yet most designer styles top out around size 12. ModCloth has recently become cognizant of this fact, and their plus-size business is booming because of it. Within eight months of introducing their hefty hideaway collections (not what they’re called) (but what they should be called), plus sizes represented 8% of their revenue.
Money talks, and thunder thighs walk straight into cuter clothes:
ModCloth found that new plus-size customers spend 25% more per order, buy 17% more items per order than regular-sized shoppers, and are 66% more likely to spread the ModCloth gospel via social media. The San Francisco-based retailer is now including large fashion models alongside slim ones in fashion shoots and investing in a specialized team to train clothing brands to make fashionable styles in big sizes.
“We think plus sizes could be even bigger than our regular sizes,” ModCloth’s plus-size category manager, Samara Fetto, told the Wall Street Journal. “Our small-medium-large customer has other options for retailers who can steal a portion of her wallet. For plus, her options are much more limited.”