I went to a mall with a plus-sized retail consultant. Now I know why she dreads shopping.

Kara Richardson Whitely is an outdoor enthusiast whose 2015 book, Gorge: My Journey Up Kilimanjaro at 300 Pounds, makes clear that adventure is not just for the thin. She’s also the founder and CEO of The Gorgeous Agency, which has helped brands including The North Face, L.L. Bean, and Columbia to reach the plus-sized market.

Richardson Whitely hopes that someday clothes shopping for plus-size people will be, if not enjoyable, at least less disappointing.

“I feel absolute dread when I need something,” she told Retail Brew. “It’s not fun.”

If you think plus-sized—14 and up for women—is larger than the norm, think again. Among American women, 67% are plus-sized, according to Richardson Whitely, who estimates their spending power at $40 billion.

And yet, in one of retail’s enduring paradoxes, the larger your body gets, the more invisible you become. While brands may make a show of featuring more non-waif models and mannequins in their stores, and offering extended sizes, those sizes often are available only online, Richardson Whitely told me.

But I wanted to see for myself. So we went shopping.

Perchance to Dream: The American Dream Mall, which opened in 2019 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is the second-largest mall in the US (runner up to Minnesota’s Mall of America), with more than 400 stores and restaurants, and attractions including a ski slope, water park, ice rink, and amusement park—all indoors

That’s where I met Richardson Whitely on a recent morning. We were on a mission to find an outfit for an upcoming conference where she’d be presenting. For many, that task would be almost comically simple, especially in a mall that spans 3 million square feet. But I was about to learn that for someone who wears plus-sized clothing, it’s anything but simple.

We started at Old Navy, a brand that made a splash in 2021 when it launched its Bodequality initiative, which along with improving the fit of extended-sized clothing, committed to stocking those larger sizes in stores, only to backtrack on the in-store aspect the next year.

Richardson Whitely pulled a jumpsuit off the rack that looked promising, but the largest size in stock was a 2X, too small, since she wears a size 20 on top, which she explained tends to be a 2X, and a size 26 on the bottom, or 3X. (The jumpsuit’s available up to 4X online.)

Finding nothing in her size, we moved on.

Mathleisure: “I love Lululemon leggings,” Richardson Whitely said as we entered their location at the mall.

This looked promising. Photos of plus-sized women lined the walls, including a friend of Richardson Whitely’s, Mirna Valerio, who’s been an ambassador for the brand since 2021.

Still, born of a lifetime of frustration of trying to find her size in stores, she did as she often does and cut to the chase when she spotted a store associate.

“Excuse me,” she said. “What size leggings do you carry in the store?”

“What size are you looking for?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty we don’t carry unfortunately. The highest we carry is a 14.”

“A size 14. Thanks, do you carry anything else in a 20?”

“No. Actually, we used to, I don’t know why we don’t anymore.”

Then another employee who’d said that she thought there might be a couple items on the sale rack, the result of the company encouraging online returns to stores, checked and apologized that it was just one pair of leggings, and it was a size 18—way too small.

“When you’re making a promise to a customer that you’re going to have plus sizes, you have to carry through,” Richardson Whitely told me as we were leaving the store. “That was a rejection. I want to spend money there, right? And I can’t.”

Lululemon did not dispute what its store associate told us, that it once carried plus-sizes in stores but stopped, when we contacted the brand later for comment.

“Lululemon is committed to offering an inclusive product assortment,” Madi Wallace, director of corporate communications at Lululemon, stated over email. “We offer a selection of extended size product online and have evolved our in-store size inventory over time to better align with the guest shopping trends and buying habits we have observed.”

Just about the size of it: And on and on we went, finding nothing in Richardson Whitely’s size. Not at Cos. Not at Zara. Not at H&M. Not at Dolce and Gabanna, Saks 5th Ave, or Fabletics.

Finally we went to Torrid, a plus-sized brand with sizes 10–30.

“Torrid is the only store in the mall that is tailored to plus sizes,” Richardson Whitely said as we walked in. “So out of all the stores that we went to—there’s more than 400 stores in this mall—and it’s the only one that is just for plus sizes.”

Richardson Whitely lauded much about the store, including the wider doors on its dressing room, which have fans for customers who might be more likely to overheat when trying on clothes. And she tried a few things on, but there was nothing she liked as much of what she saw in smaller sizes in the other stores. Many of those stores, like Old Navy and Lululemon, have promoted their size inclusivity, which in turn cues up the disappointment for plus-size consumers who seek larger sizes in their stores.

“Plus size isn’t like a ‘If you build it, they will come’ exercise,” Richardson Whitely said. “You have to reconfigure the customer journey, because there’s been so much trauma in the retail space where people just have gone to a store and really needed something and couldn’t find it.”