Grant Research from Mallorie Dunn's FIT President's Diversity Grant: "Accurate Size Research: The Collection of Data and Vital Importance of Realistic Consumer Sizes"
As of 2018 – the average US consumer wearing “womenswear” clothing – has a 38.1 inch waistline. Depending on the year and source – 67-72% of women, femmes, and non-binary folks wear plus sizes – with men similarly being 70%. Yet – in 2022 – only 19% of “womenswear” clothing sales came from plus sizes.
Throughout my years as an educator – I have informally polled my students – what percentage of folks do you think wear plus sizes? And most commonly – students guess between 30 and 40%. The reality is far from this guess – yet students continue to give it. Looking around at mainstream fashion – advertisements, red carpets, runway shows – it is not too surprising students do not know the reality of consumer size. Living and learning in a fatphobic society has skewed all of our views. We do not understand the reality of consumer size – or even what those sizes look like.
We must do better at teaching our students the reality of consumer size – and specifically the intricacies of plus size consumers’ measurements, needs, wants, and shopping struggles. And to do better – we need more research on this specific group.
For this research, I measured 300 people who: live in the US, are 18 years and up, shop for “women’s” clothing, and have a waistline of 34in and up. The presentation below goes over both the measurement data and also the shopping habits + attitudes of the participants.
My mission behind proposing this grant is multi-layered. First, the industry wide error of ignoring plus size consumers must be addressed. In order to do so – it must be brought to the attention of fashion educators and fashion design students. Additionally – to properly educate design students on producing clothing for a full range of bodies, we need a full range of measurements in our education resources. This data will provide said information. And lastly, I want to present the additional shopping habits and attitudes to educators, students, and the NYC fashion industry to help further convince and/or further educated already interested parties into giving the plus size consumer the full attention, research, thoughtful design, and marketing that a majority population representation deserves.
In addition to living here – this presentation and data is also archived in FIT’s Institutional Repository.
Watch The Presentation
Follow Along with Presentation Slides
The Data Below is Best Viewed on a Desktop in lieu of a mobile device, in order to best toggle through the PDF pages.
View the Measurement Data
Sizes + Stores Shopped by our Participants
Thank you again to FIT President Dr. Joyce Brown, our Diversity Collective, my research assistant Margaret Cordero, Fashion Design chair Su Ku, and all of our participants. If you have any questions about this work, how to implement it, or would like to contact research and adjunct faculty member Mallorie Dunn – please email smartglamour@gmail.com.