Millions of Women Wear Between Plus and Sample Sizes
The average American woman is a size 14. Why don't we see her?

When Bianca Vaccarini was constructing a few sentences to describe herself on the ‘About Me’ tab for her style blog, she didn’t talk about a hidden love for sprinkles or a burning desire to document all the beauty in the world. She talked about her size. "I am not cookie cutter shape, and the world was not made for my short legs, long torso, huge rack, small feet, unusually small forehead, and thick calves," she writes.

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Vaccarini lives in that delightful valley between typical straight sizes and typical plus sizes, otherwise known as the in-between sizes. The average American woman has long been thought to be a size 14 (it’s actually probably a little higher now) which lands right in that weird spot of nearly sizing out of standard retailers, which typically run from sizes 0 to 12 (or 8 to 10 for high-end retailers), but not quite sizing into plus-size retailers, which typically start at a size 16. The in-betweeners live in a world occupied by many but represented by few, especially when it comes to fashion advertising and media depiction.

"For people who were like me who are kind of in between plus sizes and standard sizes, it’s hard to navigate the fashion industry because people want to categorize you as plus-size," says Vaccarini, who’s a size 14. When companies approached her for collaborations, they were more often than not plus-size brands.

"I do label myself as plus size even though I am more in between because I guess the straight-size blogging industry has a certain image," she explains. "When people see me on the street, it’s like ‘Oh, that’s a curvy fat girl, she’s obviously not someone who would be a standard-size blogger.’ They would put me more in the category of being plus size, so I get a lot more plus-size pitches from companies."

"For people who were like me who are kind of in between plus sizes and standard sizes, it’s hard to navigate the fashion industry because people want to categorize you as plus-size."—Bianca Vaccarini

Franziska Hasselhof, a medical student who runs a personal style blog on the side, never advertised herself as a blogger for in-between sizes but found herself getting linked regularly on Reddit threads when people were searching for style bloggers who didn't have model-sized dimensions.

On the one hand, Hasselhof says, it was great to get that recognition. "On the other hand, I’ll run across stuff that’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’m so happy to find a girl who’s not stick skinny who can still look good,’" she says. "That’s almost a backhanded compliment, like, thank you for saying that I’m able to dress my body."

Read the rest of this story here.
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