“Plus size” is a meaningless term, and brands should start to do away with it

For decades, retailers have treated women who wear plus sizes as an entirely different species of shopper. There was even a special set of rules for selling to them: Avoid bright colors. Never do horizontal stripes.

These days, such stereotypes are laughable, according to Mary Alderete, the CMO of online women’s fashion retailer ModCloth. “Want to know what our number-one selling dress is this week? The rainbow dress, and it’s sold out in all of the extended sizes already!” she says, referring to sizes large through 4X. The dress is boldly colored and covered in chevron stripes.

In the past few years, a growing number of women have been calling for an end to the “plus size” distinction, which varies by retailer but often refers to sizes 16 and up. Many feel the category marginalizes them, suggesting they are a small group outside the mainstream whose fashion needs are secondary. In fact, the average American woman is more likely to be a 16 than a size 2.

If retailers are smart, they’ll consider killing the “plus” and finally commit to offering a greater range of sizes in their core lines instead. The label and the stereotypes that accompany being “plus size” are outdated and often insulting. All that’s keeping the distinction alive is history–and the fashion industry’s ugly legacy of exclusionary behavior.

Out of fashion

Despite recent efforts, plenty of long-standing misconceptions about the way plus-size customers shop persist, according to Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for research firm NPD Group. In addition to the notion that this category of shopper won’t buy bold colors or stripes, conventional wisdom has long held they won’t wear big prints or tight clothes, and that they don’t like to shop or try items on. Cohen finds all these notions to be woefully outdated.

“It made sense way back when, when those rules may have been applicable, to [have] a separate line or a separate department or a separate store for the plus-size consumer,” he says. “Today, that’s not true anymore.”

Whether women actually wanted to shop that way or simply did so because the media and designers instructed them to, the rules have changed–thanks in large part to the internet. Sarah Conley, a style blogger and expert on plus-size fashion, says Instagram has had a “tremendous impact.”

Last year, for instance, after O Magazine proclaimed that women should only wear crop tops if they have a flat stomach, Conley helped organize a response online, encouraging women of all sizes to share photos of themselves using the hashtag #RockTheCrop.