Woman Too Big To Shop At Her Own Clothing Chain

Belle Robinson, owner of UK clothing retailer Jigsaw, tells the Times of London: “We have to get a grip on having created this world where skinny girls are normal.” A size 16, Robinson can’t wear sample sizes from her store.

“Finding clothes that flatter is still a problem,” Robinson, who’s 5’10”, claims. (Remember, she owns a clothing store.) She also says: “I reckon my arms are in proportion with the rest of my body – I know everyone is paranoid about their arms – but I think mine are okay. So why is it that, frequently, I can’t get my arm into the sleeve of a jacket, or the armholes are too tight?”

The piece by Anita Chaudhuri notes:

[Robinson’s] not letting her own label off the hook, either. “I think we did lose our size-16 customers for a bit, but we’ve had a design rethink and, thankfully, we’ve got them back again.”

Interestingly, in a comment on the article, a reader named Jane Hawke wrote:

This makes me furious. I have been everything between a size 10 and an 18 and unless I’m closer to 10 I am unable to shop at Jigsaw which focuses almost exclusively on fashion for thin people. To find out that the owner is unable to wear the clothes her own company produces is ridiculous. This is what the majority of British women have to put up with and Belle Robinson herself is one of the reasons we do.

Of course, British fashion chains aren’t the only ones that often exclude larger sizes. It seems obvious that the clothing manufacturers lose money by not being able to accommodate certain customers. But hopefully Belle Robinson will push for more styles and sizes at her own store — she can’t even wear the lovely dress above, since 14 is the largest size available.