Well, being the ‘curvy’ or ‘fat’ girl, when I read Corissa Enneking’s An open letter to Forever 21, every ‘extra’ inch of me shouted, True That Lady!

She admitted in the letter how she buys online mostly and rarely visits the store, but when she did; her experience was ‘horrifying,’ she said.

Here’s her description of the plus section in the store:

Your entire store is lit with beautiful cool white lighting, and the floors are shiny little tiles of white and gold. There’re accessories on walls, and little treasures to be found all over the place. So please, tell me why the sweet hell the tiny plus size corner is dimly lit with yellow lights, no mirrors, and zero accessories on the shelves. There were entire hanging racks with only hangers on them. No clothes. But of course, there were no clothes hanging nicely on the walls… they were all collected into an even tinier corner of the itty bitty room, shoved onto racks that were haphazardly placed so close to one another that nobody could walk between them. I thought for a moment “maybe I’m over reacting. Let’s see… does the rest of the store look like this?”. No. Definitely not. Even the most crowded sections of the store were clean and tidied.

She further bashed them for their indifferent and negligent attitude towards their plus-size clientele. But here’s what touched my heart because I could relate to every bit of it.

Now, I am grown. I can do all my shopping online from my incredibly comfy couch. I know where to shop, and I have a lot of knowledge about plus size brands. I love the shit out of myself and have spent a lot of years breaking down the crap that I’ve learned about my body to realize that I’m totally worthy of cute clothes, just like every other person.  Even my, super secure, grown ass, could not help but feel ashamed while I was shopping in your store. I knew exactly what was happening the second I stepped into that plus size section. I knew I was being pushed aside. I knew I was an afterthought.

It’s not us, the consumer, who should be forced to feel ashamed when shopping in your stores. Your reckless disregard for fat people’s feelings is shameful. You have got to do better than this. We deserve better than this. 

I know the exact feel. Shopping is not a happy experience for me and I assume for many others like me. It’s torturous and depressing for we have to struggle much for getting even one thing that fits, forget if we like it or not. In the pool of gorgeous and beautiful clothes, all in small sizes, it’s aggravating to search for that little section with limited stock; we clearly know that they were not designed with much effort and taste.

This is how Forever 21 team replied to Corissa’s letter.

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention – we will be looping in the right departments to make sure this situation is addressed with the store. We can assure you that this is not an accurate representation of our brand’s visual merchandising and view of any of our customers. We are investing greatly in our Plus Size Collection this year and are always trying to improve the assortment and merchandising.

Corissa’s may have appreciated that they responded but she wouldn’t settle with just acknowledgment, and I would agree to that too.

“I want stores to take plus-size consumers seriously. Our dollars are worth the effort. Understand our specific needs, show us that you’re listening to the plus-size community, work harder to bring us the products we want, and most importantly, understand the impact you have when you create spaces where consumers feel belittled or forgotten.”, she said in an interview.

Period!

Thank you, Enneking, for giving the people like me the confidence to be comfortable in our skin and body form.

Training myself to feel more positive about my body each day!

Later on that!