Plus-size clothing

Plus size clothing is a term given to clothing proportioned specifically for people whose bodies are larger than the average person's. The application of the term varies from country to country, and according to which industry the person is involved in.

According to PLUS Model magazine; "In the fashion industry, plus size is identified as sizes 10-14, super size as sizes 1X-6X and extended size as 7X and up". The article continues "Susan Barone [...] shared, 'Plus sizes are sizes 14W - 24W. Super sizes and extended sizes are used interchangeably for sizes 26W and above. Sometimes the size 26W is included in plus size'."

Such clothing has also been called outsize in Britain, a term that has been losing favor. One example of this is the renaming of "Evans Outsize" to simply "Evans", as well as losing their advertising slogan "Evans - The Outsize Shop", which also featured on their clothing labels. A related term for men's plus-size clothing is big and tall (a phrase also used as a trademark in some countries).

A relatively new alternative term for plus size (or large size) gaining consumer and editorial favor is curvy. In a euphemistic sense, curvy is regarded as less offensive to those that wear larger sized clothes. There is evidence of this term gaining media and market traction, demonstrated by searching say, curvy clothes London. In current media use, while curvy can appear less offensive, it appears to associate with a younger style of dressing than plus size or larger size when used as a general reference term.

Lane Bryant began trading in the early 1900s as a producer of clothing for "Expectant Mothers and Newborn"'. By the early 1920s, Lane Bryant started selling clothing under the category 'For the Stout Women', which ranged between a 38-56 inch bustline.Evans, a UK-based plus-size retailer, was founded in 1930.

The large-size fashion revolution of 1977–1998 in the US began after the Fashion Group of NYC released a study predicting the demise of the Baby Boomer Junior Market, as the Boomers were coming of age. Mary Duffy's Big Beauties was the first model agency to work with hundreds of new plus-size clothing lines and advertisers. For two decades, this plus-size category produced the largest per annum percentage increases in ready-to wear retailing.

Max Mara started Marina Rinaldi, one of the first high-end clothing lines, for plus-size women in 1980.

The first plus-size fashion line to show at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week was Cabiria, featured in the Fashion Law Institute fashion show in the tents at Lincoln Center on September 6, 2013.

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