Attention: Fashionable New Tuyere, Large Fashion

According to Taobao's search statistics, the number of stores related to large women's wear has reached 490000, which shows that large women's wear is quietly becoming a booming market. It is also because of this, in June, magneto made a topic about big size fashion. As soon as this article was launched, it received enthusiastic feedback from readers. One of the comments caught our attention: "big size is not an enlarged size, but a separate system."

Yes, a lot of people think that big women's wear is just pushing the size of the clothes of medium-sized girls, but is it really the case? Under some popular large KOL Shopping Videos, we can often see comments complaining about the difficulty of buying large size clothes, which indirectly reflects the immaturity of large size clothing in the domestic market. In the era of online shopping with so much material, what is the reason that makes it difficult for big girls to buy clothes? Is big size fashion simply equivalent to the plus size of ordinary fashion? We will discuss the answers to these questions from the perspective of design, focusing on large women's wear.

1、 Chinese girls' clothes It's getting bigger

In foreign countries, especially European and American designers and brands, have already explored the concept and market of large size women's wear. In 1980, Italy's top women's wear brand Max Mara launched Marina Rinaldi, a branch line designed for women with large sizes, which announced the birth of the world's first high-end women's wear. In the field of fast fashion, as early as the early 20th century, there were brands like Lane Bryant that focused on large women's clothing.

However, it is obvious that China's large size women's wear started very late. We didn't wait until 2007 for the first real big size women's clothing brand "top 10 x". Its parent company is similar to Lane Bryant, and it started with mother and baby products. It's a pity that "big 10 x" did not continue to work on large size clothing like Lane Bryant, and finally only stayed at the design level for B-type chubby and plump, so it hastily withdrew from China's large size women's wear market. In the next 10 years, China's large women's clothing is almost in chaos, but the market demand for large women's clothing is expanding.

In the past 20 years, due to the development of science and technology and the increasing affluence of material life, great changes have taken place in the diet structure and body shape of Chinese people. According to the data of 2002 report on nutrition and health status of Chinese residents, the overweight rate of adults in China was 30%, and the obesity rate was 12.3%. These two data became 30.1% and 11.9% in the 2015 report on nutrition and chronic diseases of Chinese residents. However, according to the latest data of 2020 edition of the report, the overweight rate has risen to 34.3%, and the obesity rate is 16.4%, It almost doubled in just five years. It can be clearly seen that the contemporary Chinese are becoming more and more "strong", followed by an increasing number of clothing sizes.

If you pay attention to the domestic social platforms, it is not difficult to find that the large KOL, which mainly focuses on the fashion and wear of large sizes, has been "taking off" since 2018, attracting a huge amount of viewing traffic. Take Hannah, the well-known up owner of BiliBili, as an example. Every video she published about wearing large size clothes has received more than 100000 hits, which is far higher than her other beauty videos. It can be seen that the public pay more attention to the fashion of large size clothes and the potential market is large.

2、 The current situation of large size women's wear in China

Although the field of large size clothing is considered as a vast "blue ocean" in China, it has been more than 10 years since the first large size clothing was listed in the mainland in 2007, and there is still no leading brand in related fields in China. Based on the observation of major social media and the analysis of practitioners in the field of large size women's wear in China, we conclude that the main reasons for this deadlock are as follows.

?? Relatively single aesthetic and design concept

KOL, which introduces large size clothing, has emerged in endlessly. However, due to the lack of mainstream media that has long been speaking for large size groups, it has not systematically popularized the aesthetic concept of large size clothing to the public. Although there was once an app "attapulgite", which mainly focuses on the fashion and lifestyle of large size women, the fashion of women with large size is still relatively small. These voices are just a flash in the pan in the market, and there is no scale and system. Even in the global trend of advocating aesthetic diversity, the domestic tolerance for large size groups is not high.

Zhang Xiaowei, the manager of msshe, is the first batch of people in China to try the "crab" of large women's wear. With 12 years of experience, she has witnessed the growth process of msshe and China's large size women's wear market. Referring to the development environment of large size women's wear in China and the biggest difference in foreign countries, Zhang Xiaowei said with emotion: "I think there are differences in mentality. Foreigners will accept the fact that they are fat. But Chinese people, such as myself, are still struggling with the dilemma of losing weight, and they wear more clothes to cover up. So in the future, if fat girls in China don't change this kind of thinking, thin design will still prevail."

However, the definition of "big size" in the domestic market is also very vague and confusing. Due to the lack of popular science knowledge about large size in China, the overweight group is often considered not to belong to the large size. As a result, large size women's clothing brand "big face Jing" often faces the dilemma of being questioned. In the eyes of many consumers with absolute large size, "big face Jing" seems to be a "pseudo big size" brand, even models are not fat. But in fact, obese girls face no less physical problems than those who are absolutely large.

