Why plus-size fashion still matters in 2026

Body positivity was never supposed to be a fashion season. It was a demand that plus-size women be treated fairly, including when they go to buy a dress. A Newsweek investigation published today, 14 November 2026, argues that much of the industry is quietly stepping back from that promise. The details are uncomfortable, and they are worth facing honestly, because curvy women still need clothes — not only when inclusivity is fashionable.

The headline example is H&M. In 2023 the retailer enlisted plus-size model Tess Holliday to help improve its inclusive sizing. Three years later, Newsweek reports, the company confirmed it had discontinued sizes 3XL and 4XL, citing lower demand for those garments. On the runway the picture is even starker. A Vogue Business report, cited by Newsweek, found that of 9,283 looks shown for spring/summer 2027 across the four major fashion capitals, only 0.5 per cent featured plus-size models. Some 97.5 per cent of those looks were shown on straight-size models, defined as US sizes 0 to 4.

What the new figures do — and do not — say

Shopping data is shifting too, though not as neatly as some headlines imply. An October analysis by LSEG and Centric Market Intelligence found that online searches for plus-size dresses had fallen 19 per cent over two years, and that the share of women’s plus-size clothing offered at a discount rose from 38 per cent in 2023 to 49 per cent in 2026, through the period studied. Importantly, the researchers cautioned that those figures do not establish weight-loss drugs as the cause. Demand has also stayed resilient in some categories, including plus-size activewear.

GLP-1 medications are part of the backdrop, and Newsweek is careful not to pretend otherwise. Circana research reported in March found that 55 per cent of households using the medications had already bought clothing or footwear primarily because their size had changed. The magazine also notes that some public faces of body acceptance have spoken about using, or trying, these drugs: Meghan Trainor has acknowledged using Mounjaro; Lizzo has said she tried GLP-1 medications and then stopped; and Chrissy Metz revealed in August that she had begun using one. People are entitled to make their own medical decisions. That is not the same thing as a fashion brand dropping the sizes it once advertised as a moral commitment.

A marketing position, or a real promise?

Quan Xie, an associate professor of digital advertising at Southern Methodist University, told Newsweek that when brands promote inclusion and then reduce their larger sizes, “it says the inclusion was a marketing position, not a business commitment.” In her words, “the brand invited a group of customers in, built expectations, and then quietly showed them out.” She added that a real commitment “is still there after the campaign ends and when body-size trends shift,” and that “you find out what a brand believes when inclusion stops being fashionable.” Consumers, she said, will forgive a quieter message; they will not forgive a broken promise.

Lauren Downing Peters, an associate professor of fashion studies at Columbia College Chicago, drew a sharper line between visibility and actual clothes. “We simply didn’t see that gesture toward size inclusivity trickle down to real fashion design and marketing practices,” she told the magazine. And, more plainly: “This is a travesty for plus-size women because their bodies are not trends. They have to live in and inhabit these bodies, and they have to clothe them.” She also observed that “body positivity is just not as trendy as it once was.” Renee Engeln, a psychology professor at Northwestern University who studies body image, was blunter still: “The fashion industry never really celebrated larger bodies. The changes they made were tiny, temporary and mostly performative.”

There is a commercial counter-example in the same piece. Ester Manas, whose spring/summer 2027 runway included 36.4 per cent plus-size looks, reported that larger sizes were among its bestsellers. Inclusivity and profitability are not automatically at odds. What a brand chooses to make, and whom it designs for, still shapes the market it then claims to be serving.

What this means if you are shopping now

House of Zuza was founded and is owned by Zuzanna Jankowska, and it is based in the UK. Our view is the same one we set out on our About Us page: style has no size limit, and women deserve clothes that were made with them in mind. We cannot pretend that one independent shop can correct a whole industry. We can keep showing up with dresses cut for real figures, and we can refuse to treat curvy customers as a trend that has passed.

If you are shopping this season, start with brands that still stock your size in depth, not only in a campaign image. Our plus-size and women’s dresses collections are there for exactly that, and the activewear edit is worth a look too, given that plus-size activewear is one of the categories where demand has stayed resilient. Check the size guide on each product, and take your time. Your body is not a fashion cycle, and it should not have to wait for the next one to be dressed.

Source: Fashion Loved Curvy Women Until Ozempic Came Along, Newsweek, 14 November 2026.