Old Navy’s new “Bodequality,” is a powerful initiative and a monumental first step towards make shopping for fashionable, stylish clothes more accessible and inclusive.
Old Navy’s president and CEO described the bodequality campaign perfectly during her launch announcement, saying, “bodequality represents an innovative and fully inclusive shopping experience in stores and online through a human-centered design approach… This is size equality, price equality, and style for women everywhere (Gap Inc.).” Let’s celebrate and learn about the initiatives this campaign has created.
The biggest change that comes from bodequality is the expansion of sizes in the womens department. Sizes 0-30 and XS-4XL are all sold in store and online. Consumers can now walk into any Old Navy location and find clothes in the new size range. Before, Old Navy never sold truly plus size clothes in stores, anything larger than XXL had to be sold online. Today, there are no more plus size sections, all clothes are made for all sizes. This is a big deal. Oftentimes, trendy fashion is only created for smaller individuals, leaving the plus size section offering the same options of neutral basics. Now everyone has the same options.
The extended sizing was well researched and thought out. To make this happen, Old Navy reported…
“(we) partnered with Dr. Susan Sokoloski- University of Oregon professor, product designer, and award winning innovator to reinvent our fit process and size standards.”
Old Navy
The new size range is focused around tailoring, improved fit, and overall making clothes that fit people with body types that are underrepresented in fashion. Old Navy was founded in 1994 and they introduced plus sizes in 2004. Since then, they have been working on the bodequality campaign and it shows. The level of quality and thoughtfulness in the garments makes this campaign worth the wait.
The bodequality campaign has also expanded on the diversity of their models. They used 389 digital models to conduct the fit to make sure the garments would fit many different body types. Their website has more diverse models as well. Throughout the site you can now see the pieces modeled by different body types, races, and ethnicities. The new models reflect the consumers; they are not perfect supermodels, but more representative of what most people actually look like.
Beyond the inclusivity of their extended sizing and models, financially, shopping at Old Navy may be more accessible than ever. No matter what size you wear, the clothes are all the same price. Before bodequality, plus size clothes from Old Navy were more expensive than straight sized clothes. Now, all sizes pay the same price, making it an even playing field and hopefully more financially accessible to plus size people.
Personally, I love how diverse, representative and accessible this collection is. I recently went to Old Navy to check out the new campaign and as a plus size person it was surprisingly an emotional experience for me. Usually, when I walk into stores I have to walk through the straight sized section to get to the small plus sized section in the back corner. I would look at a dress thinking how beautiful it was, only to remember it was not made for someone my size. But now, there were so many options, for once the entire department contained clothes that would fit me! Cute clothes normally reserved for thin bodies suddenly were pieces I could feel confident in. It was easy to pick clothes that felt represented with who I am. Seeing the posters around the store show models that are different races, sizes, and shapes celebrate the beautiful women often left out of the fashion world. After this shopping trip, I couldn’t help but think of other shoppers experiencing this inclusion for the first time as well.
Overall, the Old Navy Bodequality campaign is like nothing I have ever seen from a company before. Everything was very well thought out and works to highlight unheard voices. It is normalizing that fashion should be for everybody, it is changing the fashion industry by proudly showing off so many different types of people. If you have struggled to find clothes that fit well, or have never seen a model that looks like you, check out the new and improved Old Navy bodequality campaign!
Source: https://www.gapinc.com/en-ca/articles/2021/08/introducing-bodequality https://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/info.do?cid=1180206