Demand From Plus-Sized Women Spawns Fatshion Category: Retail

For years, fashion advice for larger women has come in one size: wear black and avoid stripes. Now, many women are embracing their curves and demanding that retailers cater to them, not the other way round.

Hot Topic Inc. and Fifth & Pacific Cos.’s Lucky Brand are among several retailers selling clothes -- including striped skirts -- to women who want to be just as fashionable as their skinnier sisters. On blogs and social media, millennials -- who are aged about 18 to 34 -- have appropriated the F Word and dubbed the new looks “fatshion,” a rebuke to an industry that still employs waif-like models to sell its wares.