Oh. Yes. She. Did.

Hold the Press Releases, Suz!  

How do you go from not paying your taxes, failure to ship orders since 2011, closing your store, foreclosure, shutting down all communication to... THIS?

First plus-size-only consignment store in Massachusetts opens!

Plus-size consignment stores - sorely needed!   I've been in many consignment shops, and the first size that's gone?  The one I need!  LOL.  I gave up trying. I would have loved to have a place to consign all of my old clothing, and to find new-to-me threads!  I would love to know the the clothes were going to someone who really needed them, especially for our rapidly shrinking community!  Kudos to these ladies for starting up this business.

From:  The Patriot Ledger, 8/2009

The Shrinking Closet in  Avon, which opened  Saturday, Aug. 1,  is the first  consignment store in  Massachusetts to sell  exclusively plus-size women’s  fashions, size 12 to 34. The  business is owned by Diane  Lobel of Randolph and Donna  Lucier of Weymouth.

“Before opening the store, I  Googled ‘plus size consignment’  and found six or seven stores in  the United States and Canada,”  Lucier said. “Some of them have  grown into 10,000-square-foot  warehouse-size stores. But none  of them are on the East coast.”

Two thirds of the U.S. population is overweight or  obese, so there’s definitely a need  for plus-size consignment. And  when you consider the needs of  people who are losing weight rapidly after gastric bypass or lap- band surgery, the demand is even  greater, said Lobel, speaking  from personal experience.

Lobel has lost 50 pounds since  her lap-band surgery in January.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that she had  to replace her wardrobe several  times as she dropped three sizes,  spending more than $1,000 in  six months. Most department  stores and consignment shops  don’t carry the largest plus  sizes, 28  to 34, she said, so she had to pay  top dollar at specialty shops or  order from plus-size catalogs.

“There was nothing for me to  buy in consignment shops,”  Lobel said. “Either the sizes  were too small or the clothing  was too fancy. I didn’t want to  buy a party dress. I wanted  office attire and T-shirts,  sweaters and nightgowns.”

Old Navy Ditches Fat Girl Clothes.

Old Navy has put all the fat chick clothes on clearance, because they're discontinuing carrying it in the stores.  Run, do not walk, to Old Navy.  Now.  Who cares - it's cheap clothes!  You can still buy stuff online, for sizes 14-26W.

Eh.  Whatever.  I like Dag's take on it.

"Are we to assume that the Old Navy merchandising teams had a meeting and they all said, yo dooooodes, let's institute a NO FAT CHICKS policy at all our stores! Who cares how much profit we've been making off those cows, who wants to look at 'em? They're not friends with enough hot babes and we need more hot babes in the store. So let's axe the fat chicks clothes and go have lunch at HOOTER'S! YEAH!!!!

I love all the "research" and "proof" people are claiming to produce, as if they KNOW for sure that Old Navy did not do any research at all, did no number crunching. They just decided that they hated fat chicks more than they loved money so they decided that as part of a publicly-traded company, they'd knowingly get themselves in DEEP poop with their shareholders by eliminating a profitable clothing line. And never have to answer to those shareholders or the Board of Directors of the Gap who have either no clue what's going on at Old Navy or they just bought everybody the next round of pitchers at Hooter's.

And it's all for spite and about being MEAN.  Uh-huh."

Read more here.