It is high time for the fashion world to realize the changing size of their customers. Fashion designers are still busy making clothes for the slim models. But they should be aware that the women who buy their clothes are not the same. The average size of an American woman has increased to 14.

Obesity is an epidemic, that fact is plain for us all to see. Over half of the women in this country are overweight or obese. It is worse for middle-aged women. In this demographic close to 2/3 are overweight. Another quickly growing demographic is teenage girls. As a result there is a sharp increase in the demand for clothing plus size and larger.

While the fashion industry has not fully met the demand, plus size clothing is the fastest growing market sector for business. Consistently, fashion trends lag behind in the plus size market. Often these are merely scaled versions of clothing designed for skinny people rather than actually being designed with the plus-sized body in mind.

The response to this is size inflation. This is the term used by the industry observers. Simply put, a garment that used to be size 14 is now a size 10. Consumers do not address the real concerns while feeling smaller in size. Plus size fashion clothing as dissatisfied customers as a result.

There have been some changes that are encouraging in the plus size market. Recently a group of plus size clothing manufacturers has completed an exhaustive sizing study, more extensive than any since World War II, making newer designs a better fit for today’s woman. In fact, there are even some models and fashion shows that are now exclusive to plus sizes, though they are still in the minority in the industry.

For the foreseeable future, the number of people classified as overweight will continue to increase. Clothes makers are aware of this trend, but so far have been fairly slow to adapt their lines of clothing. Plus size clothing is becoming the standard size sold to most customers, instead of the niche market that it has been. Fashion houses need to recognize this and start designing their mainstream clothes lines specifically for this growing class of customers.

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