Their Answers Changed Everything.
Last week, I shared how one dress without a label sparked my curiosity 30 years ago – one of the early seeds that would eventually become Kiyonna.
Research in the basement of USC’s Doheny Library told me something I couldn’t quite make sense of: more than 60% of women in the U.S. wore a size 14 or larger, yet finding stylish clothing in those sizes was surprisingly difficult.
The numbers told me there was a market, but numbers only tell you so much.
I needed to hear from the women themselves.
In true 1996 style, I grabbed a clipboard, printed out a survey and headed to the mall – specifically, the Brea Mall in Orange County, California.
I started by looking at the directory. There were dozens of women’s clothing stores listed, and I remember thinking: if the majority of women wear these sizes, surely a good portion of these stores must cater to them, right?
Not exactly.
There was really only one store dedicated to the plus-size customer:
Lane Bryant.
So that’s where I went.
Clipboard in hand, I stood outside the store and started asking women questions – 200 women, to be exact.
After 30 years, I can’t pretend to remember every question on that survey, but I very clearly remember two:
1) Where do you shop?
And:
2) If you could shop anywhere, where would you want to shop?
The answer to the first question was pretty predictable. They shopped at Lane Bryant, of course, and designated sections of department stores that carried plus sizes. At the time, there simply weren’t many other choices.
But the answer to the second question was completely different.
Women named all kinds of stores – stores that reflected their personal style, their age, their lifestyle and how they wanted to look.
They weren’t asking for “plus-size clothes.”
They wanted the same thing every woman wants:
Clothes they were excited to wear.
Pieces that reflected their style, fit beautifully and made them feel confident.
Standing there with that clipboard, I began to understand what the statistics in the library couldn’t tell me.
This wasn’t just about size.
It was about choice.
And there wasn’t nearly enough of it.
Looking back now, I laugh that our first analytics platform was literally a clipboard.
No dashboards. No social media comments. No reviews to scroll through.
Just conversations.
And maybe that’s fitting, because 30 years later, one of the most important things we do at Kiyonna is still the same:
We listen.
We listen when you tell us what fits, when you tell us what doesn’t, and when you ask for something we don’t have yet.
(And yes — we’ve heard you on petites.)
Those 200 women taught me something that would shape Kiyonna for decades:
Women with curves didn’t need someone to tell them what they should want to wear.
They needed someone to listen to what they already wanted.
That was a pretty powerful lesson for a college student with a clipboard.
And although I thought I was onto something, not everyone agreed…
Next week: “You Can’t Do That.”
What would you do if someone you admired told you your big idea would never work?
Spoiler: Sometimes a “no” is all the motivation you need to keep going.