Plus Size Clothing is a general term given to clothing proportioned specifically for larger sized or overweight people. Plus-size refers generally to clothing labelled size (US) 14 / (UK) 18 and upwards for women, and for sizes over XL for men.

In the fashion industry, Full Figured is generally for sizes 12 up to size 20 and Plus Size refers generally to clothing labelled size 22 and upwards for women .

Also called Outsize in some English speaking countries, this term has been losing favour since the 1990s. A related term for men’s plus-size clothing is big and tall.

Plus Size Clothing

The manufacture and availability of Plus Size Clothing is a mystery. Clothes are designed for the thin, but most U.S. women, for example, are not. According to the National Center for Health Statistics nearly 65% of American women are overweight, and of those, more than 35% are obese. Yet most designer collections end at size 10. And on hundreds of international high-fashion runways at international fashion weeks, ultra-slim models were wearing trendsetting designs that will most probably never be manufactured in sizes to fit most American women.

This disconnect between fashion and reality is a puzzle in the light of a key finding of a 2009 report by Mintel, an international consumer market research firm, which found that plus-size shoppers, especially younger women, want fashions that match those sold in smaller sizes.

But that’s a big request with a small chance of success, experts say. The proportions, economics and aesthetics of plus-size fashion virtually guarantee that fashion will always favor the thin.

Plus Size Clothing

Creating stylish clothing for larger women isn’t as simple as making bigger sizes of existing styles, says Rosemary Brantley, chairwoman of fashion design at the Otis College of Art and Design. “There are a lot of styles that won’t size up,” said Brantley, a designer and former model. Pattern makers can more easily enlarge or shrink proportions for sizes 0 to 10 because the body’s proportions expand in a more universal manner in the lower sizes.

“The human form is nothing but a bunch of curves,” Brantley said. “Those curves get very exaggerated as one gets bigger. The more exaggerated the curve, the more seaming, the more shaping, more darting, more fitting and more expense.”

Plus Size Clothing

According to the New York Times, Size is a subject of considerable controversy in fashion, but it is equally so in American life. What is big? What is too big? What is not big enough? The plus-size woman — to use the marketing-sanctioned term — exists in an increasingly populous and contested ghetto.

Plus Size Clothing, typically size 14 and above, represents only 18 percent of total revenue in the women’s clothing industry. The correlation between obesity and low income goes some way toward explaining the discrepancy, but it doesn’t explain it entirely. That figure has been fairly constant for the past 20 years.

Even as more and more women get larger and larger, the Plus Size Clothing available to outfit them remains limited.