Breathe Marie, Breathe. Earlier I vented my frustrations about getting visibly plus size models to model the plus size clothing being offered to us. Your comments and concerns were so welcomed and inspiring! Today? We are losing Salon Z at Saks Fifth Avenue.
I am pissed. BEYOND. Cleans my glasses, takes a deep breath, and tries to focus. I hear rumors floating and now, it has hit the damned ceiling. So, it was reported on Lucky, shared on twitter, and popping up across the internets:
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SAKS is pulling its Salon Z from all of its locations
Why?
Poor Sales they tout.
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Really?
Where do I even begin?
Lets see…
You have plus size inside “select” stores, barely advertise, merchandise, advertise or celebrate it- THEN (due to lack of awareness) you PULL OUT. Haha, I have seen this done before at another retailer… Having plus size in most (not all, cause few are doing an okay job) department stores sets it up for failure! NOW they want to PULL OUT all of its plus size options?
Are you serious?
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I am not sure if they understand the message that not only Saks but the other retailers that have brick and mortar stores but that sell plus sizes ONLY online send. Like what Marie?
Well, here are a few that come to mind:
- We will take your money but please, oh please, do not come into my store
- You really do not matter
- I do not know how to serve you
THIS MAKES NO SENSE, especially after it was SAKS who dared to carry high end designer clothing in plus sizes, carried an impressive amount of contemporary plus size clothing, and actually appeared to give a damn about the contemporary plus size woman.
So, where does this leave us with Salon Z Closed?
- Bloomingdales?
- Macy’s?
- Nordstrom?
- Lord and Taylor?
- Specialty Plus Size Stores?
- Plus Size Boutiques?
WHY would you deny the plus size woman fashionable rights and options, when she holds 28% of the purchasing power, yet you only chose to spend 17% ofthe apparel dollar on her?
AND since you are going online, How about a visible plus size model?
SMH. THIS is despicable and makes no business sense to me!
Please let me know how this makes you feel. I cannot be the only person pissed off by this.
Nevermind, I will take your business Saks
Please elaborate!!! What do you do?
Sorry to hear about this.
I’m in Seattle. When I want to shop a department store and need something right now, I venture to Macy’s where there’s a decent selection. Nordstrom stores have such slim pickings that it is laughable.
Same here…Who needs Saks when you will have my site…
OK, you sell plus size only online! That means I can’t try it on, but you show it in the online catalog on a skinny model. How in the world am I suppose to even guess what it will look like on me?
This is bananas!! And no, you are not the only one pissed about this. There are missing out on some serious money! I find no joy going to department stores because I find myself in the same two or three stores (JCPenny, New York and Co, and Macy’s) and it gets really boring! I’m having more luck thrift shopping believe it or not. It’s that and I have to bite the bullet and do online shopping because this is ridiculous!
Once again…these people need to holla at bloggers like us! See how fast there sales would go!
Lord have mercy – they should be ashamed! I hope that people vote with their dollars and let Saks know that we are not pleased. I will be sending a complaint.
Saks is really disappointing me right now. I truly believe retailers set their plus size departments up to fail, so they can have an excuse not to carry it in stores.
Department stores are awful. Since leaving NY and moving out west, it’s worse. One Macy’s near me only carried juniors and misses, the other has a tiny department with old lady-ish sportswear only, recently when I went in for a dressy dress, they snickered and directed me to order online from their website.
Nordstrom here is just as bad. A small corner near the bistro, they carry a small selection and move it around all the time. No outerwear, evening wear or anything trendy.
I love looking online, but send most stuff back, I just have one of those bodies that you have to try clothes on and it’s disappointing having to lose so much to shipping costs.
OMG. I did not know they were pulling Salon Z!!! I just received and email yesterday to participate in a fashion show at SAKS for breast cancer survivors…hmmph…gonna be interesting to see how THIS pans out!!!
It irks me to NO END the stores that only sale plus online…WE need to try our stuff on…they’d rather offer free shipping than give us a section in a brick and mortar. THIS is why I shop at small boutiques.
Amen! I am so tired of looking at so called Plus sized catalogs and not see one woman inside that represents how I look in the clothes. As far as us being represented in stores, I am beyond pissed. I cannot count how many times I have gotten excited about seeing a plus sized department in a store walk over there and have my excitement crapped by all of the frumpy grandmother clothes being offered. FASHIONISTAS COME IN ALL SIZES!
Just found your blog! Oh great–I hadn’t heard this. This reminds me of a time I walked into the new Bloomingdales in Friendship Heights in DC. I was anticipating a wider selection there. Uh, I should have known better. After kind of wandering around, I walk up to a salesperson and ask “Can you tell me where the plus sizes are?” She said “Oh, this store doesn’t have plus sizes because this is a boutique concept store.” Right, and plus size women couldn’t possibly appreciate that. It really soured me on Bloomies. I railed against Talbots not that long ago on the skinny anorexic models…seems I wasn’t the only one since they changed it. I did a little analysis just looking at the number of items at Nordstrom in Misses sizes versus Plus. Plus sized women have 11% of what Misses women have to choose from. Given what I hear about obesity in this country, I’d think that more than 11% of the population wears larger sizes. Just makes me angry!!!
Part of the reason behind our frustrations with clothes is in the fact that there is very little out there to actually try on, unless you go to a specialty store. I try shopping at big department stores, and I will tell you half the time I leave frustrated and a bit down on myself because I can’t find something that flatters me- it’s either too small or just frumpy & matronly.
And yes, when will they start using models that we can relate to? I was just browsing through Macy’s “plus size” shapewear section… and I’m sorry, why are there size 4 models selling me shapewear? really??
