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.)