Inside Old Navy's plus-size strategy

3 years ago

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August 19, 2021

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Malala Yousafzai reflects on Afghanistan and the Taliban, golf gets closer to equal pay, and Old Navy presents a roadmap for how retailers can serve plus-size shoppers. Have a great Thursday.
– The plus-size opportunity. For years now, consumers have been trying to convince clothing companies how valuable the plus-size market is. As any plus-size shopper can tell you, businesses have been slow to catch on.
Old Navy, however, is a rare example of a retailer that successfully changed course. The brand’s about-face started in 2018, when then-brand leader Sonia Syngal (now CEO of parent company Gap Inc.) instructed her team to “figure out plus,” Bloomberg reports in this story.
Until then, the mass-market brand had treated plus-size fashion like many companies do: as a separate category from straight sizing. Plus-size clothes cost consumers more (as much as $15 more for the same style of jeans), were less easily accessible in stores, and were handled by a different team inside the company.
Today, those divisions are gone. The plus-size teams at Old Navy are no more, with design integrated throughout overall women’s fashion. An item of clothing costs the same no matter what size it is. And sizes are sold together in stores. “Plus-size as an idea has essentially been removed,” Bloomberg reports.
So how did Old Navy do it—and could the brand be an example to other retailers? The business realized that it couldn’t miss out on the $32 billion plus-size fashion market any longer. Nor could it fail to serve its customers; as an affordable brand sold across the United States, Old Navy especially had an incentive to better serve the 70% of American women who wear an extended size, yet make up only a fifth of apparel sales.
Plenty of other brands have leaned into body-positive advertising, from Aerie’s no-retouching movement to Summersalt’s swimsuit ads. And there are more brands than ever, from Universal Standard to Eloquii, devoted to serving women at all sizes. But Old Navy’s revamp provides an example of the kind of structural changes a traditional retailer must make behind closed doors to eliminate bias against the plus-size shopper once and for all.
Explains head of women’s merchandising Alison Partridge Stickney: “It all comes back to listening to the customer. We heard it so loud and clear that she wanted to be included and be able to shop with her daughter and friends.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Kristen Bellstrom.

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