When I wrote the post that we are discussing — more than a year ago, I might add — I hadn’t noticed the pricing structure of Woman Within. I’m happy to admit this mistake, since learning from mistakes is a wonderful avenue for growth. It doesn’t change the fact that North Style’s treatment of customers, whether plus-size or “straight”-size, leaves a lot to be desired. I’d list for you the myriad subtle and not-so-subtle details that point to my conclusion, but I doubt you care very much about my opinion of North Style. In engaging with you, I seem to have forgotten one of the cardinal Rules of the Internet: don’t feed the trolls!

If you’d like to further debate fat, fashion, economics, or politics, may I suggest:
http://blog.twowholecakes.com/
http://www.fatnutritionist.com/
http://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/the-rules/
http://www.dailykos.com/

I’m sure you’re being coy about why each size doesn’t have its own incremental price point. Doing so would increase the price of all sizes to compensate for the additional administration – this is basic economics, like the rest of my comment.

You never did address the fact that Woman Within, a plus-size brand you mentioned as preferable to North Style practices the SAME up-charge for sizes outside of their average. This average is not meant to make larger people feel fat, unhealthy or any other way. It was chosen for manufacturing costs. Do you feel like the +24W women should not be up-charged for more material costs? If you do, you’d better learn how to sew because either the cost of all garments goes up to compensate for administrative costs over individual size pricing or the brands all go broke from charging less than what larger garments cost to make.

It is simple economics – no more, no less. The fashion industry offers every size with each brand catering to the range they are marketing to. Profit focused? Yes, it’s called capitalism, this is America. If you don’t like it there’s always the choice to sew your own.

He’s making two assumptions here: first, that being thin is the same thing as leading a healthy lifestyle, and second, that being fat does not. His entire comment contains both implicit and explicit value judgments related to size. In fact, he seems to think that larger women should pay extra for their clothes as some kind of punitive “up-charge” for our supposedly unhealthy lifestyles.

While I appreciate your business-focused argument, I challenge your assumption that there are no implicit or explicit value judgments in additional costs for plus-sized clothes. And who exactly gets to decide what the average is? And why is it not administratively burdensome for clothing manufacturers to charge for sizes on the other side of this so-called “average.”? Your argument that the extra material costs more is specious at best. The fashion industry is notoriously sizeist, and also notoriously profit-oriented. The reason why plus-sized clothes cost more is not because they cost more to make. It’s because we as a society think that people should pay more for being fat.

It would be too administratively burdensome for a vendor to incrementally charge by individual size. In this case though, it’s actually the smaller sizes being overcharged and not the larger.

If I need to wear clothes that require more material and labor, I should be willing to pay more. Heck, even if I made my own clothes, as a larger size I would need to pay to get more material. The retailer bases their price on an average of material/labor for a set size. If your logic of not having to pay more for a larger size were true, why not those who order XS pay less? They’re using less material and labor, but no, they pay what the ‘average range’ of sizes pay – even though you can probably make 1.5 XS garments out of what 1 XL (still in that range) costs to make.

The other retailers you point out are marketed ONLY to plus-size gals so their costs basis does not include more than one average range. By the way, look more closely at your Woman Within catalog, they DO charge more for sizes at the top end of their average range. This isn’t a statement on lifestyle choice, what’s healthy, who’s happy or any of the other emotional comments that precede mine. It’s plain business in that if you want more materials/labor for an item you should be willing to pay for it. Period.