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Thursday, April 27, 2006
From Wal-Mart to Old Navy, plttrsizes-are mainstream
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.-
Kathy Curtis waded through
a sea of colorful camisoles,
gypsy skirts and lacy tees at
Lane Bryant, shopping for a
deal.
The 45-year-old suburban
Philadelphia resident can
afford to be picky. As a size
20, she didn’t use to have as
many choices in plus sizes.
But more retailers are finally
paying attention to cus
tomers like her—if she does
n’t Mke Lane Bryant, she can
shop elsewhere.
“They could do more, but
things are much more stylish
than they were 10 years
ago—five years even,” Curtis
said. Before, “they figured,
give them a couple of extra-
large tops and they’re happy.”
As waistlines expand across
America, fashionable plus-
size clothes are proliferating
and moving into the main
stream. In some cases, plus
sizes are leaving the outer
fringes of the store floor to
hang next to “regular-sized”
clothes as the average
American gets bigger. Where
they remain separated, plus
sizes are being displayed in
specialized boutiques like
petites.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the
world’s largest retailer, is
adding more racks of plus-
size apparel in its “George,”
“Metro 7” and other lines due
to increased demand, said
spokeswoman Linda Blakley.
And the larger sizes hang
right next to the smaller
the same section as other
“It is doing really well,” said
Jime Beckstead, vice presi
dent of design at Sears
Holding Corp.
The Kohl’s department
store chain added plus sizes
for its “Apt. 9” and “Daisy
Fuentes” collections last
‘You can shop all the fines
in one section,” Blakley said.
Old Navy, a unit of Gap Inc.,
carries plus sizes in 250
stores nationwide, up from 55
stores nearly two years ago,
said spokesman Greg
Rossiter. Old Navy started
offering them online in 2000.
‘We recognize that the mar
ket is underserved,” he said.
“The response has been very
good.”
Kmart, a unit of Sears
Holding Corp., hired a special
designer for plus sizes a year
ago. Around the same time, it
also introduced “attention,” a
missy and plus-size clothing
fine that only uses stretch
fabric. Kmart said it has
always displayed plus sizes in
spring.
Retailers who have long
catered to plus sizes are get
ting into their second act.
This year, Liz Claiborne Inc.
in New York is opening five
“Elisabeth” plus-size bou
tiques. The designer, which
began offering plus sizes in
1990, already has 28 such
stores nationwide.
“Plus-size women are very
veiy loyal to brands. They
have a lot of spending power,”
said Barry Zelman, general
manager of specialty retail at
Liz Claiborne.
Charming Shoppes Inc. of
Bensalem, Pa., announced
last month that it was rolling
out a chain of plus-size lin
gerie stores nationwide called
Cacique. The stores vtill cany
sizes 12 to 28 and feature
larger dressing rooms with
tri-fold mirrors for viewing at
different angles.
The parent of Lane Bryant,
Catherines and Fashion Bug
already had seven Cacique
stores as of mid-March and
plans to open 50 stores by
year’s end.
Retailers are expanding
into larger sizes because
demand has grown: Two-
thirds of American adults are
either overweight or obese
today compared with 46 per
cent a quarter century ago,
according to the American
Obesity Association in
Washington, D.C.
Among children ages 6 to
11, about 30 percent are over
weight or obese, up fourfold
from 25 years ago. Nearly a
third of those ages 12 to 19
are heavy, with the percent
age more than doubling dur-
ir^ the same period, the non
profit advocacy group said.
That’s why “virtually every
body” is looking to cater to the
plus-size market, said Kurt
Barnard, president of
Barnard’s Retail Consulting
Group in Nutley, N.J. “That’s
where the dollars are.”
But it took decades for
Academic seeks life’s meaning in colfeshop
Continued from page 3B
effect”—that is, putting a big
ger emphasis on music sales,
movie marketing and other
non-coffee products.
Simon believes Starbucks
succeeds by “selling comfort”
in an anonymous, often dislo
cating world. He says he has
lost track of the number of
times people have told him
that when they traveled to a
strange country, “the first
thing I did when I got off the
plane was go to Starbucks.”
“There’s a deep sense of
impredictability in the mod
em world, and what
Starbucks provides a lot of
people is predictability,” he
said.
However, there are regional
variations. Starbucks intro
duced green tea firappuccinos
in Taiwan and Singapore in
2001. They proved so popular,
they’re now on the U.S.
menu.
Simon notes one big differ
ence between British
Starbucks and their
American counterparts.
“Starbucks is dirty here,” he
said, gesturing to a mess of
used fids and stir sticks on a
stained tabletop. “Americans
People in Mississippi push to preserve store in Till case
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONEY, Miss. - The fad
ing, whitewashed brick walls
of the old Bryant Grocery &
Meat Market store are crawl
ing with vines, and the roof
has long since succumbed to
the elements.
It’s a significant piece of
Mississippi civil rights histo
ry, and it’s slowly crumbling
away.
The store is where black
teenager Emmett Till is said
to have wolf-whistled at
white female shopkeeper
Carolyn Bryant in August
1955. Till was kidnapped, tor
tured and killed a few days
later—and his mother held an
_ —Bjp open-casket
I funeral in
af Chicago,
r ^ shocking the
M • Ml world by show-
V ing her son’s
n mutilated body.
I Now, folks
who want to
see the rural
Till
store practically need a tom
guide. There are no historical
markers, though there might
be one soon.
The Mississippi Board of
Archives and History is con
sidering putting an explana
tory sign by the store, some
thing that at least would let
history seekers know where
to tap their brakes on the
stretch of rmal Delta road
about 10 miles north of
Greenwood.
State Sen. David Jordan, D-
Greenwood, says somebody—
the state or a private
investor—needs to buy the
dilapidated building and
rehabilitate it. But so far,
Jordan says the man who
now owns the properly is ask
ing an exorbitant price.
“Everybody is concerned
about this structme. Not so
much the structme itself, but
the history of what happened
here,” Jordan said one recent
sunny afternoon outside the
store.
Interest in the slaying has
been revived in the past two
years, since the FBI reopened
an investigation.
the U.S. population is African American
35% of patients awaiting kidney
transplants are African American
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many retailers to see the
fight.
“The stores did not want the
plus-size woman to mix with
the svelte and slender,”
Barnard said. “Bad for the
image, they felt.”
At least in the past, larger-
size sections tended to be
tucked away in less-visited
parts of stores.
have been taught to do part of
the labor, and they clean up
after themselves. In the U.S.,
part of Starbucks’ appeal is
its cleanness.”
On the Net:
Cappuccino Conquests:
www.cappuccinoconquestsx>rg.uk
Starbucks:
wwwstarbucks.com
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