ZOMG!! I have spent thousands of dollars at Salon Z on both coasts! They carried the best selection of Lafayette 148 work wear for plus sizes, anywhere! Wow. NOW where am I going to get my fix? Nordstrom carries only a few Lafayette 148 pieces each season nowadays, and most stores don’t have any. I don’t know about the other labels carried by Salon Z, but I will bet Lafayette 148 will feel this on the income statement. Maybe some girls will order an $800 blazer online, but I’m not one of them. For that kind of cash, I expect: the opportunity to try on at lest two different sizes to find the one that I think is closest (or can most easily be tailored to be), a sales person suggesting what other types of clothing (be it on the rack or already likely in my closet) would work well with the piece I am considering in order to make it a good value, a relationship with a staff member who will(whether it is authorised by corporate or not) give me a heads up on upcoming sales and offer to put a piece or two aside for me in advance, etc. Of my 8 Lafayette blazers, 4 came from Salon Z as did 6-8 blouses, 2 or 3 pair of pants, a couple sweters, etc.
Whilst we are on the topic of dept stores dissing the plus sized, let me tell you about Australia. I currently live in semi-rural Queensland, on the northeast coast Down Under. People here, they grow kind of large, thanks to the “everything’s better if it is covered in breadcrumbs or batter and fried” philosophy. The town I live in just got its first departmnt store higher in quality than Le Target. And what to my wondering eyes did I see when I walked in? Ladies, you will not believe this. The plus department right next to the misses department, just down from the main entrance. The two departments both start near the main mall entrance and then span from there back toward the rear of the store, in parallel. Hang on, there’s more. It appeared (I have only been in there once, as it just opened yesterday) from my quick trip through that the plus department was at least half the size of the misses dept, maybe more than that. Seriously. Unfortunately much of the clothing there was its own store brand rather than other designers, and they were completely missing some labels I have seen at other branches of that dept store, but STILL, there were lots of options.
1) I have never been that impressed with the quality of clothing available from Salon Z. I’ve seen better (or equivalent) pieces in other stores for much less. Now, to add insult to the injury of high prices, I have to tie up valuable credit card dollars during the shipment and return process with Saks!?!?!?!?!!!! Ridiculous.
2) Norstrom and Bloomies have a lot of overlap, so if we lose only one it won’t be so bad.
3) Not only would I like to see more visibly plus sized models wearing our clothing, but I’d like to see more with the inverted-triangle shape. There are only two out there that I know of, and they get maybe 1% of the photos at any of the websites.
I worked as a commissioned sales person and department manager for one of the retailers you mentioned. Buyers and sales staff often were set up to fail because if sales were down, buy plans were reduced. New merchandise would be redirected to other stores or orders cancelled altogether. OBVIOUSLY that meant that customers only had the old merchandise that they had already rejected to choose from. Vicious circle. Fortunately I finally was paired with a buyer who was just as committed to growing business as I was. She trusted me enough to increase my buy plan and to send me bridge merchandise. Our sales skyrocketed. Customers in this size range need expert sales people and expert tailoring. They WANT to have a nice wardrobe just like any other woman, but they are not being served. It is challenging to get just the right styles and fit for this customer, but oh how rewarding it is! But with lightening speed, vendors go in and out of business in this size range and even when they last, their fits vary tremendously. Trying on is required. Retailers need to make a commitment to serving this customer with quality and stylish merchandise in stores just like any other valued customer is–unless of course they don’t value them.
I have loved Salon Z and think this a huge mistake. By discriminating against us voluptuous women, I will no longer spend my money at Saks on beauty products, accessories, or elsewhere in the store. if they don’t want all of me, they cannot have any of my money!
I just got back from an entire day of disappointment in trying to find high-end, designer clothing in B&M stores in plus sizes. At Nordstrom today, I was directed to their “Encore” section, wa – a – a – a -y in the back of the store, like they don’t want to see us, and of course the sections placed prominently are the teens and petites.
So I meandered back there to find one sales woman. I said, “I’d like to purchase expensive designer clothing in plus sizes. Can you direct me?” My hopes were not high because the entire department comprised about four short racks of clothes. She said, “Oh, yes, we have Eileen Fisher, Karen Kane,” etc. I looked around and all I could see were cheap-looking muu-muu style tops in loud 1980s garish colors.
She said, sheepishly, “Well, mostly online, but we have these few things here.” She led me to two short racks, one free-standing and one on the wall and said, “This is the Eileen Fisher. There were approximately five items in a few sizes each. I said, “Really? This is IT!? This is all you have?” I told her this was not nearly enough to choose from. I said I need to try on a dozen things just to find one.
So I said, “Oh, well, show me to the Karen Kane.” (Not exactly high end in my book, but I was game to see what they had since some of her things fit well.) She replied, “Oh, we don’t actually have them HERE! They’re online.”
I cast my eye across the few choices before me of unknown brands, with wild prints looking like the material used on the inside of a late 70s recreational vehicle. I was plenty steamed.
Thinking I’d try more everyday things, I tried J. Jill next. “Oops, sorry. We don’t carry the plus sizes in the store, only online.”
WTF. I’m retired, wealthy, and TRYING to give someone my money, but they won’t take it! My age group and size hold the big bucks. Why won’t they see this? Am I too abhorant to even come into your store? That is what they are telling me. Even Talbot’s Woman had ugly colors and boxy cuts, even though some of their misses and petites items were quite alluring. Why can’t they take the same clothes they make for Misses and Petites — the same fabric and colors — and just cut them to fit plus sizes? Why, when they start into the -X or -W sizes do they change the prints to gigantic tropical flowers and huge geometric prints? Do they think we don’t have taste because we are larger?
Okay, there, I’ve said it.
I enjoyed your blog. You are not alone. I’m attractive, intelligent, ready-to-spend, and I just happen to be large, and I cannot find clothes to buy.