Saturday 7 September 2013

Wrong on the internet

Yesterday I spent a considerable amount of time seething over the most recent Colette post (by a guest blogger) about plus-sized grading. (I am not linking because I don't want the ping-back to appear in the Colette comments). In short, the blog post re-iterates well-known information (you can't just grade up from a small size to much larger sizes successfully, you need a whole new plus-sized block, and this is challenging). None of this is particularly novel or controversial -- in fact we could probably all chorus it along with the people explaining it to us -- but that is not what annoyed me. What annoyed me was the guest blogger finishing with this paragraph:

I can totally understand frustration with finding garments and patterns that you just adore, but they don’t fit. At the same time, don’t get too frustrated with companies that don’t offer it. My theory is that I would rather have it done right, than poorly.

Don't get frustrated that nobody wants your money! Don't get frustrated that you don't even have the option of a bad pattern! Don't get frustrated that you're not business X's target market... or business A-W's target market, and probably not businesses Y or Z!

Sorry, no, I will get frustrated if I damn well want to, and don't tell me not to.

Also, please don't set up the straw-man, as many people in the comments did, of "but not every pattern is suitable for plus-sizers!". Well, no. Shockingly, not every pattern is suitable for ANYONE, irrespective of size. Moreover, I totally, 100% agree, it would be totally unreasonable to demand that EVERY business offer something for plus-size sewers. It would be totally unreasonable to demand that tiny one-person design companies with no plus-size experience start making amazing plus-size patterns when their target market is straight-size sewers. For example, it is very clear that at least up to this point Colette at least has made the decision that the straight-size sewing community is their main target -- and that is fine! It's working for them! There's no call to be defensive about that as a business strategy (as the designer was when I tried to make the point of this blog on the post) because it's a perfectly sane and sensible decision to make. The company has limited time and resources, and up to now they have concluded that those time and resources are better allocated to releasing new straight-size patterns than in, for example, going back and reworking an older pattern for plus-size to capture that untapped market for that particular pattern, or releasing a basic plus-size pattern (plus-size Sorbetto, for example) as a test of the market. That is a perfectly legitimate business strategy, and they must believe it is better for the company by whatever metric they are using. We can tell that their business strategy right now is not to address plus-size requirements by the fact that they haven't released a plus-size pattern. (And no amount of the designer going "But just not yet! That doesn't mean plus size sewers aren't our target market!" changes that. If you are not currently releasing products that plus-size sewers can use then they aren't your current target market, no matter what nebulous future plans you have in your back pocket.)

I really don't have a problem with companies doing a cost/benefit analysis and deciding not to serve a particular market on the basis of it. I certainly don't think it's discriminatory of any particular firm to make that decision, any more than it's discriminatory of Colette that they don't release an equal number of men's patterns as women's. It might be disappointing to me on a specific pattern-by-pattern basis that a particular firm has made that decision, but that's about the limit of my pain on the topic when I think about any specific firm, unless you get the kind of absolute bag of dicks like the Abercrombie and Fitch executive who outright said fat people are too ugly to wear his clothes.

I do think there is a lot of that attitude going around, although I am pointing absolutely no fingers at any particular pattern designer here. However, it's the over-whelming message of our society at present: fat people can't be beautiful. If you can't be beautiful, since you're fat, then you won't really want or deserve nice clothes. Here is a tent you can wear, or maybe we'll pay lip service and suggest ways that marginally less tent-like clothes might "flatter you" (by which we mean, hide away some of your un-beautiful fat, and/or help you pretend you are not quite as un-beautifully fat as you actually are, although, spoiler, we'll still be able to see you, so we'll know anyway). Better people than me have unpicked those issues and how they affect our options as consumers elsewhere, and I am not going to go into them except to note that I suspect that some number of the "cute pattern" designers operate on an unexamined belief that cuteness has a pretty specific size range attached to it. However, that aside, even if I roll my eyes at the "but it's haaaaard to make plus sized clothing!" explanation I do acknowledge that it takes time and money to perfect those designs, and those are finite resources. I don't jump to BIGOT! from a series of business decisions, I do jump to "company has decided they would make more profit from straight-size than plus-size sewers".

