does size matter?

as you may or may not have heard, canadian yoga wear retailer lululemon has come out and said that plus-size clothing is not part of its business strategy. this has some people fuming...

i, for one, see where lululemon is coming from. in fact, i applaud the company for statements like: "we agree that a beautiful healthy life is not measured by the size you wear. we want to be excellent at what we do, so this means that we can't be everything to everybody and need to focus on specific areas."

a retailer cannot be everything to everyone. to be frank, it's a bad business model. zeroing in on a target market (whether that market happens to be sizes 2-12 or 12-24) is what many clothing brands do. just because lululemon has a cult, trendy status, does not mean that it therefore needs to adjust to the wants of anyone and everyone. is lululemon trying to be elite? maybe. it is focused on the stylish, fitness-conscious crowd; that's obvious. every clothing brand aims to carve out its own niche. at least they haven't come out and made terrible remarks like the d-bag behind abercrombie & fitch made recently.

lululemon says it has no plans to adjust its current sizing structure, which means this is the perfect opportunity for a company to come along and market a stylish, comfortable, trendy brand of workout gear for the plus-size market. don't wait for lululemon to do it if they're not going to. and don't waste the energy getting mad.

i admit, while my own weight has fluctuated throughout my life, i've never had a plus-size figure. therefore i cannot speak from experience about how it feels to not be able to shop at certain stores. however, during a trip home to ontario a few months back, i did have an experience that left me feeling body-conscious. while in search of some dresses for upcoming summer weddings, i was distraught by how i didn't fit into anything like i used to. how these dresses were hugging in all the wrong places and making me feel more like a sausage in a casing then like a stunning woman.

i realized that stores will change their sizes and adjust the body type they market to. hemlines will get shorter and a size 8 may not fit the same as it always did, even if the number on the tag looks the same. with so much choice out there though, do we need to get down on ourselves or the retailers to make it easier? no, all we have to do is seek something else out, even if that means having to avoid the places we think we'd like to shop.

i ended up buying a dress at the bay -- a place that i wouldn't have remotely thought of going to if it weren't for my persistent mother. and sure, that dress wasn't from zara or h&m or topshop or artizia or somewhere else that has a constant flow of gorgeous ladies wandering in and out of it on a daily basis -- a place that appears to ooze trendiness. but you know what, that dress looked damn good. and that's all that matters.

if you don't fit into lululemon duds, don't get down about it. you know what? they're overpriced and overhyped anyway. find a place that has a tank and yoga pants that fit you just the way you are. after all, when was the last time anyone looked that closely for that silly little logo anyway?