The principal of "Da Mianjing" is a little fat girl with a height of 170cm and a weight of 136 Jin. She has a deep understanding of the difficulty of buying clothes "In the past, there were few stores that made large size clothes. Most of the fashions were for thin people with normal size, and the size was relatively small. But there were many little sisters between fat and thin, which created a very embarrassing phenomenon. We couldn't wear good-looking clothes, and those we could wear were not good-looking, too big." this also prompted her to create a brand for slightly fat girls.

"Big face Jing" is currently positioned as a retro lady with a bit of girlish elegance. This is actually Dajing's safety card. For a long time, According to the mainstream concept, only the elderly and out of shape women need large size clothes. Therefore, most of the large size clothes in China only stay at the level of solving the problem of clothing wrapping, and it is difficult to realize the youth and fashion of large women's clothing.

"The current domestic environment is still conservative. Many overweight girls are not confident and dare not try new elements. For example, I made a leopard print shirt in 2018, and I was scolded miserably, Because a lot of people think that people who are overweight don't even deserve to wear leopard prints 。 Therefore, we often think about how to break through the inherent black-and-white gray thinking to do the design of obese clothes, hoping to guide more obese girls to boldly try different styles

Similarly, dimple peach, a large women's wear brand, is also committed to breaking the traditional thinking of "showing thin by black" and encouraging customers to try bright colors. For example, white and lemon yellow, which were considered fat in the past, have been cleverly applied to the large women's dress design of dimple peach (dimple peach).

?? The product category is not detailed enough

According to an article published in 2007 by the people's daily market news, there is a phenomenon that the clothing market for plump women aged 25-45 in China is out of stock, but there is no lack of choices for those under 25. However, through the current major social platforms, it is found that not only are large girls of "mature age" difficult to buy clothes, but also there are not many choices for large girls, We can often see some KOL unpacking videos with messages below, especially the round "apple shaped" figure on the upper and lower body is very difficult to dress well. In fact, the problem is not in the wearer, but in the clothes that can be bought in the market.

In the final analysis, it is that the domestic market of large women's clothing is not detailed enough, and the understanding of the figure of Chinese women with large size is not deep enough. In addition to the lack of clear design ideas for different age groups, in order to save R & D and production costs, most of the large women's clothing brands simply increase the size of ordinary size clothes and rigidly apply the oversize mode, which makes many consumers mistakenly think that large size people only need to wear "loose and big", and rarely use clothing design to modify their body.

In fact, there is diversity in the size of a woman's body, just like that of a regular size. Wang ruoju, the manager of dimple peaches, has made an in-depth investigation on the size of women with large sizes. Instead of generalizing the size of large women, she first defines "true fat body" in the range of 130 Jin to 240 Jin according to BMI index, and then according to different parts of body weight, As well as the body characteristics of the side to divide the body.

According to the survey results, according to the fat distribution center of gravity to distinguish large women's body, data from the "fat friends little Aunt Wang ruoju" account number

This is because when the BMI is greater than or equal to 26, the sense of skeletal presence is weakened, and ordinary people who are not familiar with human body structure tend to be unable to distinguish their own body types. The thickness of body parts is the most prominent and easy to identify.

Big face Jing, the manager of "big face Jing", also found the North-South difference in the size of Chinese girls from north to south from the data analysis of customers, "Our consumers are mainly between 18 and 30 years old, and the highest proportion is 20-24 years old. Most of the consumers come from Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shandong. Especially in Shandong, many of them are large skeletons of more than 170cm and 130kg-140kg. However, the female students in southern China are generally small in skeleton, and their big size is short and fat, and many of them are slightly fat Ornaments are mainly designed for this type of figure, which makes it difficult for tall and fat girls to buy suitable clothes in ordinary physical stores or other fat brands. I am tall, so the clothes in the store will be designed according to the body characteristics of tall, big and skinny girls. "

?? Lack of fabric for large women's wear

In addition to the particularity of style and pattern, fabric is also a very important link. When we usually discuss fashion and fashion, we seldom pay attention to fabrics, and even simply focus on the price of raw materials. In the clothing design of large size women, they have their own unique needs and confusion. Dimple peach (dimple peach) manager Wang ruoju told us: "the users of large women's wear are more critical than ordinary women's clothing in terms of material requirements, and they will be more sensitive to the perception of subtle differences, such as the degree of fabric loss, whether pilling and sanding, whether it is breathable, and the salting color floating rate."

Wang ruoju talked about the difficulties in the production of large women's clothes in the "popular science" video, which was cut from the account number of "fat friend's little Aunt Wang ruoju"

However, due to the high cost of fabric research and development, many large women's e-commerce brands can only use the existing fabrics on the market for cost consideration, and the lack of fabrics also affects the final visual effect and wearing experience of large women's wear. In order to give larger women a better experience, many designer brands start to summarize their demands from the market feedback, and then integrate these needs into the research and development of new season products in advance.

