When it comes to Australian online fashion retailers, you can expect a range of styles, from festival ready playsuits to ripped street-wear that will have every older family member joking that you bought it for half-price. But when it comes to the diversity of models, it’s a one size fits all approach.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Some of the top Australian earners in online women’s apparel include: ShowPo, Princess Polly, Beginning Boutique and Tiger Mist.
A few of these retailers have progressed from using a white-washed roster of models, recently dipping a Shellaced-toe into the pool of diversity by casting mixed-race talent to keep up with overseas competitors like ASOS which has found success by including ethnically ambiguous faces.
Even still, the body types showcased by these online retailers remains uniform. Except for one.
In 2016, Australian online store ShowPo made $30 million in revenue. This year, company founder Jane Lu came in at number 32 on the Young Rich List.
Showpo showcased its “curve” range, which includes sizes 14-20, in June 2018. While the brand launched the range in September 2016, it was only in June that it began displaying dual images of the clothing on a petite model and curve model.
The plus-size retail market is estimated to be worth $278.2 billion in 2018 alone and the average Australian woman wears a size above a 12. For Showpo, it was a savvy business move. While company founder Lu would not disclose the revenue from curve sales, she says the range has been financially successful.
Its Instagram feed is now filled with images of its petite model and curve model, hand-in-hand, grinning for the “body positive” comment praise to come.
But something is missing. The curve model barely features in images on her own.
Each time she features, she’s flanked by a petite model. At first glances, it might look like an equality win, as if the models are on an equal footing in Showpo’s books, but keep scrolling.
Of Showpo’s hundreds of Instagram posts over the past four months, many are of petite models on their own. Only four images have featured a curve model on her own.
Sure, it’s not an overt failure in curve marketing but the constant stream of side-by-side shots of the petite and curve model come across as tokenistic, as if the brand is desperate to tell shoppers: “Not to worry girls! It comes in petite too!”.
How hard is it to post solo images of the curve model, when the petite models are featured on their own in thousands upon thousands of posts?
This kind of body representation matters. More images of women of different body sizes can alter how women view themselves and help reduce body dissatisfaction.
Two weeks ago, I messaged the retailer on Instagram, asking why it wouldn’t feature curve models on their own.
This was the reply: “At Showpo, we don’t believe in PR stunts or comparison - We just want women of different sizes to know that we support them by offering a broader size range than most. I will pass this feedback onto our team for them to consider.”
Four days later, Showpo uploaded an image of a curve model, on her own. The fourth in four months.
When I spoke with founder Jane Lu on Friday, she said more posts of the curve model on her own were scheduled "actually for this weekend", images that "were meant to go up last week". Sure enough, two new images of curve models on their own featured over the weekend. But why didn't this happen earlier?
"We've definitely got some [of the curve model on her own] but it just doesn't get as much engagement. We're trying to increase our engagement. Engagement tells you what your customers want to see," Lu said.
These images don't achieve the same number of likes and comments that the other images do. So, do the customers want to see the petite model?
"Yes, because she gets engagement," Lu said.
Sure, the retailer doesn’t have a specific responsibility to act as warriors of inclusion, but with a following of 1.5 million, its does wield a degree of influence. And if it is already selling curve fashion, why not sell the whole image?
But this raises another question: should brands be accountable in this way?
According to Lu, establishing the curve line wasn't easy.
"We don't have our own factory, so we're not as vertical as we'd like. So it's been all about assisting manufacturers because they don't have the size range we want," said Lu.
"Creating the bigger size isn't just proportionately bigger, it's the length. And we wanted to make it fit well. Even to have something we were happy with took a lot of back and forth."
She also conducted market research, surveying women who said existing retailers did not make "the best shapes and latest styles in bigger sizes". These women also said: "Why should brands dictate to us what we get to wear?" In the end, Lu's creation of the curve line was about "putting the decision back on the customer".
It’s her determination to incorporate curve sizes that makes this picture situation all the more perplexing. If she fought to have these curve sizes included, why not show them off in all their glory? Either way, the money is made.
While the brand might appear to have made leaps and bounds in curve fashion, the image it projects is that it doesn't believe the curve look is strong enough to stand on its own, and a curve model must always be validated by a woman smaller than her. But perhaps the real truth comes down to business: the photos of the curve model on her own just don't get Showpo enough likes.
- I've used the term “curve” over the industry-preferred “plus-size” because some women find the term othering and unnecessary.
