Words by Faran Krentcil
As a general rule, fashion abhors a middle ground. Hemlines drag across the ground or graze the bikini line. Hair is extra-poufy or super-slick. A white tee is $10 or it’s $1,000. As Heidi Klum famously said for 16 Project Runway seasons, “In fashion, you’re either ‘in’ or you’re ‘out.’” She did not say, “Or you can kind of hang out for a while in the gray zone and nobody cares.” (Indeed, the only gray zone in fashion is a thunder-colored shearling coat from Loro Piana that costs the same as my mortgage. If you wear it, people will very much care.)
For years, having a body in the middle of the sizing chart was equally tricky. I say this as someone in one of those bodies, specifically one that is 5’4” and 125 pounds. This is a perfectly ordinary size for a woman, even though my breasts are a bit large for the rest of my frame, and sometimes make me look like I’m gonna topple over if I get shoved the wrong way. Still, my body is considered “normal.” Living inside of it comes with the not-so-invisible privilege of fitting into “straight”-sized clothing, airplane seats, and even those rickety fold-down chairs in old Broadway theaters. When someone says “can you scoot over” on the subway, I usually can.
Despite these very real advantages, my body is considered larger and rounder than the fashion world’s ideal size and shape. Models (and the celebrities that wear their runway gowns on the red carpet) are generally a size 0 in America, 6 in London, 34 in Paris, 36 in Milan. In those same places, in that same order, I am a 4, a 10, a 38, a 42. The architectural runway pieces built to make tall and slim women look like preening birds or petulant boys usually appear floppy and sloppy on my shorter, wider torso. So do some “classic” silhouettes that play into those proportions—pencil skirts, trench dresses, skinny cardigans meant to button all the way up to the clavicle without gaping at the boobs.
This is not a lament or even a gripe. It’s just arithmetic rendered in fabric, and it comes with a need for lightning-fast reflexes when shopping for clothes. That’s because when you’re a size medium and on the hunt for appropriate runway pieces, there are only so many things that fit your “normal” form, and they sell faster than a Jacquemus rumour hits the French corners of Reddit. Witness the boxy but cropped shirting from Simone Rocha and Coach in 2021, which vaporized from store websites within just a few days. The 2022 beaded trapeze mini from JW Anderson’s namesake collection caused a similar fray among Dover Street Market pilgrims; likewise, the 2023 Sezane x Sea collaboration with its curve-accommodating hippie blouses and quilted cropped tie-jacket. (No boob gape here.) Scoring a navy Miu Miu bomber in a size medium was harder than getting tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. In fact, you might have considered bribing your local sales associate with Taylor Swift tickets if you even wanted a chance at the jacket. I had to hunt it down for six months on eBay before I could grab it; one finally surfaced at a designer consignment shop in Ukraine.
Something curious began happening last fall, though. Suddenly, like a 4 p.m. table at Chipotle, size medium clothes were always available. The twist-front Toteme maxi dress Coco Bassey wore to a Soho block party? Bergdorf’s only got size 6 left. Same with & Daughter’s perfect cherry crewneck on Net-a-Porter and Versace’s leopard-print slink skirt at SSENSE. Even Bottega Veneta’s coveted shearling jacket from Matthieu Blazy’s very last runway collection is lingering at MyTheresa, but only if you’re a size medium, or in Mr. Blazy’s native tongue, une taille moyenne.
Did designers suddenly realize the “normal” girls were buying runway pieces, too? Well…not exactly. It’s more like we, the size mediums, are becoming a rarer breed because of…mais oui…Ozempic and other weight-loss injectables. It’s happening as 13 percent of American adults—about 34 million of us—are using the drugs, which were created to help those with diabetes and other glucose-regulating issues, but were quickly adopted as an off-label on-ramp to getting very thin, very fast, despite the possible health complications like reduced muscle and kidney function. (Also, if you need a working colon while on Ozempic…like, maybe you don’t?) These drugs cost about $1,000 per month when not covered by insurance, creating a user base that can afford to invest $12,000 per year into the weekly shots. It’s not a huge leap to see that same disposable income going to designer clothes.
“I’ve been making my dresses and swimwear in all sizes—very big, very small, extended sizing, all of it—for years,” said Cynthia Rowley, the New York-based designer who began her label in 1988 and counts Sarah Jessica Parker and Naomi Watts as frequent clients. “But this is the first year that the stores are selling out of everything small and extra small, and they’re selling so fast.” Rowley couldn’t say definitively whether Ozempic or other weight-loss drugs were part of the equation. “It’s not like I’m asking in the fitting rooms!” she laughed. “But of course I’ve noticed this new demand for extra-small sizing,” she said. “I see it in every store. It’s still so important to me to ensure our clothes fit every woman who wants to wear them, but we can’t keep the smalls and extra smalls in stock fast enough.”
Erica Goldberg, a sales executive at the cool-girl hub 10eleven Showroom in New York and Los Angeles, has noticed a similar pattern with retail stores placing orders for clients like Leset, Essentiel Antwerp, and Vince. “There’s been a real uptick in volume for extra small and small sizing,” she says. “We’re getting more and more requests than ever before. We pass those requests onto the designers, and ultimately, they decide how they want to handle it. But it seems like designers will certainly want to manufacture more in-demand sizes to meet the asks.” In other words, they’ll be making a bigger batch of extra smalls.
“Ozempic is going to change manufacturing,” said a New York-based apparel CEO who asked to stay anonymous. “You have people who were plus-sized who are now a size large. You have people who were a size large who are now a size small.” He pointed to the recent New York Fashion Week runways, which had a much smaller percentage of plus-size models than in years past, and virtually zero “midsize” models—those who were a size 4-8, or a designer medium. “It might be even harder to find those sizes going forward, because there’s simply less demand.” For now, though, a small surplus of medium inventory means midsize women might have a shot at getting their designer clothes on sale. At the time of this writing, there are nearly 1,000 more pieces of designer apparel available on Net-a-Porter in a size medium than in a small, an extra small, or a large…which means if you are a size 6 and would like 50 percent off your Loewe blazer, you are in luck.
That luck extends to resale sites, too, where once impossible-to-find holy grails—Khaite’s Capulet-y black cap-sleeved blouse; Christopher John Rogers’s coveted striped knit dress—are now readily available in sizes 6 through 10. “For me, I’m a bit unsettled to see people changing their bodies so rapidly,” says Kristen, 43, an advertising executive who wears a size 6-8 and has a weakness for Valentino from Pierpaolo Piccioli’s color-drenched tenure at the house. “But also, I don’t know anyone else’s health or mental struggles. Everyone should do whatever is best for their own lives. Their body is theirs!” she exclaims. “And now their designer size medium clothes are mine!”
