J.Crew & Banana Republic To Size 16 Customers: "Bugger Off, Fatty!"

I haven't shopped at J.Crew in ages but a week or so ago, I saw some posts on Stylethread.com about the absence of size 16s in its stores. For a while, J.Crew seldom stocked anything over a 14 in its stores and the few that supposedly did segregated the stuff into a tiny section. Who knows if this is accurate or not, but whatever the case may be, you cannot buy anything over a 14 in its brick and mortar stores but size 16s remain available for some items online and in its catalogues.

Meanwhile, I've taken note of the size 16 vanishing act at BR before. Again, 16 is available online but is increasingly scarce in its stores. Just yesterday I went to a BR Factory Store and there was nothing--NOTHING--above a 14 anywhere. But there were craploads of 4s, 6s, and 8s. Now, the Factory Store is not, as many people think, where older and out-of-season BR merchandise is sold post-clearance from its regular stores. It is instead where you can get slightly (and I mean slightly) cheaper versions of merchandise that's already in its mall stores. So it's not as though they were just plum out of 16s; they flat out don't make them.

I can understand no store cannot cater to every imaginable size. Lord knows the misses 18s and 20s have been screwed this way since, well, always. But as I've pointed out in the past, BR USED to stock 16s in its brick and mortar stores. But ever since it chose to pursue the 00 market a couple of years ago, it decided the size 16 chubbettes needed to go. The Factory Store is proof that it wants a certain market and I ain't it. Sure I can still buy tops, and A-line skirts in 12-14, but when it comes to pants or other types of skirts, I'm screwed at BR.

Gap, Inc. has made some truly goofy decisions with larger clothing in its stores over the past few years. One can still easily find 16s in the Gap and Old Navy. But 18-20s still have to shop online for Gap merchandise. Old Navy produced an ill-fitting and uninspired plus-sized line (so I'm told) and instead of improving its designs and promotion for the line, it moved it out of the stores. Naturally, you can still buy it online. Gap's Forth & Towne Crashed & Burned quickly due to Gap's financial problems, and that carried up to size 20 in its stores.

Perhaps there's some egghead at these companies who have discovered that there is more financial return on smaller sizes than bigger ones. After all, it would cost more to make a size 16 pair of pants than a size 0 pair of pants...less work and less fabric. Or maybe all there is to it are a bunch of snobs in Manhattan who think a size 4 girl doesn't want to be looking at the same pair of pants as a size 16 or that having heavier people shop there make the stores declasse or something. And if they feel that way about 16s, how long will it be before they decide to axe 14 and XL? Or whack out 12 while they're at it?