How Fashion Nova Changed Plus Sized Fashion

Photography by Emily King

“I don’t think you have the body type for that.” This is what I was told when wearing a curve-hugging outfit in front of my family. I remember wearing a bodysuit and cargo pants. I looked in the mirror and what made me feel beautiful slowly changed to embarrassment. It’s accentuating my problem areas. What made me think I could pull this off? I remember telling myself. All because of a single comment.

I had been insecure about my weight for a long time and being told stuff like that didn’t help. I was afraid to show my body and I was afraid of what people would say about it. I think a lot of my fear stemmed from how plus-size models were portrayed in the media. 

In 2010, Ashley Graham starred in a commercial for a Lane Bryant plus-size lingerie line. The commercial was originally banned by FOX and ABC because it apparently showed too much cleavage. After Graham called out the networks, they let it play. “The first thing I thought of was Victoria’s Secret commercials, and how they’re just as racy, if not more racy than Lane Bryant. They are just a lot smaller than what I am,” Graham said to the New York Post. 

Growing up, I would frequently see Victoria’s Secret Angels on my TV screen and wonder why I didn’t look like that. I felt excluded from a club, in a way. Even now, I am not able to shop at VS because of their size range. VS only goes up to an extra-large and some other brands have the same range of sizes. For example, Abercrombie & Fitch, PacSun and Free People all only go to an extra-large. I am an XXL. 

Hope Brown from Coventry, Rhode Island has a similar opinion on sizes. “I feel like when a brand only goes up to extra large they exclude so many women and men, it makes us feel not wanted and not important to that brand,” she says. When did the idea of being “bigger” become so shameful? According to Christianna Moestue ‘20, there is still a lack of choice even in sizes not considered plus-size. 

“If at the largest size I wear, a 14, I am already seeing an immense decline in available clothing options, then what about these women? The larger the size gets, the few[er] ‘stylish’ options available,” Moestue said. 

Plus-size clothing generally has less availability, and because of this idea I have always been taught to think that people like me have to wear baggy clothes or stray away from anything “scandalous.” However, that all changed recently.  

In 2015, Graham, a size 16, became the first plus-size model to ever be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. In 2016, the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education discovered that the average American woman wears a size 16 to 18. 

By this time, Fashion Nova, a strictly e-commerce website, advertised on Instagram frequently and was gaining popularity. Fashion Nova launched Fashion Nova Curve in 2017, and it continues to have a huge selection of on-trend clothing. This was one of the first brands to emphasize plus-size shapes, carrying the same clothing in straight and plus sizes. Many women began to love the brand.

Tangeia Smith, known as chief_tan on Youtube worked with Fashion Nova Curve from 2017 to 2018, and she thinks the brand is awesome. “They always have on-trend items in my size. If there were more brands doing so, I’m 100% sure other brands [would] love to have my coin,” Smith said.  

Since the release of Fashion Nova Curve, there have been many changes involving trendy plus-size fashion and plus-size representation. Clothing lines such as Pretty Little Thing and Boohoo released affordable plus-size clothing lines, and there have been more genuine plus-size models in the media--genuine plus-size models meaning apple body shapes rather than a small waist with big hips above a size 12. 

Of course there is still room for improvement. Smith says, “I would just like to see more brands offering a wider variety of plus-size apparel. Trendy and timeless being key words in that. No couch patterns, no tent size shirts. We want to be able to feel sexy and fashion-forward and all of that.”  Still, plus-size representation would not be where it is today without brands like Fashion Nova.