The problem is that almost every indie pattern maker is making the same calculation, with a few notable exceptions: Cake, Hot Patterns, Petite Plus, off the top of my head. (Obviously there are also plus patterns available from e.g. Big 4 and Burda, but those firms are at a different level of sophistication and resource). When you can count the number of independent firms that offer patterns in larger sizes on LESS THAN ONE HAND, one of which doesn't apply to me because I am 5'8" and am only petite compared to a basketball team, damn right I am going to be frustrated. I am frustrated by a lack of choice. I think some designers are getting their profitability projections wrong. I think they are under-estimating the market, not least because business research suggests that if you court plus sized people the right way you can uncover a huge hidden market (see: the way Modcloth and similar firms are currently courting young plus-sized RTW buyers). I am frustrated because I am an affluent consumer in a segment that is historically under-served, and nobody seems to want my money. I am not frustrated that any single firm has made whatever decisions it made, I am frustrated that I am seeing the same decisions made over and over again despite the fact that there is a clear, unexploited market opportunity.

Therefore, no, I am CERTAINLY not happy that the market isn't flooded with shitty patterns for plus-size sewers. I'd MUCH rather have a huge pile of shitty patterns that contained the beginnings of interesting design ideas that plus sized sewers could critique and begin to fix. I'd rather see the market develop, for money to start moving around, for people to start seeing plus sized sewers as a legitimate, interesting market to serve, even if that means suffering some bad patterns for a while. I will take that suffering if it prompts a series of better pattern-makers and niche designers to come into this market segment when they realize that there is an audience for better designs and money in wallets that could be coming their way.

In conclusion: no, I am not going to stop being frustrated. (And yes, I am and will continue to be passionate about these issues even though personally I sometimes fit in straight sizes or straddle the straight/plus line.)

17 comments:

  1. Here here! Bravo!
    You have made some interesting points and they are easy to agree with. Very sensible arguments I'd say!
    I too would have liked to see the Colette resources spent (not on the very boring Laurel) on developing the too-difficult task of grading up one of their already developed and loved patterns.

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    1. I agree that the Laurel pattern was beyond boring, but to be honest I should think they made a metric tonne of money from that pattern because of the way that it was launched with that big sewing competition associated with it.

      However, your point is exactly what I was trying to get at. They're all "we've limited money and time! And so we can't do plus-size!" Except, they could. They would just not be able to do something else. Nobody was holding a gun to their head making them design and release snooze-worthy Laurel, and nobody is holding a gun to their head making them make Plus sizes. I just think it would be more honest of them to say "Right now, we are more interested in developing our straight size patterns" than tell us, for the millionth time, that plus size patternmaking is so haaaaaaaard.

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  2. I read the Collette post yesterday (before they changed it to put a disclaimer as an intro) and many of the comments. Although I don't currently need plus-size patterns, I was plus-size for many years and know your frustrations well. When I saw the title of the post, I thought it was going to explain HOW to grade a pattern up, not give excuses why plus-size patterns are not currently done. The writer of the post was also extremely pissy about how she didn't like how the questioner used the term "actual range" to refer to women size 0 to 30. The writer took this to mean that the questioner was saying that smaller women aren't real women. Huh?

    One of the big frustrations I have with RTW makers and pattern makers, is that they're leaving a huge segment of the market out. If the average American woman is a RTW 14/16, why is that the top of most ranges, and not the middle?

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    1. I can understand a little bit the eye-rolling over "actual range" although I think it's misplaced in this case. I do get sick of hearing about "real women" to refer to women at or above an average size, as if thin women are imaginary or only stay thin because of some artificial action. However, although I find the OP phrased the question awkwardly, I don't think she was particularly trying to invoke that debate.

