Plus Size Clothing Industry

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Inheriting the Girth

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Why are thirtysomething brothers Michael and Nicholas Kaplan so passionate about helping plus-size women find the perfect poncho or the right pair of pants? You could say it's in their genes.

The Kaplans are the latest in a growing list of entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on America's plus-size market. But they're the only ones whose family has been dressing large-size ladies for more than a century. They are the great-grandsons of the first lady of full-figure fashion, Lena Himelstein Bryant, better known as Lane Bryant.

Bryant - "Gram" to her great-grandsons - was the inspiration behind the brothers' decision to launch Fashion to Figure. They've attracted over half a million dollars in investment capital, and they opened their first store at Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack, N.Y. in October. The company name was taken from a statement Bryant made to Glamour magazine in 1950. Asked for the secret of her success, Bryant said: "You should never ask women to conform their figures to fashion, but rather bring fashion to the figure."

"I was born 20 years to the day after she died," said Michael Kaplan, 32. "My brother and I have been very fortunate to grow up around this American Dream story. Lane Bryant was a woman who had a multimillion-dollar enterprise several years before women could vote." The brothers grew up hearing how Gram, who lost her husband a year after giving birth to their first child, supported herself by designing and selling maternity dresses. The business, which began in 1899, took off and quickly evolved to concentrate on plus-size, rather than pregnant, women.

Their father, Steven Kaplan, was president of Lane Bryant until it was sold to The Limited Inc. in 1986. Lane Bryant has since been sold to Charming Shoppes Inc., and the Kaplan family is no longer involved with the company.

Nicholas Kaplan, 34 is the fashion expert in the partnership. A former buyer for Saks, and general merchandise manager for online fashion site Bluefly.com, he co-founded The Designer Warehouse liquidation chain.

Michael Kaplan worked for a venture capital firm, where he proposed and helped found an online store for plus-size customers, alight.com. He then went to Harvard Business School, where he and a classmate entered their idea for Fashion to Figure in the school's business plan competition. Their plan "didn't come close to winning," Kaplan said. But Nancy Koehn, one of his professors, thinks Kaplan's business idea could be a winner with female shoppers.

"I was struck by how committed he was to getting inside the head of his customers," Koehn said. "I'm talking about a business woman who's a size 16, or any woman in our society who is not born genetically skinny." She said she was impressed by Kaplan's empathy for the plus-sized. "His attitude is, 'I want to make these women feel good.' And there just aren't that many men walking around Wall Street that get up in the morning to say that," Koehn said.

Kaplan, she said, has the financial and business savvy "to translate that empathy into a financially profitable business in a wide-open market."

Marshal Cohen, senior industry analyst for research firm The NPD Group, also believes the Kaplan brothers have "a very good opportunity for success."

"Anything that markets to the plus-size customer is a good move," he said. "Anybody who even says hello to the plus-size customer, it's a good move." Even though everyone is jumping on the plus-size bandwagon, there is an opportunity for someone to come in and say, "I'm going to address their needs in a different way," Cohen said.

The Kaplan brothers are entering a growing market - plus-size apparel sales have been rising at the rate of 3 to 5 percent a year, while total clothing sales have been shrinking, according to Cohen. Size 14 is now the best-selling women's clothing size, up from size 8 two decades ago, and nearly half of all American women wear size 12 or larger.

Mass chains from Wal-Mart and Old Navy to Bloomingdale's and Macy's have beefed up their plus departments, and chains such as Torrid have been launched to serve large-size customers exclusively. That added competition from mainstream chains has been a challenge for some plus-size-only chains. Rochelle Park-based United Retail Group Inc., which operates more than 500 Avenue stores, saw its sales slump in 2002 and 2003 and changed its merchandise to emphasize fashion, with positive results this fall.

The Kaplans, however, believe Fashion to Figure is filling a particular need.

The Fashion to Figure stores, the Kaplans said, will give plus-size women trendy, fashionable clothes from lots of different clothing companies. "This is not a branded concept. It's fun, fashionable product at low prices," Nicholas Kaplan said. Ponchos in bright colors are selling well, as are down coats for $79 and the "Feel Comfy" sweater for $19. The Kaplans chose the Palisades Center mall "because it really draws people from everywhere, from Alpine, N.J., down," Nicholas said. The target customer is between 25 and 55, "but at the same time we've had a 14-year-old girl come in, and we've helped several women over the age of 80," Nicholas said.

The store is decorated with large photographs of Bryant, her family and some of the first full-figured models used by Gram's company. But the words "Lane Bryant" don't appear anywhere in the store. A sign printed with the "fashion to figure" quote is attributed simply to "Gram." Nicholas said the brothers left Gram's famous name off the signs and pictures, first, because they plan to "go in our own direction" and second, because "we just didn't want to test those waters" and run into legal problems with the company that still bears Gram's name.

But being related to Lane Bryant, and to the man who used to run that company, gave the brothers an advantage when they first made the rounds in the Garment District, lining up suppliers for their new store. "We run into people all the time that talk to us about our family," Michael Kaplan said. "You'll never believe who I met," he recalled his brother saying one day. "Somebody who used to work for Dad. He said, 'If you ever need sweaters, just let me know.'Ÿ"

E-mail: verdon@northjersey.com

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