It’s no secret that shopping as a curvy fashionista has the tendency to be the realest #struggle. When it comes to finding places to buy clothes that are made to last but also on-trend and fashion-forward, the pickings can be slim—but Alexandra Waldman and Polina Veksler, the designers of Universal Standard, are about to change all that.
Universal Standard is the new sleek, minimalist line stylish plus size women have been waiting for. Think simple, clean, edgy designs à la Theory or Helmut Lang. Waldman told Refinery29 that the line was designed to fill what she perceives to be a major gap in the range of what’s available to curvy women. “What’s out there is lacking a modern sensibility,” Waldman told R29.
Another reason to love the line? While it may match the aesthetic of straight-off-the-runway labels, the pieces are much more budget-friendly. According to Waldman, the line was originally supposed to match the wholesale-retail model of other brands you might find in a department store, eventually deciding to start with e-commerce instead to keep prices down for future customers. The result is prices that range from $70 to $390, but with most items falling somewhere between $100 and $150. These are definitely investment pieces, but won’t set customers back quite as much as Helmut Lang’s or Theory’s much more expensive lines.
The line will clearly be worth the investment too—every single piece contains elastane, but is engineered to not pill as easily as most cotton materials. Waldman described the pieces to R29 as being stretchy, but not looking like they’re made of stretch material.
The debut 8-piece collection is currently available for pre-order, with the first orders shipping sometime around the middle of October. Curvy fashionistas, we’d suggest you run, not walk, to pre-order the line—we’re guessing it’s going to be a major success!