‘Fat Tax’ Imposed On Its Plus-Sized Customers?

[anotheoldgit]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6281219/new-look-fat-tax-plus-size-trousers/

It seems obvious to me, that if more material is used in the making of these larger size garments, one should expect them to cost more.

[bednobs]

seems obvious to me too AOG

[naomi24]

Me too. It's not a fat tax at all. It's a company covering its costs.

[douglas9401]

Lose weight, save money.

It's a win win.

Maria looks like she does a lot of 'storming', most likely 'takes to Twitter' quite a bit too, bless her.

[wolf63]

I am very fat and it still seems sensible to me.

[-Talbot-]

The extra material will be minimal compared to the labour cost.

[bhg481]

People have been arguing for years that smaller clothes should cost less because they use less cloth; now they want to charge more for larger ones there's outcry - what's the difference?
Anybody who has made clothes knows that larger sizes do not necessarily use more cloth; it all depends on how the pattern pieces fit onto the cloth, which pieces need to be placed on a fold in the cloth (to avoid seams) and whether or not pattern matching is required.

[wolf63]

that green stripey thing is awful.

[jim360]

"... the trousers in their tall range, which would also require more fabric, are the same price as the normal ones."

[237SJ]

"Maria stormed out of the store in outrage" (first world problem)
Surely, if they are going to charge more for large sizes, then all sizes should be priced variously according to the amount of material used which is a bit daft.

[bhg481]

Talbot - the labour costs don't vary a lot across different sizes, in fact smaller sizes can sometimes take longer to make because they are more fiddly.

[naomi24]

The lady would be happy to see all prices the same. Fair enough. Increase the price of the smaller garments. Her problem solved and a win for the company all round.

[237SJ]

I would think it's more a case of the shop taking advantage of the fact that fashion clothes in plus sizes are harder to come by and are charging accordingly.

[naomi24]

New Look sells clothes cheaply, as do other high street shops and all the major supermarkets - and they all stock plus sizes. It's not difficult to get plus sizes cheaply.

[rowanwitch]

The additional fabric cost is minimal. It is actually more difficult to make smaller garments because of the need to work within tighter angles. Pricing identical garments the same is simply common sense apart from where the volume sales of the larger item are less. But this applies to the smallest sizes as well. Regular sales shoppers will know the disappointment of finding the perfect item but all the average sizes have sold out. They do it because larger ladies will snatch at anything from a normal shop and not usually question the price.

[jim360]

It's also worth bearing in mind that a typical breakdown of how the cost of clothes is divided reads something like:

~60% retailer markup.
~ 10% brand profit (if different from retailer)
~ 10% material costs
~ 10% transport
~ 10% other (inc. Factory profit, labour costs etc).

Which means that if a dress cost £30 for normal sizes, then a plus-size dress would have to require three times as much material to properly justify an increase of £6. Maybe there's an argument to be made that transport costs etc might also be impacted (larger clothes requiring extra packaging arrangements, etc), but even so the dominance of the retailer mark-up means that you can't justify price hikes on this scale based on extra fabric usage.

Put more simply, while it's not unreasonable to expect larger clothes to cost more, it *is* unreasonable for them to cost *that* much more.

[douglas9401]

You could put it another way and 'storm out' to spend your cash elsewhere.
Having seen what 'larger ladies' are prepared to wear of a day as the take the air, clothing size isn't the issue, it's those damned faulty mirrors that make garments look all lumpy and bumpy.

'You look lush, San' makes it all better.

This one may not run and run.

[rowanwitch]

Many of the on line sites I use have different pricing at all sizes, the smallest and largest are more expensive. I suspect that is because if you need to shop online as you are a non standard size you will be desperate enough to pay more.

[jim360]

As a follow-up to my last post, I suppose I should add that there are probably sound business reasons to charge more for plus-size clothing: perhaps fewer such items get sold, typically, so to cover losses of unsold stock the price is increased a little. Or whatever. I'm a physicist, not a businessman.

The main point is that "there's more material so obvs it should cost more hurhur" is just a bogus argument.

[naomi24]

Jim, //The main point is that "there's more material so obvs it should cost more hurhur" is just a bogus argument. //

That isn't a bogus argument. More material costs more to buy. That's common sense.

[bhg481]

But as I said earlier - bigger sizes do not necessarily take more cloth.