For plus-size retailers, sexy is in
Across America, plus-size apparel retailers are getting hot and heavy.
Chains like Ashley Stewart and Lane Bryant, which specialize in the size 14-to-26 market, are making over the look of their clothes — ditching dowdy and seizing sexy, sleek looks.
The US plus-size market had sales of $18 billion last year — up 7 percent from 2013, according to the NPD Group — and rivals are trying to out-sexy each other to grab more sales.
At Ashley Stewart, two new campaigns — Love Your Curves, featuring a topless woman wearing jeans while hugging her breasts, and Dare to Bare, the tagline for a new lingerie line, including pink teddies with garter belts — are the centerpieces of the bold changes taking place at the 24 year-old company.
“Plus-size clothing has gotten much sexier,” admits Jamie Gorman, president of Only Nine, a maker of plus-size apparel who sells her togs to most plus-size chains.
“Even Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issues this year featured its first-ever plus-size model,” she said.
That sexier feeling was evident on Friday on the Lane Bryant Web site — where six plus-size models were strutting confidently in nothing but their underwear.
“You can’t make history without making some noise,” the tag line blared.
Kristen Gaskins, who heads up buying for Ashley Stewart, said the chain knows its customer “doesn’t think twice about wearing a tube top.”
“There’s a disconnect between what people think a plus size customer would wear and what they actually want to wear,” she said.
A generation ago, the clothes at plus-size chains were frumpy and lumpy.
“The clothing was too basic and the fits were loose,” said Ashley Stewart Chief Executive James Rhee. It wasn’t form hugging and we said there is no need to be modest.”
While the brand has never shied away from revealing and form-fitting styles, it’s now pushing even sexier designs, Rhee said, while also trying not to alienate its church-going clientele.
“We do have the career customer and a church customer, but ultimately we have to be fashionable,” Gaskins said.
Rhee, a Harvard graduate and former high school teacher, founded a private-equity company, FirePine Group, which is an investor in Ashley Stewart.
Rhee led the retailer through bankruptcy in 2013 — its second filing in three years — where it shuttered 100 of its 186 stores.
The company emerged from Chapter 11 in just five weeks with Clearlake Capital as its majority owner.
Today, Ashley Stewart is on target to exceed $140 million in sales — or just $40 million less than it made in 2013, when it had 100 additional stores.
A third of the company’s sales come from online purchases, up from 5 percent two years ago.
Rhee is also in talks with a department store to carry the Ashley Stewart brand, as well as expanding into shoes and swim wear.
Across America, plus-size apparel retailers are getting hot and heavy.
Chains like Ashley Stewart and Lane Bryant, which specialize in the size 14-to-26 market, are making over the look of their clothes — ditching dowdy and seizing sexy, sleek looks.
The US plus-size market had sales of $18 billion last year — up 7 percent from 2013, according to the NPD Group — and rivals are trying to out-sexy each other to grab more sales.
At Ashley Stewart, two new campaigns — Love Your Curves, featuring a topless woman wearing jeans while hugging her breasts, and Dare to Bare, the tagline for a new lingerie line, including pink teddies with garter belts — are the centerpieces of the bold changes taking place at the 24 year-old company.
“Plus-size clothing has gotten much sexier,” admits Jamie Gorman, president of Only Nine, a maker of plus-size apparel who sells her togs to most plus-size chains.
“Even Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issues this year featured its first-ever plus-size model,” she said.
That sexier feeling was evident on Friday on the Lane Bryant Web site — where six plus-size models were strutting confidently in nothing but their underwear.
“You can’t make history without making some noise,” the tag line blared.
Kristen Gaskins, who heads up buying for Ashley Stewart, said the chain knows its customer “doesn’t think twice about wearing a tube top.”
“There’s a disconnect between what people think a plus size customer would wear and what they actually want to wear,” she said.
A generation ago, the clothes at plus-size chains were frumpy and lumpy.
“The clothing was too basic and the fits were loose,” said Ashley Stewart Chief Executive James Rhee. It wasn’t form hugging and we said there is no need to be modest.”
While the brand has never shied away from revealing and form-fitting styles, it’s now pushing even sexier designs, Rhee said, while also trying not to alienate its church-going clientele.
“We do have the career customer and a church customer, but ultimately we have to be fashionable,” Gaskins said.
Rhee, a Harvard graduate and former high school teacher, founded a private-equity company, FirePine Group, which is an investor in Ashley Stewart.
Rhee led the retailer through bankruptcy in 2013 — its second filing in three years — where it shuttered 100 of its 186 stores.
The company emerged from Chapter 11 in just five weeks with Clearlake Capital as its majority owner.
Today, Ashley Stewart is on target to exceed $140 million in sales — or just $40 million less than it made in 2013, when it had 100 additional stores.
A third of the company’s sales come from online purchases, up from 5 percent two years ago.
Rhee is also in talks with a department store to carry the Ashley Stewart brand, as well as expanding into shoes and swim wear.