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Women's Magazines React to Kmart Now Calling Plus-Size Collection 'Fabulously Sized'

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September 13, 2017

The department store chain Kmart is changing it's "plus-size" section to "Fabulously Sized," and the reaction from women's blogs and magazines is mostly positive.

The change was announced on Monday.

"The average American woman is a U.S. size 16 to 18. Often it's hard for women to find extended sizes," Kelly Cook, Kmart's chief marketing and digital officer, told "Today" in an email.

"When we reached out to our Kmart members on social media, they told us we needed to have a better assortment on extended sizing apparel and that we should we call it something different," Cook continued. "They absolutely love this whole mantra of 'Fabulously Sized.'"

Moving away from the term "plus size" is part of Kmart's new body-positivity campaign, "I Can."

Some major news blogs celebrated the news, like AJ+.

Popular feminist blog Jezebel celebrated the news, writing, "Hey, some nice news! Kmart is sprucing up its plus-size offerings and doing more to integrate them into the rest of the store ... They will be called 'Fabulously Sized.'"

Cosmopolitan cheered the change as well.

"Retailers across the country are finally waking up to the fact that yes, women who wear above a size 12 spend money on clothes, too! Now one of the biggest big-box chains in the country is realizing that adding more sizes boosts sales—and those sizes don't have to get slapped with a 'plus-size' label, either."

Not everybody was pleased, however.

Glamour magazine reported that Kmart "believed" its new naming would "put its straight- and plus-size offering on an even playing field," but argued the new approach is problematic.

"The first part involves extending the sizing of each and every one of its in-house brands (yes!) and discontinuing the use of the term plus-size to describe products (double yes!); however, it's the second part I'm not so supportive of," Lauren Chan wrote.

"See, while Kmart is eliminating the descriptor plus from its apparel branding, it's not erasing size categorization; instead, its larger items (which go up to 4x) will be tagged 'fabulously sized,'" she said.

Chan claimed that it would be more effective for the designation of plus-size clothing to be trashed entirely.

"When planning this monumental shift in its marketing (and seemingly speaking to consumers about it), did no one at Kmart think it would be more revolutionary to omit a label entirely?" she asked. "If they read the same Internet I do, I really don't know how they missed that."

Published under: Women