Nothing makes Aisha Fairclough feel more like a valued shopper than when a retailer’s clothing fits her. “Being able to walk into a store and find your size makes customers feel they are seen,” she says. 

For years, this experience _____ infrequently for Fai clough, the cofounder of Body Confidence Canada, as few mass retailers sold styles in a wide range of sizes. Consumers like her, categorised as ‘plus size’, have mostly had to shop at speciality retailers for clothes, even though the average Canadian woman wears about a size 14 (a UK size 18). Most women in the US and UK also belong to this group, and have found shopping exhausting in an industry that has habitually excluded them to promote a thin and often unattainable ideal, even as consumers have increasingly worn larger sizes on average throughout the last few decades.

But during the past five years, the body positivity and fat acceptance movements have grown popular enough to influence mainstream culture. “Celebrities and fashion groups have outwardly endorsed plus-size models,” says Tom Burgess, industry analyst for the US-based global market research firm IBISWorld. “Marketing campaigns, such as Dove’s Real Beauty, encouraged body positivity, leading to growth in the downstream market as plus-size men and women spend more time on their image.”

(Adapted from https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200211-selling-plus-size-clothing-isnt-only-about-pleasing-shoppers)

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