The Real Challenges Plus-Size Fashion Will Still Face in 2025

In 2025, we have the loudest conversation yet around size diversity. However, for many shoppers the daily experience still resonates with the same frustrations they have felt for years. Let’s break down the persistent issues still framing the plus size shopping experience — and what it’s going to take for us to move from performative inclusion to actual inclusion.

Limited Styles That Aren’t Really That Stylish

One of the greatest complaints is still not moving forward: a major lack of stylish options. Some brands have begin to offer extended sizes, but to many, their plus-size lines still feel like an after-thought. The designs are still overly basic, and have fewer colorways, on-trend styles and playful details.

Furthermore, plus-size shoppers are not asking for “flattering” shapeless silhouettes, they demand the same freedom of expression that straight-size consumers are offered. If the fashion of today is about self-identity, the idea that there is an “ideal” or that one style fits all, does not hold in 2025.

Courtesy of Canva

Where Are The Clothes In-Store?

Closer to the time, while many major retailers may offer inclusive sizing online, they disappoint in-store. Most stores now carry very little in-store, and mostly less than a size 16 at the very most, relegating shoppers to the back, the upstairs, or for that matter, completely online. For brick-and-mortar shoppers, this is discouraging: “Your body is not part of our vision”. It is more than just an inconvenience: it is something that, if considering shopping exclusion that can be felt.

The Internet Shopping Gamble

Sure, the internet allows more access to plus-size fashion, but it does not make it easy. More recently, we’re still risking our dollars for the sheer gamble of it all, to the point where product images often do not even use plus-size models, size charts with brand to brand vary, and rarely do return policies offer some leniency to plus sizes in terms of returns.

In 2025, people are expecting better: real people wearing real clothes, not a size 4 and a model stretched version of a garment that does not offer the same characteristics for larger bodies as well. This is the piece that continues to make online shopping feel more like gambling and guessing.

The Endless ‘Fat Tax’

This ongoing issue highlights the deeper problem of the fat tax fashion industry continues to grapple with. Even in 2025, certain sales and discount codes still exclude plus-size options, widening not just the price gap but also reinforcing the perception that larger bodies are less deserving of fashion equity and affordability.

Representation is Still Not the Norm

This year’s larger fashion weeks paint a shocking picture: plus-size models accounted for less than 1% of runway time.

There are still examples of names like Paloma Elsesser and Precious Lee that are advancing the edge, however, we still do not see the industry move beyond a static definition of beauty.

With lack of consistent representation the message is simple – thinness still sells, inclusivity is optional. When the fashion world, fails to include diversity within the brands it represents, fashion misses the entire point of style.

Shopping as a shame-based proposition – Real Challenges Plus-Size Fashion

If you heard the same story from many shoppers – being taken to the hidden plus-size section far from the main fashion floor, it would start to sound like a bad joke. In some retailers, it is so shamful the only way to get plus-size clothing is to speak to a customer service rep or login to an online kiosk. This does not happen through tired design, this is exclusion by design. In 2025 we hope for more. To feel welcomed, empowered and designed for all bodies, not just some.

From the Designer’s Side: Real Barriers, Real Solutions

But, to play devils advocate, there is a $700 billion dollar approximated plus size market globally. Plus size is not a niche. It is a massive opportunity. Brands that claim it is “too difficult” to design for these consumers are ignoring many fundamental tenets: this consumer is massively underserved and under-represented, and they are eager to be loyal to brands that show that they are actually represented and seen.

A gap in education is still prohibiting the pipeline

There continues to be a gap in most fashion schools preparing students to design for all varieties of body types. While some have introduced inclusive design programs, the vast, vast majority are still behind.

The lack of knowledge means there are now graduates who have poorly trained their minds and bodies to create anything other than a sample size. If we hope to effect change on a systemic level, as design educators, we will focus on knowledge, skill and empathy.

The emergence of the plus-size influencer movement

One major change in 2025? Plus size influencers have emerged as tastemakers. They are wielding their powerful voices to make style, trends, defining tokenism, and showing us what inclusive fashion actually looks like and feels like.

This is more than just representation, it is leadership. They are demonstrating that style is NOT defined by size, and forcing brands to rethink their own out-of-date notions around marketability, and beauty.

Where do we go from here?

There is change happening, but it is still too slow, and piecemeal, and reliant on a few progressive voices. In order for size inclusivity to be the industry norm, instead of the exception, the fashion industry must stop treating it like a tick-in-the-box.

Fashion must take bold, intentional steps to embed inclusivity at its core—offering size options as a standard in every collection, not as a separate afterthought. It must welcome a truly diverse range of bodies not only in its campaigns but also within its creative teams, executive leadership, and runway casts.

Stores and websites must be designed as spaces where everyone, regardless of size, feels seen, valued, and welcome. These are the real challenges that plus-size fashion must confront head-on. Fashion can reflect society, or it can exclude. In 2025, there’s no better moment to choose the former.