Demand for XXXXXXXXXXL fashion is increasing: "They overcome fears of body shaming.

You get braver"

Created: 06/21/2022, 20:11

According to the managing director of the Schwalbach department store in Laubach, the demand for fashion in plus sizes has increased, says Björn Hofmann.

© Stefan Schaal

Up to size ten XL: In a department store in the Gießen district there is fashion in oversize.

According to the manager, demand is increasing.

Laubach – Pants, shirts and shirts are available in the Schwalbach department store in Laubach up to size XXXXXXXXXXL.

In addition to workwear and military clothing, the store specializes in customers who are taller, wider and heavier than average.

Managing Director Björn Hofmann observes that the demand for plus sizes is increasing and customers are increasingly overcoming their fears of humiliation: "People are becoming bolder," he says.

A department store in Laubach specializes in plus-size fashion

Whoever enters the Schwalbach department store in the center of Laubach and strolls through the store realizes after a few seconds: There is no other clothing store like this in the Giessen district.

The functional is in the foreground here.

And the niche, as reported by giessener-allgemeine.de.

Bundeswehr underwear is on the shelves, belts up to 1.80 meters long hang next to it, and a little further back there is a huge range of rubber boots and work shoes.

Pants are available here in 40 different sizes, up to size 68 and beyond - like shirts, shirts, dresses and blouses up to XXXXXXXXXXL.

The department store specializes in plus sizes.

Plus-size fashion: The Schwalbach department store in Laubach sells clothing up to size XXXXXXXXXXL

Björn Hofmann walks through his department store.

The manager points to a wall with hiking boots on it.

During the pandemic, demand has risen sharply, he says.

"That won't die down either."

The 38-year-old Hofmann pauses for a moment in front of two shelves lined with American sweets and steak sauces.

He explains that it was an attempt to be able to continue opening the shop with a range of groceries during the lockdown period.

"It didn't quite work out," he adds.

According to the health department, he says, the food should have represented a dominant range.

"Try is the best," says Hofmann and shrugs his shoulders.

Fashion up to size ten XL: A department store in Laubach sells oversized clothing

He reports that larger sizes are becoming more and more popular.

He can confirm the development that people are becoming more and more overweight.

At the same time, he says, overweight people are increasingly daring to visit his shop and try on clothes there.

“You overcome fears of body shaming.

They are becoming bolder.« Hofmann adds: »People only tend to stay at home and order online for oversizes from XXXXXXL with six Xs.«

Many customers, says Hofmann, misjudge their actual clothing size.

At 30 percent, the return rate for online orders is relatively low compared to other mail order companies.

He encourages his employees in the department store to be honest.

“If something looks impossible, we say so, with delicacy.

Then the customers will come back.” However, fashion for plus sizes has become more appealing in recent years.

"Even jogging pants are no longer sacks of potatoes."

XXXXXXXXXXL in Laubach: According to the managing director, the demand for oversized fashion has increased

Hofmann reports that 70 percent of customers are men.

“But a lot of men are generally reluctant to shop, I see them here maybe once a year.” A large range is therefore also important so that customers can find clothes for themselves and their size during one visit.

Almost 50,000 different items stand, lie and hang in the shop on an area of ​​500 square meters.

Conceivably small, on the other hand, with a handful of items, Hofmann's grandfather founded the business a good 70 years ago.

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Gonterskirchen Otto Schwalbach rode his bike through the villages and sold clothing that he had bought in the Giessen US depot.

He had made contacts there as a worker laying track beds for the Americans.

Soon after, Schwalbach established one of the first Spar supermarkets in the region, while continuing to sell clothing at the same time.

He was in contact with Levi's through a dealer in Hanau.

According to legend, Schwalbach was the first in the region to sell jeans.

This earned him a nickname that is still familiar to many Laubachers today: "De lang Lahwis".

In addition to military clothing, Björn Hofmann focuses on plus-size fashion in his shop in Laubach

Finally, in a foreclosure auction in 1961, he bought the building on August-Krieger-Strasse.

Schwalbach himself was 1.92 meters tall and his shoe size was 51. From his own personal experience, in addition to military clothing, he opted for plus-size clothing.

Hofmann, a trained bank clerk, entered the business in 2008 after his grandfather announced that he wanted to gradually stop.

They worked together in the department store for a few years, and their grandfather died in 2012.

Hofmann had demonstrated his business acumen early on: at the age of 17 he had already sold mobile phone contracts, and his parents had to sign the business registration at the time.

In the pandemic, Hofmann's attempt to keep his head above water with US food failed.

But he discovered another passion: business customers.

Employers give their employees authorization slips to buy, for example, three work trousers, a jacket and a pair of safety shoes or a printed polo shirt in the Laubach store.

»We settle accounts with the employer once a month.«

Laubach: The Schwalbach department store sells clothing in plus sizes up to ten XL

There are 2,000 pairs of work shoes in the store's warehouse.

With the focus on business customers, the department store was able to be maintained despite the lockdown.

»Where other shops have turned the key, our business has continued, albeit on the back burner.«

A main customer is the closed psychiatric hospital in Giessen on Licher Strasse.

Eleven years ago, a man with a waist circumference of two meters and a truck tarpaulin around his waist was admitted there.

"We had underwear made for him." Since then, Hofmann has delivered to the psychiatric ward almost weekly.

"Catalog mailers don't deliver such addresses."

The business has changed significantly over the past seven decades, says Hofmann.

Initially, farmers were among the most important customers.

"In the 1950s, 80 percent of people were still directly involved in agriculture." Today, they make up three percent of customers.

Plus sizes, military clothing, outdoor fashion - the department store has learned time and again to recognize a market and find new niches.

»When I started here, I thought: Who buys braces?«, says Hofmann.

But such conclusions should not only be drawn from one's own position.

»Today we sell well over 1000 pairs of braces a year.«

Another traditional shop in the Gießen district is now closing its doors.

(Stefan Schaal)