Chromat’s been known for delivering eye-catching designs dressed on models of all sizes since it first rocked the runway at New York Fashion Week back in 2010. But the “future-forward body wear” brand is celebrating a big breakthrough: it’s coming to Nordstrom with an order that includes sizes up to 3X!
Chromat’s designer Becca McCharen-Tran shared the good news during a panel for the opening of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s latest exhibit, “The Body: Fashion and Physique,” where she sat alongside Christian Siriano and Kim Jenkins, a professor and lecturer at both Parsons and Pratt Institute, to discuss increase in inclusivity in the indutry. Slated to hit Nordstrom in March or April (just in time for Spring Break), McCharen-Tran told Refinery29 that though she’s nervous and excited about the it, she’s already ahead of the curve — yes, pun intended — to fulfill the unexpected order with help from a factory with curve sizing experience. After all, it’s been her mission to create clothes for all bodies that made Chromat’s show one of the most-watched during Fashion Week and earned her a runner-up spot for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2017, according to Fashionista. But those sizes haven’t always been readily available on store shelves. “We were so surprised,” McCharen-Tran told Refinery29. “That’s why the order with Nordstrom is so important. It’s the first time a retailer has been so supportive of our curve inclusive mission.”
So what’s kept the brand’s larger sizes off the sales rack until now? According to McCharen-Tran, it’s the fact that retailers haven’t reached out about them. The designer noted that the burgeoning brand has been wholesale focused, producing only what had been ordered from major retailer like Barneys and Revolve, who never asked for them. “No one has ever bought above a size large for us,” she said. “Barneys has never bought above a size large, so we were producing extra sizes on our own.”
The good news comes on the heels of Nordstrom recently stocking the sales floor with straight and curve offerings from Khloe Kardashian‘s Good American brand sitting side by side on the rack instead of separting them. It’s an annoyingly common practice at brick and mortar stores which often places plus-size sections in a corner or on a completely seperate floor, almost out of sight of others because heaven forbid a larger woman is seen shoping alongside her straight-sized counterparts. But McCharen-Tran has hope that small steps like these will not only lead to more visibility for diverse body types beyond the runway and less segregation on the sales rack but also to universal sizing standards. “Hopefully that’s where retail is heading, to be honest,” she said, though Siriano noted that it could depend on the types of garments and the materials used to create them. “So that everyone can know based on their measurements what size they are anywhere.”
So now’s the time to rewatch the Chromat’s Spring 2018 recent runway to start thinking about which of the chic swimsuits styles you’re planning to add to cart as soon as they arrive at Nordstrom!