Shopping for Women's Plus Size Clothing

Plus size clothing is the term used to describe the size of clothes wear by big size people and if you aren't a plus-size person, you may not have ever used or seen plus size clothing. As a matter of fact, you may even not familiar or heard about this term. But if you are a larger than the average or 'plus size' individual, this special term may have already rooted in your mind and become a part of your shopping vocabulary. This is the term that you will always refer to when shopping for new clothes or apparels.

So what is plus size clothing?

Plus size clothing is apparel or clothing that has the numerical sizes between 14W and upwards to 26W, which the 'W' stands for women. Most plus size apparels has the 'W' to differentiate them from other clothing. Another common identifier for plus size clothing is the X sizes (for example 1X, 2X, 3X, 4X and etc), which the 'X' refers to multiplied by the numerical size equivalents (check the cloth tag for info). It is also very common that plus size clothing generically referred to as "women' sizes" and this is definitely easier to differentiate them to the male's clothes. In most major retail outlets, there is even a separate section that specially setup for plus-size clothing.

Problem faced by Larger Size Women

For any average woman, shopping for clothes is definitely not a problem. They may wear a size of up to 12, which is available in every store. For some other smaller built woman, they might even need to shop in the petite or juniors section.

This again never seem to be a problem because there varieties of designs and styles available. However, for those who are larger than average, the only choice that they have is going for the plus size clothing section or specialized retail stores.

For many years, big figure women who wear plus size clothing would always have problem in finding their sizes in regular retail stores. Those days, the availability of clothes for them was very limited as clothing manufacturers very seldom produced this line of size. This might due to the smaller market compare to the average size. Well, every business wants to make money but not on something that they knew is not profiting.

Moreover, when they were able to find their size, younger women would face another problem; the lack of fashionable clothing in plus sizes. The choices were very limited and most of the styles cover only the general needs such as pants and t-shirt. However, due to the growth in the plus size clothing market (the rise of the demand), this scenario has changed now. Clothing businesses have now expanding their production lines that target this plus size women special needs.

There are now many specialty chain stores that setup to cater with the need of plus size woman.

One of the most established and recognizable stores in the States is Lane Bryant, a clothing store that offers a wide varieties of wear including business, casual and dress clothing for larger sized woman. Lane Bryant also sells their clothes via mail order catalogs and online shopping.

Another quite popular store is Torrid and it specifically sell clothes that targets younger and more fashion conscious plus size women. Their clothes are more stylish and trendy and this make shopping with them a great experience.

Online Shopping

With the ever expanding of the internet usage, there are now many stores that have made their presences on the world wide web. The internet has made shopping for plus size apparel even more easier. Shoppers are now able to browse stores and brands that are located far away from their geographical location. With this they can now check out the latest design and trends for this segment.

Although shopping online for clothe has its own weakness, where the shopper can't try on the cloth before purchase but it has made the possibility of the ready availability of a broader numerical size range for larger women; this is absolutely a big draw for them. Some online stores even practice custom made policy where tailor made can be done for some of their range of clothing.

To make online shopping experience even better, shoppers can also view styles, comparison shop and be linked to similar stores.This is something that the local mall or brick and mortar stores can do. Every growing and expanding marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Clothing and etc has made shopping for plus size clothing a lot more convenient.