Rivet Magazine April 2021

l_____ERDEM X UNIVERSAL STANDARD
T
he 2010s might go down as the
decade when fashion finally sat
up and paid attention to the
millions of consumers who
wear extended sizes.
Launch after launch thrust
brands into new territory, often with lucrative
results. For one, Abercrombie & Fitch’s curvy
denim launch “sold through too quickly,” CEO
Fran Horowitz lamented in 2019, suggesting outsize
demand for sizes above the conventional
range. And that same year Chad Kessler, American
Eagle global brand president, told Glamour
how “silly” it was for a windowfront mannequin
to model plus-size jeans that were nowhere to be
found in store, prompting the specialty retailer to
bring extended sizes from clicks into bricks.
But while mainstream marquee brands
seized the opportunity to create denim for an
oft-ignored demographic, progress has been
slow for elevated labels that have long trafficked
in exclusivity.
Though brands like Frame and Reformation
offer some products in plus sizes, the seemingly
lukewarm level of interest from the premium
denim sector very well might be intentional,
according to one industry expert. “A lot of these
premium denim brands have a rich heritage or a
cult status,” said Kayla Marci, market analyst for
Edited, the retail intelligence platform used by
Boohoo, J.Crew and Puma. “They are probably
aspirational for consumers whose sizes aren't yet
catered for and could be demanding representation
to have the same access to brands and products
as their straight-size peers.”
Brands, however, might be interested to know
that a growing number of curvy consumers is
querying the web for fashion-forward jeans, while
Edited’s data shows a 90 percent year-over-year
increase in sellouts for jeans in sizes 32 and higher
over the past three months.
Meanwhile, searches for plus-size boot-cut
jeans climbed 187 percent year over year, while
flare styles for curvy figures drew 122 percent
more searches than the prior year, according to
Trendalytics, a trend data platform. Consumers
also showed 91 percent more search interest in
distressed denim styles in curvy sizes, with web
searchers also conducting 89 percent more queries
for ever-popular mom jeans in extended sizes.
However, the language consumers employ
when scouting out denim online is evolving—perhaps
under the influence of the body-positivity
movement—with the 3 percent uptick in searches
for “plus size jeans” lagging the 21 percent increase
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RIVET NO.11 / APRIL 2021