In the 21st century, the issue of size inclusivity in the fashion industry has become paramount for the success of brands. Particularly, the fashion industry dealing with women’s clothing has received pressure from models and women shoppers to embrace size inclusivity in their brands. With technological advancement, customers can get information on products and previous shoppers, determining their choice to purchase goods. If the company does not align with customers’ needs and wants, they can easily change brands to those who value them. This calls for a need to study size inclusivity from both customer’s perspectives and fashion designers to provide action items fashion companies can incorporate into their marketing strategies to ensure maximum client satisfaction, resulting in customer acquisition and retention. The project interviewed five marketing professionals and surveyed 30 female customers to understand further the concept of size inclusion in the fashion industry. Open and closed-ended questions were used to collect information from participants. The questions ranged from customers’ opinions on what it means for brands to incorporate diversity in their websites and marketing
strategies to their recommendations on embracing diversity in their fashion lines. The two central research questions that guided the project are; a) How accurate are the current marketing data and technologies that measure inclusive sizing? Are brands utilizing these findings effectively? And b) In what ways can inclusivity be a brand pillar that allows for customer retention and brand favorability even if a consumer doesn’t fall into a minority category (i.e., plus size)? As noted in the results, diversity is a key factor in women’s shopping decisions. Women are cautious with brands that do not send a message of appreciation to the broad women market. For example, women tend to avoid companies that do not represent all body sizes, especially when advertising with models. Authenticity was another important factor for female shoppers. When customers feel the brand genuinely understands and consider their diverse body sizes, they tend to be loyal. It is recommended that brands use available technology to integrate customer-based marketing tools and foster size inclusivity in the fashion industry. Despite the extensive research and insightful results from this study, gaps are noted that call for further research. These include but are not limited to; Biases of selling tools and technology (i.e., user experience tools, virtual try-on, in-store mannequin sizes) and their effects on size inclusivity, corporate diversity training and its effects on size inclusivity expansion and, effects of image retouching and social media filters and how this affects size inclusivity.
