My name is Jane, and I’m an engineer who has spent many years working in product development and market strategy. As a result, I know when a company is making a conscious decision to exclude potential customers. And as one of those excluded by Gucci and other clothing designers, I don’t like it. I work hard and save my money, so if I want to splurge periodically on something extravagant, I have the capacity to do so.
If you’re selling surfboards to 20 year old slackers, don’t market to me. I don’t mind if surfboard designers make boards I cannot use. I feel differently about clothing designers, however. Their marketing and sales decisions have broad implications. By offering clothes only in smaller sizes, they reinforce outdated notions of what is physically attractive. Whether it's color or cut, what Gucci does, other designers follow. And when it comes to the sizes offered, Gucci's actions have implications beyond whether a size 14 can fit into one of their pretty purple dresses. Must I savage my body to wear the latest clothes? Aren’t there enough eating disorders already? And don’t the designers need to acknowledge their complicity?
The perversity of fashion is that, at the same time as designers like Gucci are telling me I’m too big for their clothes, they’re trying to entice me to buy their accessories.
As a size 14 who is tired of not having access to the most wonderful and exciting clothes, and who is tired of the way designers like Gucci trash women's body image, I am taking action. And if you feel the same way, please join me.
So……If you can’t buy a designer’s clothes, don’t buy their bags. It’s that simple.
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