MS she's after sales department and customer relationship management department sort out customers' opinions every week, and in the process, they find that big girls have some different problems. For example, they found that the most common problem for girls with large sizes is that because there is more meat on the inside of their thighs, this position of pants is particularly prone to pilling. In 2020, they even launched an activity in the circle of friends of customers, asking customers to send their old trousers worn for one to two years to the msshe brand. The team selected the two pairs with the least wear and conducted in-depth fabric research, which were used for fabric development in the new quarter.

Zhang Xiaowei, the manager of msshe, explained: "Due to the unique figure of our customers, we have certain limitations in the selection of fabrics. Generally, we will give priority to fabrics with elasticity, easy movement and pilling resistance. Moreover, the functional requirements of large women's clothing on the moisture absorption and perspiration of summer fabrics are higher than that of ordinary clothing fabrics, and the color fastness should meet the national quality standard of grade 4 or 5. The above indicators are actually spears Shield, the market is very difficult to have a product can meet all the requirements at the same time, so we have to weigh, find a compromise standard, combined with the style of fabric selection

Based on the opinions of the interviewees in this article, we can see that the domestic market of large size women's wear has grown rapidly in the past four years. Especially under the influence of live delivery, the competition of large size women's wear has quietly surpassed that of other subdivided categories, which requires higher comprehensive ability of relevant practitioners than ever. In order to have a long-term foothold in the large-size clothing industry, we need to have a deep understanding of user needs, precise positioning of the brand, and internal research and development capabilities.

3、 Change from the source of Education

In the education system of fashion design, the major design colleges and universities at home and abroad have been unconsciously targeting the high and slim people, and lack of courses for large fashion design. This single education concept directly leads to the lack of attention to the non slim people.

For example, before 2017, even in Parsons School of design (the new school), which is rich in industry resources, more than 1000 students majoring in fashion design could only share one large platform. Although the school's official staff said that Parsons actually has 17 large size platforms, including size 18 and size 22, according to students, most of these platforms are 12 yards, while the average size of American women is already 14 yards.

In Japan's "Institute of cultural and fashion design", the school administration members responsible for the arrangement of courses for overseas students mentioned that large size clothing is still a small number of individual studies in the school's curriculum, and there is no special course, and there is only a large European size platform in the whole school. However, in a well-known fashion design college in China, according to the students' feedback, the general platform of the school is 165cm in height and 84cm-86cm in chest circumference, which is smaller than the M size we generally understand.

Parsons's new graduate course "bodying universal bodies" is a project of concern to the industry in recent years. In this course, 17 students are divided into four groups, and one "Muse" is selected from four groups of "old age", "cross gender", "large size" and "disability". The corresponding works are designed through actual communication and research. The pictures are from 1granary website

But after all, foreign women's large size clothing has many years of market accumulation and certain development experience, and the popularity of large size fashion is also relatively high. Especially in recent years, under the international trend of promoting diversification, professional design colleges and universities not only pay more attention to the education assistance for students studying large size fashion, but also actively cooperate with large size clothing brands. For example, since 2018, DIA & Co, an online shopping platform for oversized women's wear, has cooperated with the American Fashion Designers Association and sponsors of the curve con (the big fashion brand gathering meeting held at the same time with New York Fashion Week every year) to provide education project investment funds for Parsons Institute of design, Fashion Technology Institute and other institutions to jointly develop new courses for large size fashion design.

In China, many well-known large-size clothing brands are established by behind the scenes teams based on the actual demand for large women's wear. Many members have no professional background in fashion design. When they first enter the field of large-size women's wear, they are more like crossing the river by feeling the stone, lacking professional design thinking education and the standard guidance of the fashion industry to the brand, This is also one of the reasons for the slow development of large size women's wear in China. Moreover, most of the large women's clothing brands in the domestic market are keen on increasing the popular fashion mode of mainstream fashion, and lack of in-depth research on the display of large size human body aesthetics.

There is still a lot of space in the field of large size women's wear in China. In order to really improve the "quality", the market environment needs to realize that the large size women's wear is a unique category, not a simple size increase, just like ordinary women's wear. Consumers of large size women's wear also have diversity of body, and have corresponding demand for texture of fabric. If we blindly pursue profits and reduce the design and development costs, it is difficult for the brand to advance to the field of high-end fashion.

In addition, domestic design institutes should also follow the international trend of diversified aesthetics to carry out corresponding curriculum reform, increase the exchange between colleges and large size clothing market, so that future designers can establish the design concept of diversified body before they come out. In the near future, what is the development possibility of large size women's wear in China? Magneto will continue to pay attention.