Plus Sized Shopping: Where are the clothes?

As the size of America’s waistlines are increasing, places that sell plus sized clothes that you can actually see, feel and try on are dwindling. I’m in South Florida. It’s hot here. I don’t want to wear polyester mu-mus. Also, I am fat. I don’t want to wear sparkly rhinestones, big bold patterns and too-sexy clothes that call attention to me. ?Nor do I want to wear grandma’s polyester clothes. I just want the same clothes that are in the regular stores, only bigger!

I love Torrid jeans. But the closest Torrid is over an hour from us here, so I have to order online. When something doesn’t fit though, I never deal with online returns. One of the local Forever 21 stores has a Plus sized section, but again…sparkly, sexy and bold.?And UGLY. Torrid and Forever 21 are Junior clothes, and they look like it.?Macy’s isn’t bad. I like the INC line, but it is very limited and very expensive. Lane Bryant is hit or miss with me,?Avenue just keeps getting worse, and Fashion Bug is gone.

They used to carry plus sizes at Old Navy. They are gone. Target was my go-to for clothes. I am (was) a Targaholic. Every time I went there (at least once a week) I bought something for myself. Over the past year, selections began to dwindle. They even took my favorite boyfriend t-shirt (I have about 30 of them) and changed them from cotton to a 60/40 cheap see-thru fabric. I still bought them because I love the fit. The get ratty quick, so I buy a few each month. They are gone! In fact, the entire plus sized section disappeared from Target a few months ago. In its place are clearance racks. Not a plus-sized garment on the rack. Even the signs are gone.

The maternity section is adorable. Are there really more pregnant woman then plus-sized women shopping in Target? I think not. When I asked a few months ago, the saleslady said they were transitioning plus sizes to online. Really Target? Of all people, plus sizes are harder to fit. Yet I went online, grabbed 3 things from clearance, and have not seen any new clothes appear. They got rid of the big red Plus sign at my Target as well. My SuperTarget never had a good selection, but my local Target wasn’t bad, at least they had more than 1 rack. But now NOTHING. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

I used to go to Target and spend a few hundred at least once a week. I haven’t done that since the plus sizes disappeared. Also, Target is really messing up. Last year they had a grey dress on their site. They had it in regular sizes too. But they renamed the color for the plus size only to Manatee Grey. Really? How about the bad photoshop job they did last week? They cut out so much of this already skinny girl that they got rid of her vagina and made spikes in her armpit!

I’m sad. I loved Target. Now I’m just depressed when I go there.

I’m going up north next week and needed some warmer clothes. I HAD to shop online, so I went to One Stop Plus. ?

These women are size twos!!! Some of them are just ridiculous! If you are going to put a model in plus sized clothes, at least have a plus sized model. This is just insulting.

So where do we go? What will it take to get designers to listen? We just want bigger versions of the clothes that everyone else wears. Not polyester. Not horizontal stripes for Gods sake, not huge, shapeless things. And if I order online, I’d like to see what the clothes look like on someone who is at least close to plus sized.

I recently found a group called “Target”ing Plus Sized Women on Facebook who are trying to get Target to bring back plus sizes. We are all hearing varying stories from our local Targets, but basically, it comes down to nobody knowing.

Where do you shop for decent clothes that fit?