      As for the clothes size thing, I really have never understood that either. Some of it I think is raw economics: bigger clothes cost more money to make. Economically speaking, women at the low end of the size range are more likely to buy clothes than larger women (although, there's a chicken and egg problem there: do larger women buy fewer clothes because there just ARE fewer clothes, or because they don't want to buy them?). Genuine plus size design is not taught in design schools and not represented on the fashion runway. It's basically a job that nobody is trained for and nobody in fashion wants to do because it's the furthest away from mainstream high fashion. And so on and so forth.

      Probably the excuse I find weakest is one of the ones Colette used ("plus sized design is difficult because fat people are all differently fat"). That excuse wears thin when you've been hearing it for 20 years because surely the body is not so endlessly complex in fat acquisition that nobody, in all that time, has been able to discern some common features and establish how to make clothes that fit well. Maybe it's true and some plus sized people won't fit in some types of plus-size designs! It would still be better than there not being ANY plus sized designs to try.

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    2. I think the real key to this is one that you hit upon: designers aren't trained to design plus-size, and it's not considered high fashion. I remember reading years ago about a designer (I don't remember who) that when asked about coming out with a plus-size line, sniffed "I don't do upholstery." I think there's a lot of disdain for fat people.

      I think many plus-sized women long for beautiful clothes, and are willing to pay for them. I know I was one of them. I pretty much taught myself to sew for this reason. I couldn't find much that I liked that fit well in RTW at any price. When I found something, though, I bought it even if I had to adjust my budget in other areas. Ironically, I spend less on clothes now that I'm no longer plus-size. The designers are making less on me now since I have so many more options.

      I also found the "fat people are differently fat" excuse weak. "Regular" sized people are all differently shaped too! I've never met a woman who can make a close-fitting garment without making alterations to the pattern. Personally, I'm large-busted, short-waisted, large in the waist, narrow-hipped, with narrow shoulders and larger biceps! But at least I can start with a pattern close to my shape and make the minor adjustments necessary. I just wish this option was available to a larger group of women.

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    3. I really feel like there is a revolution that needs to happen that says look, fine, maybe we all shouldn't be so fat, from some larger, societal level health perspective. But since people ARE fat, can we just... live with that? I feel like the moral panic about obesity manifests itself in consumer society as a reluctance to offer fat people goods and services just in case they start to think it's OK to be fat. I've actually had people say that to me, in fact, that it's not right to offer larger sized clothes suitable for plus-size teenage girls because it will make those plus-size teenage girls feel like they don't need to change or that they won't learn to properly hate their current body and make better choices. Which, I can't even deal with that as a statement about how we treat other people, first, and second, we have no evidence that inducing loathing in other people helps them lose weight.

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  3. I think you and I are very close in size, but not in age. So I am not the target audience for Colette Patterns twice over. I don't really care for Colette patterns, I somehow feel I should like them, but no. They always feel a bit costumey somehow.

    I agree with you about not telling your audience how to feel about, well, anything. That part of the post pissed me off as well.

    PS-I really liked your previous post a lot too. I am sure I commented but it seems to be lost in interwebland.

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    1. I'm probably not really in their target age range either -- I'm 37 and I reckon their target age group is really women in their twenties, maybe early thirties. To be quite honest, even if I were magically transported back to 22 but with my current-age brain intact (which, god forbid!) I wouldn't wear those styles. I'm not always comfortable in skirts, so the idea of wearing something so very vintage in style and as ultra-feminine as Colette patterns often are is enough to bring me out in hives.

      I swear blogger is the worst for eating comments. You are not the first to mention a comment gone astray recently.

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  4. I hear you. I guess this is one of the reasons I love StyleArc. It actually goes up to my size which not many patterns do. Even with the Hot Patterns etc I have to grade up. I do have to make changes to StyleArc - but only small ones. It would be great if other companies can listen to us. They would certainly make a motza.

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    1. I would buy SO MANY Style Arc patterns if the postage to the EU weren't quite so eye-watering. As it is I own two and constantly have to remind myself that no, really, I don't need their entire catalogue, even if I want it. :D

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  5. My suggestion is to sing the praises of those who do offer plus size (and to me - Style Arc should be right at the top).

