Sewing for My Curves: Insights Into Plus-Sized Garment Fit Dissatisfaction

With the average American woman now wearing a size 16 (Christel & Dunn, 2016) it is pertinent to better understand the garment fit needs of the plus-size segment. this qualitative netnographic study explored the common sewing pattern alterations made by plus size sewing bloggers to better understand plus size women's garment fit issues. Revealed by this study was the most common garment fit issues concerned the bust, bicep, shoulders, and lower back. As sewing patterns and ready-to-wear production patterns use the same proportions and grading procedures this understanding of common garment fit issues provides and academia a better understanding of how plus-size apparel design needs to improve.


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Published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ITAA Proceedings, #76https://itaaonline.org description of body shape, typical sewing pattern adjustments and preferred clothing styles (eg. wrap dress, skinny jeans). This consistency in content between blog posts allowed for a comparison between the blog posts to be made. The bloggers ages ranged between 20 and 50 and were from diverse ethnic backgrounds which was determined by information disclosed in their post and the images they shared. The written content also revealed that the women lived in different geographic regions of the world, had varied style preferences and included their RTW sizing which provided a sample the authors deemed as inclusive of the female plus-size clothing consumer segment. The measurement and sizing questions were analyzed to gain a better understanding of the women's body sizing and proportions while the descriptive questions were coded for emergent themes (Saldana, 2016). Although reader comments which averaged 50 per post were not analyzed the were read by the researchers to verify that additional women were having similar experiences.
Results and Discussion. The bloggers provided their body measurements with bust measurements ranging from 36 to 52, waist ranging from 34 to 46, and hip ranging from 45 to 54. The height was also varied with the shortest blogger at 5'2" and the tallest at 6' 1". Fluctuation of measurements was revealed in several of the women's responses at the waist and hip with all indicating a regular 4-inch variation in their measurements. Analysis of their indicated RTW sizing revealed that the women wore sizes that ranged from 12 to 24. The most frequent size response(n=5) was 18-20. The majority of bloggers (n=10) indicated wearing more than one RTW size with five bloggers indicated currently wearing sizes from 14 to 20. The women all provided detailed descriptions of their overall body shapes with the majority of the women using a fruit shape description (e.g. pear, apple) or basic shape description (e.g. hourglass, rectangle). Two bloggers varied from that format with the responses "human" (blogger 15) and "adorable, sexy, and fabulous" (blogger 7). The most frequent responses were pear (n=7) and hourglass (n=5). The most common garments sewn were wrap dresses, dresses with fitted waists, skinny jeans, and other pants.
All of the women altered their sewing patterns prior to use and indicated that they blended multiple pattern sizes to fit their body shapes. Analysis of the bloggers' pattern alteration processes revealed common alterations were bust adjustment, bicep adjustment, narrowing of shoulders, lower back adjustment, and curving of waistbands. Analysis also revealed most of the women preferred clothing styles that were body contouring or closely fitting and had a hard time finding these styles in their sizes in RTW.
The findings confirmed issues previously research that indicated concerns with pattern grading at and above size 16 (Bye et al. 2008;Lininger, 2015) and verified the previous finding that plus-size women are dissatisfied with RTW fit (NPD, 2012). The bloggers demonstrated through their body measurements and shape descriptions that it cannot be presumed that weight is evenly distributed on the body (Brown & Rice, 2001). These sewing bloggers, like RTW plussize fashion bloggers, are demonstrating their consumer authority not by demanding better selection but creating their own which extends the findings of Martindale and McKinney (2018) that sewing provides a way for consumers to gain control over clothing fit.

Implications.
Although this research is exploratory in nature with small sample it extends the understanding of the plus-size body and the clothing fit issues that these women face. As sewing patterns are created using the same proportions and measurements as ready-to-wear clothing the information regarding fit dissatisfaction and sewing alterations imparts valuable awareness of how plus-size garment design needs to improve. The findings propose that key clothing fit issues that need to be evaluated concern the biceps, bust, shoulders, and lower back. The fluctuation in the waist and hip measurements experienced by the women, the use of lower back adjustments, as well as, the percentage of women indicating a pear shape bodies brings light to a clear need for a better understanding of how to better design apparel for the lower half of the plus-size body.