Story of plus size clothes

Did you know Abercrombie & Fitch did not stock XL or XXL sizes in women’s clothing for many years even though its competitors like H&M did. In 2006, Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch  said the company deliberately excluded clothes for bigger women because it did not want to appeal to just everyone.

Here’s part of what he said in the interview with Salon:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong, and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Seven years and 70,000 petition signatures later, the company apologized and invited some teens to a meeting with executives.

“We look forward to continuing this dialogue and taking concrete steps to demonstrate our commitment to anti-bullying in addition to our ongoing support of diversity and inclusion,” the company said. “We want to reiterate that we sincerely regret and apologize for any offense caused by comments we have made in the past which are contrary to these values.”

Abercrombie & Fitch added a plus-size range this spring. Now isn’t that great.