    I think there is a business opportunity for Style Arc to partner with someone in the EU and in the States (and maybe South America too) to collect and ship orders "locally". Chloe - let me set up an American office. I'll do the work for a cut of the business - how does that sound?

    And for the first indie maker who really gets this market and can design some amazing patterns - I predict he or she will do very well as long as the patterns are well drafted, the designs are current and flatter (no tents thank you) and the instructions are halfway decent.

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    1. I honestly don't know why Style Arc haven't got some kind of distribution network in place for the US at least, even if not Europe. They seem quite sophisticated in other respects so it's an odd omission. I do love their designs but I can't legitimately praise them (yet) because I only have

      If I had even an OUNCE of design sense (which I don't, I can barely draw a stick man) and pattern drafting education, I would totally start that company. I'd do a 100% no discussion of body flaws description (literally nothing about Burda makes me more insane with anger than their coy little description that such-and-such a feature "disguises a little stomach") and make patterns that would appeal to a range of body types within the "plus" descriptor.

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    2. Er, I lost a bit there. I only have two SA patterns and I haven't made either of them up yet, I meant to say!

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  6. Just found your blog via the latest CP debate on PR (re: Zinnia), and I agree that the plus-size post was an epic fail. the title - plus having a guest blogger - indicated it would be a how-to, and the post turned into how-we-can't.

    I saw someone comment above about 'high fashion' and the exclusion of plus size from that, which is true in many respects. When I started to snoop-shop in the incredibly posh stores here - I'm talking the ones that sell Prada, D&G, Balenciaga, etc - I was surprised to find that they have many garments in sizes 10-14 (14-18 UK; not plus, i know, but on the upper range of non-plus). I suspect it's because a lot of the women who can afford to purchase those garments are mid-life. What appears in the shops is a whole 'nother (size) range than what appears on the runway.
    Anyway, I don't think that what CP does even approaches high fashion. It's Portlandia come to life. I think what annoys me is how sucked in some seamstresses seem to get by their branding. Otherwise, who would exclaim "amazing!!" about a sacky shift dress and a gathered skirt?

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    1. I call even MORE bullshit on the fact that they didn't do Zinnia for plus-sizes. It's a gathered skirt and a skirt with pleats. They admitted themselves that it has ONE SINGLE FITTING POINT. If there was ever a pattern for them to test the plus-size waters, this was it. And yet, no plus-sizes.

      Also, oh my god, the comments on PR about Colette are always hilarious. There's this hard-core cult-like group of people who will buy every single Colette pattern and talk about how amazing it is and how NOVEL and SPECIAL. "But there are three versions! There's a BELT LOOP pattern included! The instructions are printed on a glossy brochure rather than a piece of newsprint! CAN'T YOU SEE IT'S WORTH 8 TIMES THE PRICE OF A SIMILAR BIG 4 PATTERN?" If only they would just go "Hey, I'm just a huge fan, I'll buy whatever she makes and love it, rational or not!" I would have more patience and find them less hilarious. As it is I just kind of boggle at them.

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  7. you are totally right re: zinnia, and i loved what you wrote about the leotard + skirt. it's true. If that were in real life, she'd have to throw a sweater on and then look matronly as shit.
    And re: the fan girls... I know!!! Belt-loops! Pockets! Omg Pockets!! It really reminds me of high school kids and their brand names. (but mommmmm, it's a *topshop* tshirt.)
    Did you see the last few things about some of us being "haters" (i post as aliesje)? good lord. I dream of the day CP puts a bird on it.

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    1. The sewing world really suffers from the cult of nice -- god forbid anyone express a critical opinion! And it's not like we're (a) going on the Colette site to bitch about it; (b) going on to people's individual reviews to tell them they overpaid for their pattern omg-what-were-you-thinking; (c) ad hominem attacking the designer. I think your posts in particular were really well-balanced.

      Whatever, I'm pretty happy in my corner here with the overhead sign that reads "Bitch", and I don't even say HALF the critical things I want to about some of the pattern releases discussed on PR. If I really can't stand it any more I rant here, since my readership of 10 people is pretty tolerant of that sort of thing!

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