Dear Old Navy......

For those of you who don't know me, I am a fat girl. Indeed, I prefer the phrase plus sized woman, but really, let's call a spade a spade. That's makes it extremely hard to find clothes because there are very few stores that cater to our sizes. The ones that do tend be on the expensive side and, given my current state of unemployment, not so much within the budget. Type in "plus sized clothing" in Google, and you'll come up with a list of stores that sells sizes 14+, but only online. Enter Old Navy. Here is a letter I wrote them:

Dear Old Navy,

I am a huge fan of your clothes and I was extremely excited when the
company launched it's Women's Plus line. Finally! I can get good quality
clothes, in my size, without having to break the bank. I live in
Orlando, FL and the only ON store that had plus sizes in its section was
at the Florida Mall. While the mall was a good 30-35 minute drive, I was
willing to make it for your clothes. So imagine my dismay when I arrive
at the store one day to find the plus size section missing. What?!? This
cannot be! When I asked a (less than helpful) employee what happened to
it, she explained to me that the higher ups at ON decided that the
clothes for "those people" will only be sold online.

My question to you is, why? Why make things harder for plus sized women
and men to find clothes than it already is for us? Let's be clear. I
loathe online shopping. Why do I loathe it, you may be asking. Let me
explain to you why. Going to a store allows me the opportunity to try on
clothes and find what fits, what doesn't, what looks good, and what
looks better on the hanger. Clearly, all of that is lost when shopping
in cyberworld. Although I may be writing an email for myself, I can
assure you that I speak for hundreds of plus sized people. I read a
quote somewhere from Robin Carr, a spokeswoman for Gap. She said " We
really wanted to showcase the Plus collection and felt the best place to
do that effectively was online." Really? Online shopping is a crap
shoot. You see it, you buy it, you get it and you hope it fits
correctly. As we all know, different companies cut their sizes in
different ways. What may be a 14/16 at Lane Bryant, might be an 18/20
somewhere else. So when it doesn't fit, you then have to gauge whether
you should go up a size, down a size, or keep it and have it tailored.
If you need a new size, you have to repackage everything, take time out
to go to the post office, mail it, wait for it to get back to ON,
re-order, wait for it to get there, and hope that this time it fits. I
don't know about your definition of effective, but this process isn't
it.

The last I checked, overweight people made up a high percentage of
Americans. While it is a sad statistic, I would think that would
translate into more money for your company. You may be thinking that
since we don't have many options to begin with, we're forced to buy from
you online so you're not really losing anything but forcing us out of
your stores. Which would be true, if you all had a monopoly on the plus
sized industry. As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, you don't.

The overweight community is not stupid. We are quite aware that we don't
fit in the "Gap mold" and that is probably a truer reason as to why our
section is no longer offered in store. Sorry that we are ruining the
scenery, but would you rather us walk around naked? Be forced to walk
around in ill fitted clothes? Although I don't want to shop at Lane
Bryant because of its expensive price tags, I do so because at least I
know that when I buy something, it will fit and I'll like the way it
looks on me. I have a feeling I'm not alone in this.

Perhaps your marketing department can get together and re-think this
decision. I'm not saying you need to revamp all 175 stores that the
clothes were pulled out of. Start with a few test stores to see how it
works out. If you're in need of more people to join your marketing team,
I do have a masters degree in entertainment business. I've developed and
presented a business plan for my business, which I built from the ground
up. Many of my classes focused on marketing and branding and I graduated
with a 3.8 GPA.


Missing the plus section,
Danielle Johnson

Here is their reply:

Dear Danielle,

Thank you for your email regarding our Women's Plus line. After much
evaluation the decision to remove Women's Plus from our stores was a
very difficult one, especially when customers like you are so passionate
about the line. Please be assured that your feedback will be shared with
our merchandising teams. We do, however, continue to carry Women's sizes
1-20 in our stores.

You are a valued Old Navy customer and we look forward to shopping with
you again soon.

If we may be of further assistance, please contact us at
custserv@oldnavy.com or by calling 1-800-OLD-NAVY. If you are calling
from outside of the U.S. you may also reach us at 1-614-744-3543.

Sincerely,

Lindsy
Customer Service Consultant

Sounds like a big eff you to me.