Comments on: Designing clothes for plus size women

By: Sara Miller

Sara Miller — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 12:46:27 +0000

Hi,
yes, There are a few considerations to make when making for plus size women. The fit changes completely. What I mean is the whole way the paper pattern is drawn to cut the fabric is of a different shape as compared to size 0. Shoulders are made to look bigger and the waist is made to look smaller.

By: Men’s vs Women’s: Plus size apparel

Men’s vs Women’s: Plus size apparel — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:27:24 +0000

[...] a fit model. Also, we are usually (often) not our own customer. Which is why this conversation and others similar to it (read the comments), are useful. Why can’t the “suit showroom” business model be used for [...]

By: Carol Kimball

Carol Kimball — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:32:37 +0000

Short of a custom corset, several times more expensive than a good bra (which might also need to be custom-made), you’re right, strapless is not a good option for you.

It’s unfair that quality designs of quality fabrics can’t be produced for WalMart prices. It’s unfair that larger sizes are disproportionately expensive (Kathleen has written a number of posts addressing this issue). There are no solutions to this. However, it IS possible to make the patterns and construct the garments to address this niche.

There are some knits that are supple without being too clingy. They are also expensive and difficult to find as yardage. I’ve worked with a so-called calico, a hemp/rayon/silk blend (going back to where the fabric was originally manufactured, so-called Calcutta) that was a lightweight, firmly woven fabric that draped beautifully. It took fiber-reactive dyes extremely well. It also didn’t grow with wear in heat/humidity, the bane of some otherwise-satisfactory-heavier-weight rayons.

By: Kylie

Kylie — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:54:08 +0000

As a plus-sized woman I tend to look for thicker cloth, sometimes the flimsy jersey material hugs too close to my body and shows more than I’d like it to.

Structure is key, anything without shape or too boxy looks ridiculous on me. I find that strapless items are useless to me because, like a lot of plus sized girls, I have enormous breasts and have not found a strapless bra that actually works for me and so I want a good thickish strap to my dresses and tank tops generally so that I don’t have issues with my straps poking out.

No One Wants To Wear Pastel Ditsy Florals. NO ONE. I feel most discouraged when I open up a catalog or step into a store and it looks like they took all the fabrics not even your great grandma wanted to wear and cut them into big sheaths for us bigger gals. I have more personal style than most of my skinny friends, and yet in order to express it, I have to pay more money and go to ridiculously extreme lengths to even try to satisfy my hunger for fashion. Even the most trendy and exciting plus sized stores and labels leave me wanting so much more.

By: Kate Ferrett

Kate Ferrett — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:02:26 +0000

Okay, I hope you’re still checking these comments Bernadette.

My biggest peeve as a plus size girl (I’ve been up to a size 24 but am currently size 16) is the cup size issue. In my life, I’ve never met a plus size girl with B-Cups) even though someone mentioned it above.

I think it’s fair to say that once you get past size 8 (US)/size 12 (Aust) bust size increases at least cup a size. I find it laughable when I go into “Plus Size” gal shops and the blouses are still cut to a B-cup. I’m a 16-18 DD (38-40 DD/E) and they never fit properly.

It can be done (ie, make cups larger). Designer Anthea Crawford up-sizes the the cup as the style gets larger.

I’m begging you to think about that it your design.

Oh, and also, no horrible synthetic crepe fabrics and no hibiscus flowers. They’re just tacky, tacky, tacky!

By: Lisa B. in Portland

Lisa B. in Portland — Sat, 30 May 2009 01:32:00 +0000

Don’t forget the women who fall into plus-sized clothing because they’re big-boned and not overweight…

It seems most plus-sized clothing is ugly and made for really old ladies (no offense to really old ladies). And I hate seeing people wearing shirts with that horizontal bust seam in totally the wrong place!

As an example in historical costumes, an Elizabethan era bodice can be made to have several points to lace it up, cf, cb, side, and shoulders, so it can be adjusted and evened out at multiple places, but this would be for rtw and not custom and it wouldn’t be exactly authentic.

(This really good art site has paintings by era, nationality, and artist’s name, if you’re interested in looking. http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/ )

By: andrea

andrea — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:07:51 +0000

I think plus sized people need better stiched clothing ,bigger sizes, and loooooonnnngger shirts (noone makes long enough shirts) please make longer shirts i hate going shopping !

By: Sandra B

Sandra B — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:21:11 +0000

I’ve had a longstanding interest in plus sizing, because for most of my youth I was in that region. I didn’t actually shrink, the market caught up with me! and now I fit in the top end of mainstream quite nicely. However, not finding anything nice to wear is a real motivator to get a girl into fashion design. I never got anywhere with my own range, (hate selling) but I sure learnt a lot, and I now feel quite confident with the patterns and sizing. I’m consulting to a dummy manufacturer to get the shape right for the plus size figures they have orders for, and it’s quite interesting to see how although all the measurements match the spec, the shape is all wrong. The shape needs to be an in-between shape, not a representation of a specific figure but similar to most, because it’s likely this dummy will be the one that ends up as the default plus size shape for the Australian market. I’ve taken the view that the shoulder and neck region is crucial (everything else can be padded out) so I need to get a shape that is an average of all possibilities. So far so good, although I should have taken a photo and got some opinions from F-I readers. 20-20 hindsight
I do like the idea of allowances for alterations, but to be realistic, it’s more for fine tuning than resizing. And I’d like to see it on all garments. I would have bought a really cute dress today if the dart allowance on the front hadn’t been cut away. I needed that extra width.

By: Bernadette

Bernadette — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:27:58 +0000

Thanks so muc for your reponses ladies, all comments are being taken on board.

By: Arnikka

Arnikka — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:34:19 +0000

Kudos to you for the thoughtful reply! As a plus size woman, I personally prefer for my clothing to be “just right” in terms of fit. My personal belief has always been that if the size tag in a particular garment bothers me so much—I’ll just cut the darn tag out! Better to have properly fitting garments than appeal to my own ego and look like a fool to everyone else. I am not alone in this belief among other plus size women.

Sometimes people know that there should be some inquiries made, but they don’t know the questions that they should ask. The person who sent the email was dead on in terms of being concerned that various fit issues might require attention BUT in some aspects these issues are of no greater significance than any of the fit issues that might need to be addressed when dressing a real human body regardless of the proportions.

One of the smartest concepts that I have seen in the plus size sector has been the slow realization by certain companies(Lane Bryant readily comes to mind) that plus size women don’t come in one particular body shape. I think for a smaller company, it might be more advantageous to carve out their own niche by either catering to a particular shape or somehow being able to offer a customized fit.