We surveyed every brand on the CFDA calendar and found some major improvements (and some disappointments).
The Spring/Summer 2020 season of New York Fashion Week has officially come to a close. The event put forth strong statements about immigration, celebrated the queer community, and, at long last, became part of the body-positive revolution. We don’t use the R word lightly, but it feels in order following a week of serious size diversity wins.
After surveying the size charts of every designer listed on the official CFDA schedule for NYFW, we found that nearly one-third of designers, including Cynthia Rowley and Veronica Beard, have increased their size range since last season. While only five designers offered clothing in sizes 22 and above during NYFW Fall/Winter 2019 (shoutout Christian Siriano, Chromat, Tadashi Shoji, John Elliott, and Prabal Gurung), Spring/Summer 2020 more than doubled those numbers, with a full 11 brands producing pieces in at least a 22. Newcomers to this wider size range include Rebecca Minkoff, The Row, and Tommy Hilfiger, the latter of which showed in Paris last season and was therefore not considered in February’s survey.
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As always, though, this progress has arrived with a few caveats. Famously inclusive labels Prabal Gurung and Brandon Maxwell appear to have decreased their size range from last season, due in large part to their collaborations with plus-size brands like Lane Bryant and 11 Honoré ceasing production between Fall/Winter 2019 and now. (Christian Siriano almost fell into this category but launched a J.Jill collection on September 12 that goes up to a size 28 — the same range as an 11 Honoré line he put out last season, which is still available but now only stocks up to 26.)
Some brands, including Coach 1941, which upped its largest size from last season’s 14 to its current 18, only produce select pieces in larger sizes. In Coach’s case, it's one tee and one hoodie.
To make matters more complex, the CFDA’s Spring/Summer 2020 calendar featured just 77 designers, while its Fall/Winter 2019 equivalent boasted a full 95. That 18-designer decrease could be partially to blame for the drastic overall improvement in brands’ size ranges, as some of last season’s least inclusive names — like Ji Oh and Moon Choi, both of which capped off at a size 8 — did not reappear on the schedule.
Even so, such drawbacks can’t dim the silver linings of the Spring/Summer 2020 season. Fans of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s The Row saw its largest size jump from a 14 to a 22. Widely-known brands like Rebecca Minkoff eschewed the old guard and rolled out some stunning plus-size looks. Finally, the always-inclusive Chromat, which commemorated its 10th anniversary with a body-positive fashion show for the ages, reminded NYFW-goers what this fashion thing is all about: Whether you wear a size 8 or 28, you’re worthy of feeling beautiful and expressing that beauty as you choose. Here’s everything you need to know about the size ranges of designers at New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2020.
A few things about our survey.
We only surveyed designers that could be found on the official CFDA calendar here.We only included women’s ready-to-wear brands (denim and men’s, for example, were excluded).We did not include designers that only create custom clothing or do not sell in retail (like The Blonds).Brands that answered us in European sizes were converted to US sizing using this chart.For brands that size XS-XXL, we used the following conversion: XS= 0, S=2/4, M=6/8, L=10/12, XL=14/16, XXL=18/20. This was based on the average of the designers’ conversion estimations.In the instance that a designer offers extended sizing per request but does not produce it across the majority of their products, we went with the size run they create all pieces in.
Here's how the size offerings break down by brand:
Up to Size 28 Christian Siriano Chromat Dennis Basso
Up to Size 24 Rebecca Minkoff Veronica Beard
Up to Size 22 Cynthia Rowley Lela Rose The Row Tanya Taylor Tommy Hilfiger Studio 189
Up to Size 18 Coach 1941 Kate Spade New York Libertine Prabal Gurung Ralph Lauren Tom Ford
Up to Size 16 Badgley Mischka Bibhu Mohapatra Brock Collection Carolina Herrera Gabriela Hearst Marc Jacobs Marchesa Michael Kors Naeem Khan Oscar de la Renta Pamella Roland
Up to Size 14 3.1 Phillip Lim Adam Lippes alice + olivia BARRAGÁN BATSHEVA Brandon Maxwell Christian Cowan Christopher John Rogers Eckhaus Latta Jason Wu Collection Longchamp Nicole Miller Pyer Moss Rosie Assoulin Ryan Roche Sally LaPointe Telfar Tory Burch Ulla Johnson Vaquera Victor Glemaud Zero + Maria Cornejo
Up to Size 12 Anna Sui Collina Strada Helmut Lang Jonathan Simkhai Marina Moscone R13 Sies Marjan Theory Tibi Vera Wang
Up to Size 10 Alejandra Alonso Rojas Claudia Li Dion Lee Jeremy Scott Khaite LaQuan Smith Matthew Adams Dolan Proenza Schouler Sandy Liang Self-Portrait Zimmermann
Up to Size 8 AREA Mansur Gavriel Maryam Nassir Zadeh Rosetta Getty Snow Xue Gao
Up to Size 6 Creatures of the Wind
Photo Credits from the left: glamour.com, Getty / Thomas Concordia, Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic)
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