Plus Size Clothing and Fashion: Where Curvy Women Get Inspiration
Who do you look to for fashion inspiration? A poll conducted by Full Beauty and The Sonsi Group found that 30% of plus size women personally know the person whose closet they covet. Considering how much advertising is poured into campaigns featuring straight size models, it’s not surprising that curvy women find wardrobe inspiration close to home.
When asked about other sources of fashion inspiration, plus size women interviewed named plus size pages in national fashion magazines (19%), plus size bloggers (13%), and even Full Figure Fashion Week runway shows (13%) as the people and events that give them style tips. Sonsi’s survey reveals a very apparent truth about full figure women and fashion: curvy women seek out and want media icons that have bodies similar to their own.
With the slow integration of curvier models into mainstream fashion, plus size women have more widespread fashion inspiration than years past. But so-called plus size models represent the smaller end of the plus size scale and leave many women feeling unrelated to these curvy beauties. Models have always represented the ideal image many men and women strive to achieve, and plus size models fall into the same kind of illusionary category of perfection, even if they are bigger than their straight size counterparts.
Plus size fashion bloggers have made the biggest cultural splashes through word-of-mouth recommendations that balloon page views and plus size communities online. Bloggers straddle both worlds of media and reality: some blogs have leveraged plus size fashion columns at major fashion publications, but bloggers still post requisite fashion street shots in their respective hometowns. They are accessible icons for women and usually give the most useful fashion advice.
61% of study participants reported feeling inspired by seeing a fashionable plus size peer. Until plus size fashion becomes more than a novelty page in a major publication, women will continue to seek out those models and bloggers with similar body types and fashion tastes. Sonsi’s study lays the truth about plus size fashion bare: women evaluate style based on how the clothes are worn in addition to cut, color, print, etc. Women want to be able to picture themselves in the piece. Can plus size women achieve this by comparing themselves constantly to ultra-thin models? Apparently not, as the study indicates.
Do you have a favorite plus size fashion blogger you follow? Another style inspiration? Let us know who we should keep an eye on in the comments below.
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