The petite size department is disappearing from many clothing retail stores. After years of struggling to find clothes that fit, small women began to enjoy lavish attention from apparel retailers in the form of entire departments dedicated to petite sizes. The stores were followed by all the biggest designers and before long Donna Karen and Versace offered lines especially for short women.

Now it seems that the glory days of petite size retail have ended. Over the last several months Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale’s have all drastically reduced or eliminated their petite departments entirely. Neiman Marcus has removed the petite departments from all but 8 of their 36 stores and by fall that number will have dropped to just 2.
The petite size department is disappearing from many clothing retail stores. After years of struggling to find clothes that fit, small women began to enjoy lavish attention from apparel retailers in the form of entire departments dedicated to petite sizes. The stores were followed by all the biggest designers and before long Donna Karen and Versace offered lines especially for short women.

Now it seems that the glory days of petite size retail have ended. Over the last several months Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale’s have all drastically reduced or eliminated their petite departments entirely. Neiman Marcus has removed the petite departments from all but 8 of their 36 stores and by fall that number will have dropped to just 2.

According to a report in the New York Times, executives from the retail giants said that petite sizes simply aren’t selling the way the once did and that simple economics mandated the decision. During the last year the big retailer report that there has been a 5% drop in the number of petite size items they sell. They went on to claim that smaller women choose to have the wider variety of more up to date looks available from standard sizes even if they don’t fit as well.

Not everyone agrees and some critics suggest that it is merely a return to outdated notions that only tall, thin women want fashionable clothing and smaller women are somehow less desirable for high-end apparel. Saks fifth Avenue has received so many hostile letters from customers that they say they are reconsidering the removal of petite sizes.

However, the problem is probably more complicated than just age-old biases about beauty. There has been a drop in the number of manufactures that produce smaller sizes, which means fewer styles for the retailers to carry. A smaller number of inventory choices encourage retail stores to reduce the areas devoted to petite sizes, which then discourages the manufactures still making the smaller sizes from making more. A classic vicious circle.

The New York Times quotes Ellen Tracy’s president Howard Rosenberger as saying, “We would love to stay in the petite business. We didn’t have a choice.” Ellen Tracy had been a primary supplier of smaller sizes to all three retail giants closing or reducing their petite departments.

Wait, there’s more to it than that even. While the biggest retailers have seen a substantial drop in their petite size apparel sales the petite industry as a whole has actually seen a very significant increase in the total dollar amount of sales. From 2005 to 2006 petite size clothing has increased by just over 11%. In fact, they have reached almost $10 billion in annual sales. So perhaps there is something to the critic’s claim of fashion discrimination after all.

It is often said that people are getting taller and this is probably true in the long term but a non-scientific survey at any large public gathering will show that there are still many, many women under the 5’ 4’’ mark that distinguishes the petite size. So, how can there be a growth in overall sales while retailers report the opposite?

It is possible that like plus sizes for larger women clothing shoppers are responding to the decrease in big store availability by turning to online shopping. Online retailers such as Land’s End and Lane Bryant have huge petite sections that to the untrained eye, namely mine, seem to have plenty of choices for the smaller woman and that $10 billion must be going somewhere.

Every time brick and mortar stores abandon a market they leave the door open to smaller online retailers. So for the adventurous small business this just might be good news. All those petite women who wrote angry letters to Saks Fifth Avenue swearing never to return still need clothing and will be looking for a replacement for the betraying retailer.

If I was in the online apparel wholesale or retail business I think I would go looking for those customers, find out what the want, and start selling it. It isn’t difficult to find high quality, low cost petite sizes, in fact, if retailers are eliminating their small size departments there should be a fair supply of aftermarket returns hitting the wholesalers soon.
Art Micklewraith is a freelancewriter and regular contributor to Top Ten Wholesale. He can be reached at Content and Solutions or by email at artmicklewraith@gmail.com.