Oxford stores need more plus-size clothing

Picture this, you are walking through shops on the Oxford Square looking for the perfect dress for an upcoming party. Your tastes are classy and fancy — and downright fabulous — but everything you see tends to stop after a size large.

You think to yourself, “Okay, I will just try another store.” No, almost every single store on the Square has the exact same problem: no plus sizes. So, you are forced to consolidate with one of the two options: order online and still pay an insane amount of money or go to the local Cato and pray they have something that could work.

Plus-size girls like me encounter many struggles throughout our day-to-day lives, but this has got to be one of the biggest ones.

Especially in Oxford, it seems that local shops forget that the largest portion of Mississippi’s population is above the average dress sizes ranging from 12 to 14.

With the incoming of many new boutiques and stores coming to Oxford, you would think big girls would have some new options. Not really. The closest we are going to get to new “boutiques” that meet our needs are Ross Dress for Less and Marshall’s— if we are lucky.

I have always wondered what the hold up was in the plus-size fashion industry and why could we not find better clothing stores. Then it hit me: The stores are attempting to change us by not supplying our sizes. It is their way of telling us that our weight deems us unfashionable and undeserving of their clothing options.

These stores are trying to change us when we should be telling them to conform to our fashion needs. So, here is a course in Fabulousity 101 for all those stores out there who choose not to supply our sizes.

1. You would be smart to supply more plus-size options because, you know, big girls like nice things, too.
2. We would be willing to pay for your services because we need quality-crafted clothing.
3. You would earn more money by offering services to a wider variety of women.

In the end, these stores would just be making more money. Point-blank. Period. Bigger women want nice clothing and we are willing to pay for quality work.

There is a lot of money to be made in the plus-size fashion industry. $20.4 billion to be exact, according to the Huffington Post.

So in the words of Project Runway icon and fashion guru Tim Gunn, “This a design failure and not a customer issue. There is no reason larger women can’t look just as fabulous as all other women.”