Shout, shout, let it all out....

ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I took a few days to mull things over before I wrote this post. I was genuinely angry on Thursday night. As it turns out I'm still pretty angry, so those of you who believe that piss-poor old saying 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all' well, you may want to look away now. In fact you may want to stop reading my blog all together after this post!

 H&M+ range online.... yawn

WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT H&M?!. Your plus range is an absolute disgrace. It is an insult to me and all the other fat women. 

I don't understand what happened to the the amazing BIB range I used to wear when I was young, but somewhere down the line it lost its way. It really lost the plot completely. I remember the BIB range winning an award for the best plus size range when I was a teenager... the winning season had tube tops with roaring tigers on and sequin mini skirts. BIB was the most exciting plus size range on the high street.... and lets face it, there aren't many so the good ones are extremely precious. The sizes were great..... L XL XXL etc. ALL my jeans were from BIB . ALL my work clothes were from BIB. ALL my quirky coats were from BIB. I had a fluorescent pink long soft suede coat that made people stare at me in the street. It was amazing. Flapper dresses, fitted shirts, awesome suits, glitter, colour and YOUNG styles. Then suddenly the glitter lost its sparkle, the colours turned muddy and faded, the styles got big and baggy and the sizing became unfathomable. 

H&M regular range... colours & patterns?! Wowzers!

It took a long time for me to accept that my favourite brand had given up on me. I kept going back, hoping that some of the sparkle would return..... but no. The BIB section got smaller, it kept moving to darker and more hidden corners of the store until it disappeared all together. I asked the shop assistant why they had removed it and she said 'it didn't sell'.

Now let me tell you why it didn't sell H&M... 

IT DIDN'T SELL BECAUSE IT WAS SHIT. 

I cannot even begin to tell you how much bile rises in my throat when retailers say they don't stock plus size clothes because they don't sell. Bullshit. They don't sell because you have no respect for your plus size customers and have no interest in providing the same catwalk inspired clothes for fat girls that you do for thin girls. This is a fact. You don't give a flying fuck what fat girls wear. You think we should all be swamped in dingy grey tents and badly fitted trousers. You hide the plus range away as if you're ashamed of it, and I don't know who designs the hideous H&M+ range now but I'd put money on it NOT being a fat woman. Judging by the sizing I can only assume that the designer / buyer hates fat women... maybe they're hoping that by making a range where girls have to size up three or four times they will break their spirit and make them want to lose weight? Why else would you make your cut so insanely small? Your regular range isn't stingily sized. 

On Thursday night they shut the gates to Oxford Circus tube due to overcrowding, and rather than standing in a massive queue for 10 minutes I thought I'd go to H&M Regent Street (the only H&M in the area that actually stocks the + range) to kill some time. Frankly I wish I'd just stayed in the queue - it would have less depressing. My trips to the fat girl section in H&M has been a disheartening experience for many years now, but in recent years it has been a source of genuine rage.

Here is the thing H&M , some fat women are delicate and lacking in body confidence, and you should not underestimate the effect that not fitting into clothes (that your told are designed specially for you) can have, particularly on younger girls who have gone to your trendy store with their skinny mates. You should also know that when someone like me tries your faux plus range and can't fit into anything there are no feelings of misery or failure on MY part, there is just BOILING HOT FURY!

This dress is apparently a UK size 26. I wear size 22 / 24. As you can see, I couldn't get it over my hips /bum. Not even a little bit. Getting it off was a full on nightmare. 

Oh god how I wished a bigger size would have been available to show how big I'd have to go.... I would be a size 30 in this dress according to you so called plus range. Oh yeah, but you don't do size 30 do you?

Size UK 24 trousers apparently.... now don't  get me wrong, I've tried size 24 trousers from other not so reliable retailers and have not been able to do them up, but not even being able to get them past my thighs? Well that's a new one on me.

 

Let s put this in perspective shall we.....

You go up to a 28 do you H&M+? No you fucking don't. For a start your Euro sizing is totally off kilter with other retailers. Your size 28 is in reality the equivalent of all other plus size retailers size 24... even 22 in some pieces, so you go up to a 24 max. That is a pretty pathetic 'plus' range isn't it? considering that you sell a handful of your regular range in an XL (22-24) this does seem to make your plus range rather redundant don't you think? Of course the fact that a regular H&M size XL is almost impossible to get my hands on in-store is a whole 'nother rant entirely. 

H&M dresses available in XL (an occasionally accurate size 22-24) from their regular range.

Please tell me why fat women aren't allowed fashionable clothes? Do you think we don't want fashionable clothes? Your wrong. As wrong as it is possible to be. Your plus range is a travesty. It is designed by someone who knows as much about what fat women want as I know about nuclear fusion. Fuck. All. Squared.

I feel sure that there must be a handful of people working for massive companies like you that have a modicum of common sense? Anyone who isn't a complete moron must understand that if your products are badly made and ugly, people won't buy it. If your plus size range is drab and badly fitted it will fail, and you can blame it on us fatties and discontinue it like other companies have in the past, but we know the truth. You tried to sell us garbage and we said we didn't want it. Not because we have no spending money or because we aren't interested in fashion, but because it was GARBAGE. It's supply and demand in it's most basic form.

Do some research, show us some respect and treat us the same way you do the thin girls. I want to give you my hard earned money, but your making it impossible.

To my lovely readers - Please please please comment on this post if you share my frustrations because I want to send it directly to H&M in the hope that there may be someone, ANYONE who listens. I want to save what used to be a fantastic range and I want to shop at what used to be my favourite shop again!