Everlane, a company that boasts “radical transparency” and has ads featuring curve-size models plastered all over New York City, is drawing public criticism because, after years of similar critiques, the brand still struggles with one, seemingly simple request: creating and stocking clothes that fit the full range of human bodies.
Online, the direct-to-consumer brand has quietly added additional waist sizes—up to 35”, at least in most styles—to its denim selection. But at the company’s newest (and largest) store that opened last weekend in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, denim sizes cut off at 31 or 32, leaving out the top of its just barely size-inclusive range. The exclusion of Everlane’s highly touted extended sizing range was pointed out by Nicolette Mason, a freelance brand strategist in Brooklyn, through a series of tweets and Instagram Stories on Monday.
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“Being that it’s a brand new store, I assumed they would have their whole size range,” Mason said in an Instagram Story (now saved as a highlight) about her experience visiting the new Everlane. “I assumed wrong.” Mason continued that she couldn’t find anything above a 31-inch waist in the neat stacks of denim, and asked a nearby sales associate on the floor if the store stocked its full range of sizes for people to try on.
“She tells me they’re not stocking anything above a 31 or 32 in store because they wanted to focus on their best-selling sizes,” Mason said. “Maybe if they were in store, people could try them on and they could sell better.”
Everlane responded to Mason’s tweet summarizing her experience with a lackadaisical promise that they “hope to carry the full size range of denim soon for try on.” (VICE has reached out to Everlane for comment and will update this post if someone with the brand responds.) As others have pointed out, this sort of fingers-crossed sounding promise is typical for a brand that wants to sound good, but not actually be good, to all of its customers. Which is something else Everlane has caught flack for, specifically around using curve models in ad campaigns for an underwear line that only goes up an XL.
It’s also a bellyflop of a line that Everlane has repeated for at least four years: In 2015, responding to more Twitter criticism that the “transparent” and “ethical” brand only stocked up to a size 12 (it now carries sizes up to 16, at least online), Everlane responded that it would extend its stock “as soon as [they] can shoulder the requisite costs.” As journalist Amanda Mull pointed out in December 2017 in an extended criticism of Everlane’s sizing promises for Racked, that same year, Everlane boasted $51 million in revenue.
That 2015 thread is still alive, by the way. Every few months, people tweet to check in on how much more inclusive Everlane’s sizing has become since it promised to do more, once it had the cash. A reply posted in March of this year simply reads, “2019: Any progress?”
Update, Sept. 18, 6:30 p.m.: Everlane’s VP of Merchandising responded to Vice’s request for comment: “We fell short in stocking our full denim size range at our Williamsburg opening. We’re fixing the issue as quickly as possible in the coming weeks.”
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