Why Bigger Men Deserve Luxury Fashion Too
# Why Bigger Men Deserve Luxury Fashion Too
I want to tell you about a feeling you might know better than you'd like to.
You walk into a nice store. The lighting is warm, the music is low, everything smells like leather and possibility. And then you start flipping through the rack and the numbers stop right before they get to you. XL, maybe XXL if you're lucky, and that's the wall. The message isn't written anywhere, but you hear it loud and clear: this beauty wasn't made for a man your size.
I spent years believing that message. I told myself luxury was for other men — smaller men, men who fit the mannequin. I dressed to disappear. And one day I realized I'd been apologizing for my body with my clothes, and I was done doing it.
Here's the truth I wish someone had told me sooner: you do not have to shrink to deserve to look incredible.
### The industry has been slow — but it's not standing still
Let's be honest about where things actually stand, because I don't believe in pretending. The plus-size menswear world has lagged badly behind womenswear. As Fashionista reported, the women's plus-size market was valued at over twenty billion dollars years ago and keeps growing, while men's extended sizing has crawled along by comparison — and this despite the average American man having around a forty-inch waist. ([Fashionista](https://fashionista.com/2019/05/plus-size-menswear-mens-clothing-market))
Why the gap? A big part of it is an old, lazy assumption. As that same reporting put it, for decades there's been a misconception "rampant among the menswear industry and society at large" that bigger guys simply don't care how they look. ([Fashionista](https://fashionista.com/2019/05/plus-size-menswear-mens-clothing-market))
I read that and felt it in my chest. Because I do care. You're reading this, so I'd bet you care too. The problem was never us. It was an industry that didn't bother to look.
### The good news: the doors are opening
Now here's the part that gets me excited. The walls are coming down — slowly, but they're coming down.
Bruce Sturgell, who founded the big-and-tall style site Chubstr, started his whole project out of pure frustration. As he told Fashionista, he launched it because he couldn't find clothes in his size that he actually wanted to wear — he kept finding loud Hawaiian prints or "things like suits that my dad would want to wear," and none of it was made for a man like him. ([Fashionista](https://fashionista.com/2019/05/plus-size-menswear-mens-clothing-market)) So he built the thing he wished existed. That's the spirit of this whole movement, and frankly it's the spirit of this Society.
And the actual luxury houses? They're further in than most men realize. According to Kolor Magazine, brands like Dior, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, and Prada all carry extended sizing — in some cases up to the equivalent of a 4XL — even if they're quiet about advertising it. Their advice was simple and a little funny: the luxury is out there, you just have to "filter for your size." ([Kolor Magazine](https://www.kolormagazine.com/fashion-1/8-mens-luxury-designers-that-make-big-and-tall-clothes))
There's also a wave of newer brands built for us, by people who get it. Independent designer Brandon Kyle describes his label as being "birthed from a radical idea that plus menswear fashion should be just as appealing as its counterpart." ([The Curvy Fashionista](https://thecurvyfashionista.com/top-10-brands-for-the-big-and-tall-man/)) Radical. That's the word he used — that a big man might want to look as good as anyone else. The fact that it ever sounded radical tells you everything about how far we've had to come.
### What this means for you, today
You don't have to wait for the whole industry to catch up. You can start dressing like the man you respect right now. A few things I've learned the hard way:
Fit beats size, every single time. A well-tailored piece in your true size will always look more expensive than something a size too small that you squeezed into out of stubbornness or hope. Find a tailor. It's the cheapest upgrade you'll ever buy.
Buy fewer, better things. One jacket that fits your shoulders and makes you stand taller is worth more than a closet of "good enough."
Stop hiding in black. I know the instinct — dark colors to disappear. But you're not here to disappear. You're here to take up your space with dignity.
You were never the problem. The rack was. And the racks are finally changing — so let's go take what's ours.
Welcome to the Society. Bigger men, bolder lives.
— Ken
