#second hand stores are not really treasure troves of clothing for plus size people

[capillata]

mevima replied to your post “Haaaa fuck the lack of affordable clothing choices for fat genderqueer...”

I usually just wear loose jeans and a polo or a button-down shirt from the second hand store

I think this might be one of those things where country/continent differences come into play. I don’t know a single Australian that is my size, that has ever found loose jeans from a second-hand store. Ever. I’m sure it’s happened. I mean my pool is about 40 people all over Australia, it’s not like every plus-size person ever or anything. But it’s a bracing reality that second-hand stores are often not great for plus-size people once you’re over a certain size range (say an 18 in Australian sizes). 

And my size isn’t impossible to find in some plus size stores etc., and Big W - but yeah. Tbh, jeans in my size bracket (24) at plus size stores often sell out the fastest, so there’s usually a huge gap in what’s available for consecutive months at a time. There’s just too much demand / not enough supply. Also we have no second-hand stores in Ellenbrook, and no decent public transport to go elsewhere on a regular basis and check. But when I used to look actively, idk, maybe something like that would come up once or twice a year in certain places? And gets snapped up really fast. (And I never found jeans, only the occasional, rare, top.) 

I think it’s partly influenced by the fact that the majority of chain shops here - vs. places like England, USA, Italy etc. tend to stop their sizes at 18. Some clothing stores grudgingly offer up to size 20. I found it kind of miraculous to go into about any Asda or Tesco or w/e and actually be guaranteed to find something that would fit in the UK in regular chain stores). But yeah, big ‘too much demand / not enough supply’ issues here in Oz. (ETA: This is why I know a lot of plus size Aussies who almost exclusively shop for their clothing online, it’s generally cheaper, there’s usually more range -> but you can’t try anything on, and returns are usually too awkward to manage. It’s not an ideal solution).