Full Figured Fashion Week Aims To Bring Plus-Size Clothing To The Spotlight

"I Demand The Right To Go To Any Store And Buy A Simple Black Dress"

Big curves are beautiful, and Full Figured Fashion Week has returned to celebrate them. The biggest names in plus-size fashion are gathering for the fourth annual festival this week in New York.

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Every year Americans spend billions of dollars on plus-size clothing, and that number is only getting bigger as more and more designers are learning to embrace bigger bodies. Full Figured Fashion Week aims to speed things up.

Running Thursday through Saturday, FFFW features events centered around plus-size fashion, including boutique showcases from retailers, panel discussions on the plus-size fashion community, and a runway show with looks from designers like Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren and Elie Tahari.

However, for the festival's founder, Gwen DeVoe, FFFW is about more than just large women having a place to feel confident and beautiful. It's about changing the landscape of popular fashion as a whole.

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"If you're in this business for the sake of doing business, why are you excluding this entire community?" asked DeVoe. "We need to stop with the marginalization. I'm not asking for couture, but I demand the right to go into any store and buy a simple black dress."