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On the plus side: Sizes 14 and up are finally getting the full fashion-forward treatment
Sunday, November 14, 1999 By LaMont Jones, Post-Gazette Fashion Writer
Most people who aspire to professional modeling never sign with a major agency, let alone attain couturier catwalks and magazine covers. So it was a coup for Sarah Boags to win a contract with the prestigious Wilhelmina agency three years ago and go on to grace the November 1998 cover of Mode magazine and the fall 1999 cover of Girl.
Unless you're familiar with those magazines, the image you're probably seeing now is all wrong. Boags, a 25-year-old beauty from California, is not among the ranks of reed-thin women who gobble up the lion's share of prestigious modeling jobs and six-figure contracts. Whether you call her "plus size" or "full figured," Boags is among the millions of American women who wear size 14 or larger and who historically have been excluded from fashion modeling and relegated to designer afterthoughts. Poise and beauty didn't matter.
That reality -- or the perception of it -- caused Boags to doubt her chances of becoming a model. Then, five years ago, a friend of her mother told her about pluz-size modeling "and a dream came true." She began modeling professionally the following year, signed a contract with Wilhelmina a year later and moved to New York City the next year.
Appearing on the cover of Mode, a magazine specifically for plus-size women, within a year of that was "the most euphoric feeling," she said. "It was bliss. I couldn't believe it. I cried. I've never felt such joy in my life."
And although Boags, who is 5 feet 9 and wears size 14, still sometimes has trouble finding stylish plus-size clothes, she's encouraged by the progress she's seen.
"Fashion designers are starting to realize that plus-size women want to look just as provocative and just as trendy and just as sensual as everyone else," she said.
Indeed, things are changing across the nation, including in Pittsburgh, which has a number of stores that offer chic and contemporary clothes mainly in plus sizes. There are many Lane Bryant stores -- part of a 730-store national plus-size chain -- in the region and specialty stores such as Dales Maxima at 5867 Forbes Ave. in Squirrel Hill, Renaissance Woman at 1910 E. Carson St. on the South Side and Rosebud's Fashions, 1006 Lincoln Ave., Lincoln-Lemington.
The clothes tend to rise above the mundane and offer style trends that are up-to-the-minute, not a year behind, as has historically been the case for plus sizes.
Dales Maxima, for instance, offers in its fall formalwear collection a stunning ivory tuxedo skirt suit with satin-covered buttons and white fox fur cuffs by designer Katherine Lindsey. The shop carries numerous lines, including Dana Buchman, Due Per Due, Julian Wilder and Marissa Christina.
"Plus-size fashions have become very contemporary," notes owner Dale Kroditsky, who opened the store 17 years ago.
That's evident at Renaissance Woman, which is celebrating its ninth anniversary this month. The South Side store has alluring, exclusive lines by Stephanie Thomas, River Chase, Nino Wong. One head-turner is a beaded, mauve and silver crop-style jacket by Julia that comes in other color combinations.
"People always say they don't see themselves coming and going," says Ruthann Mangelsdorf, who owns the store with her husband, Clark. "Our slogan is, 'You won't find her at the mall.' Nothing I carry is in the department stores."
The changes were a long time coming. The average American woman is size 12, and one-third of all American women age 18 and older -- about 65 million women -- are size 14 or larger, says Catherine Lippincott, a spokeswoman for Lane Bryant.
"The fastest-growing segment of the plus-size market is young women roughly aged 17 to 35," says Lippincott. "And these women want fashion -- they do not want polyester tent dresses."
Lane Bryant was founded 100 years ago as a maternity clothing store. Soon owners, noticing that larger, nonpregnant women were coming in and buying the stylish garb intended for mothers-to-be, began reaching out to that market. Today, the chain offers stylish, affordable clothes of every style for plus-size women.
"Americans are getting bigger," observes Lippincott. "Basically, there are a lot of women who are in their 20s who are, I believe, downright more accepting of their bodies. Prejudices are starting to fall away not just in terms of race, color and creed, but in sizes. It wasn't that way when I was growing up. We all struggled to be a size 6.
"A size 16 wants the same thing that a size 6 has. She just wants it in her own size. Just because you have more curves doesn't mean you don't want to stop traffic when you cross the street."
Another sign of change: Brenda King of East Liberty, a 42-year-old image consultant who makes some of her own clothes, is launching a quarterly magazine for plus-size women that she hopes eventually to circulate nationally by purchasing mailing lists of women who order from catalogs. The premiere issue of PSST! (Plus Size Style Today) will feature an outfit from Saks Fifth Avenue, Downtown, and will debut next Sunday at a plus-size fashion show at the Fox Chapel Yacht Club.
King expects 400 guests at the show. She began the shows as an outgrowth of Positive Approach, an image consulting business she started in 1992 primarily for plus-size women.
"What happened basically was women said image consulting is good, but we can't find clothes for you to help us be fitted into," she said.
So King, a lifelong lover of clothes, began organizing fashion shows for plus-size women. She says PSST! will encourage a positive self-image, not merely dispense information on fashion and style. It will be available through subscription.
"Sixty percent of women are size 16 or over," she says, citing fashion industry figures. "If that many women are that large, then why do we not see them? I myself am a size 26-28. You hardly ever see people that size looking good on the cover of a magazine. Fat acceptance isn't my issue. We just want to talk about being big, being beautiful and loving you, regardless."
King says she expects to begin custom designing clothes for plus-size women and open a boutique to offer the latest styles and accessories as soon as possible. Rosemary Williamson, a full-figured entrepreneur, sells her creations in Rosebud's Fashions, her 4-year-old shop in Lincoln-Lemington.
"It's hard finding clothes our sizes because designers do not cater to our sizes," says Williamson, also 42. "They keep it more traditional. They're afraid to give more flirtatious lines. Most of the designers don't believe full-figured women are supposed to be stylish because they don't understand that big is beautiful."
And even the many designers who do create for fuller figures, she added, "don't take into consideration the different build of fuller-figure black women, who tend to be more voluptuous and curvy."
Williamson also regularly sponsors fashion shows, such as the one last Sunday at the Wilkinsburg Holiday Inn that drew guests from as far as Detroit and New York. The 200 seats sold out two weeks in advance, and more than 50 people were turned away.
Meanwhile, the demand for plus-size models is increasing, says Susan Georget, director of Wilhelmina's "ten-20 division," which she opened nearly six years ago with no models. Now she has nearly 50 beauties ages 14 to 50 and receives calls daily from businesses and designers around the world looking to hire them.
"It's clearly a growing market, not just in numbers but in esteem," she says. "It's very exciting to be doing this at this time."
She credited Mode magazine with the growth of the plus-size industry, helping to reshape public perceptions and to shatter the unflattering stereotype of "pink, heavy blondes standing with one hand on their hip."
Georget says the teen division of plus sizes is emerging as the fastest-growing segment of the plus-size market, and that young women in that demographic group appear to be more comfortable with their sizes than prior generations.
"The idea is to let women know you can feel beautiful at any size," she says. "It's important to teach young girls to look at themselves that way and not try to change who they're going to be."
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