The Bigger The Better: Plus Size Clothing

By Author: Barton Loi
Total Articles: 67
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Fashion can be fabulous. It can inspire us to reinvent our style. It can be artistic. It can be fun. It can unleash new sides of our personalities. Fashion can make us feel fantastic, when we get it right.

However, fashion can also be elitist and discriminatory. Designer fashion is clearly only really accessible to those with large amounts of cash to burn or those for whom labelled fashion is a top priority. Catwalk shows are notoriously hard to get into unless you can boast some impressive contacts within the fashion world. And the kind of people associated with fashion, whom we are led to believe are appropriate to model high end fashion, are all tall and frequently shockingly thin. The ideals of beauty on the catwalk seem to be highly prescriptive.

The issue of plus sizes is also being faced. Plus size models are now enjoying higher acclaim and more media coverage than ever before in their careers. Their salaries are becoming comparable to those of their skinny counterparts and more designers are enjoying the process of designing clothes for real women with real curves.

Whilst the haute couture sector ...
... of the fashion market may have been excluding plus size women from their clothing ranges, the high street fashion market has truly turned a corner. Plus size clothes collections that are every bit as stylish and fashionable as the regular collection now feature in many of our most popular high street stores.

Brands such as New Look pride themselves on translating catwalk trends into wearable and affordable everyday items for the modern consumer and plus size consumers are certainly no exception. Larger sizes, clothes made specifically for those with a generous bust and clothes in longer lengths for tall women are now all readily available.

Many of the high street''s plus size clothes collections are also designed to be flattering on the larger figure. Longer length tunics and dress styles that are designed to accentuate the smallest part of the waist and skim over tummies and thighs are all commonplace within plus size ranges. Translations of catwalk pieces into these creations often means making changes to account for body types as well as available budgets.

Fashion should be about feeling great in both the clothes and the skin that you''re in. Everyone deserves the opportunity to wear fabulous clothes in every colour, shape, style trend and size.

Whilst progress is certainly being made to include all women in one area that is yet to be addressed within designer fashion is the place of the average sized woman. Those who are not super skinny but who do not fall within the plus size category are still largely unrepresented within the world of fashion today: a problem that will have to be solved if the fashion world is to survive the public views of some of its harshest critics. Barton Loi is a fashion writer specialising in the larger woman. They recommend New Look for plus size clothes.