Are intermediary luxury fashion brands excluding overweight and obese women in the UK, by not offering their sizes among its assortments?

Abstract: Title: Are intermediary luxury fashion brands excluding overweight and obese women in the UK, by not offering their sizes among its assortments? Authors: Elin Forslund and Maria Erlandsson Supervisor:Ulf Aagerup Level: Bachelor thesis in marketing (15 ECTS). Spring 2015. Key concepts: Fashion, Intermediary Luxury, Brand Identity, Brand Image, User Imagery and Self-image Congruence. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to review the sizes available in store by three leading intermediary luxury fashion brands offered in the UK and compare it with the actual body shapes of the female UK population. This will show whether intermediary luxury fashion brands exclude overweight and obese women, by not offering their sizes among its assortments. We want to find out whether it is possible to reveal a correlation between existing branding theories and intermediary luxury fashion assortments in the UK. Theoretical framework: Our frame of reference consists of established branding theories and previous research concerning brand identity, brand image, self-image congruence, user imagery, segmentation and luxury branding. Method: This is a cross-sectional research of the descriptive kind.  We have used a deductive research approach and a quantitative research method. Empirical findings: In this chapter we are presenting the results of our study through a table demonstrating the distribution of individuals and garments over weight classes. Also, any significant differences between supply and demand within any of the categories will be revealed through a Z-test. Conclusions: Obese women are by all means excluded by intermediary luxury fashion brands. The overweight women have significantly less jeans to choose from than what should be supported by their relative share of the female UK population. However, it turned out that they are not entirely excluded as they still have an amount of tops to choose from that closely matches their demand. Also we succeeded with identifying a causal correlation between branding theories and the result of our study. Therefore we have managed to provide further knowledge on how intermediary luxury fashion brands can become successful.