Why This Activewear Designer Won’t Sell Plus Sizes

Exercise is for all body types, so why won’t designers keep up? (Photo: Getty Images)

It’s no secret that lots of activewear brands opt out of making plus-size options for their customers, but rarely do those brands give an excuse as to why. However, Lorna Jane Clarkson, the designer behind the activewear brand Lorna Jane, which is sold around the world (including at Nordstrom, for those living in the U.S.), just came out to explain why she won’t create plus-size options to put in her stores.

“We make the sizes that sell in our stores,” Clarkson told News.com.au. “Right now we have XS through XL, and that’s because it’s what our customers want. If we were going to try a larger size, we would sell them in a store that demanded larger sizes, but that hasn’t resulted in sales for us.”

So, is a low demand for plus-size clothing a legitimate excuse? Clarkson claims that the brand is customer-based, and if more customers were entering her stores wanting larger sizes, she would accommodate. However, until then — in what seems to be a classic chicken-and-egg situation — she declines to make larger sizes because she claims they will not sell.

Sadly, plenty of other brands have neglected the plus-size market as well, but most of them haven’t attempted to give an excuse for it. Even celebrities like Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy have opened up about designers refusing to dress them for red carpet events because of their size.

While the fashion industry is notorious for simply turning a blind eye to this issue (or blatantly claiming that “no one wants to see curvy women on the runway” like Karl Lagerfeld once did), another fashion icon has decided to speak out about the issue at hand with an unpopular opinion.

Tim Gunn, a design educator and Emmy-winning co-host of Project Runway, recently put the fashion industry on notice for not making clothes to fit American women:

“I love the American fashion industry, but it has a lot of problems, and one of them is the baffling way it has turned its back on plus-size women,” Gunn wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post. “In addition to the fact that most designers max out at size 12, the selection of plus-size items on offer at many retailers is paltry compared with what’s available for a size 2 woman.”

Whether or not you’re plus-size, we can all agree that there’s a hole in the market for flattering clothing for plus-size women. There is money to be made among such a population, which clearly lacks options, and designers need to finally realize that.

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