Ozempic Fuels Hunt for Smaller Clothes
Retailers see nascent sales boost fuelled by people switching to smaller sizes; ‘not something we’ve seen before’
Retailers see nascent sales boost fuelled by people switching to smaller sizes; ‘not something we’ve seen before’
Apparel retailers are discovering that weight loss is their gain.
While blockbuster drugs like Ozempic that lead to significant weight loss have dented demand for diet plans and caused food companies to prepare for people eating less, clothing sellers are finding that millions of slimmed-down Americans want to buy new clothes.
The newly svelte aren’t just restocking their wardrobes, many are also gravitating to more body-hugging shapes and risqué designs, according to industry executives and shoppers. Some brands are responding by replacing zippers with adjustable corsets and adding more sheer looks.
The nascent downsizing is happening across brands and types of garments. Industry executives said that they can’t be certain weight-loss medicine is the cause, but added that the shift is unlike anything they have seen. It is also an about-face from recent years, when many retailers rushed to add larger sizes to accommodate Americans’ growing girth.
About 5% of Lafayette 148’s customers are buying new outfits because they have lost weight, often replacing their size 12 clothes with size 6 or 8, according to Deirdre Quinn , the brand’s chief executive. The benefit is twofold; in addition to boosting sales, Lafayette 148 is saving money because smaller sizes use less fabric, Quinn said.
More customers of clothing rental company Rent the Runway are switching to smaller sizes than at any time in the past 15 years, said Jennifer Hyman , co-founder and CEO. These customers are also showing more of a willingness to experiment with different styles such as cutouts and other body-baring features. “When you are more comfortable in your skin, you are more willing to try edgier looks,” she said.
For Maggie Rezek, getting dressed used to be about hiding her extra weight in oversize shirts and baggy pants. Since she lost 60 pounds on semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, the 32-year-old, who handles marketing for a beauty salon, has splurged on a new wardrobe. Now, her staples consist of crop tops and jean shorts. She has traded in her sneakers for kitten heels. She even documents her outfits on social media.
“Before, I was insecure about my body,” said Rezek, who lives in Indianapolis. “Now, I feel like I fit better in clothes. That gives me the confidence to dress up and be more stylish.”
Some 15.5 million people, or 6% of U.S. adults, say they have tried injectable weight loss drugs to slim down, according to a survey of more than 5,500 Americans conducted in March by polling company Gallup. Nearly three-quarters of current users said the drugs—a class known as GLP-1 that were originally developed to treat diabetes—are effective or extremely effective in helping them shed pounds.
Weight-loss drugs don’t work for everyone and the cost can sometimes exceed $1,000 a month, limiting the market. The full price isn’t always covered by insurance. Moreover, people struggle to keep the weight off once they stop using the drugs.
Still, some companies expect the market for these drugs will be big enough that they are shifting course. WW International , formerly known as Weight Watchers, acquired a subscription service that offers telehealth visits with doctors who can prescribe drugs like Ozempic. Nestlé is introducing a new food line this year designed for people taking weight-loss medication.
Clothing companies could use a boost. Apparel sales fell 4% in the 12 months that ended in April compared with the same period a year earlier, according to market research firm Circana, as people give priority to their spending on necessities.
Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, Amarra, which sells evening gowns and other formal wear in 800 retailers in the U.S., Canada and Australia, saw increased demand for larger sizes. Now, that trend has reversed.
“Over the past year, our retailers have been telling us they need smaller sizes,” said Abhi Madan, Amarra’s co-founder and creative director. Amarra, which is based in Freehold, N.J., has added sizes as small as 000. He says he is also selling more sizes in the 0-8 range and fewer in the plus-size range of 18-24.
Madan said the shift is changing the way Amarra designs dresses. It is replacing zippers with lace-up corsets, which can more easily accommodate shifting weights because the laces can be tightened or loosened. It is also adding more sheer side panels that give a figure-hugging look.
AllStar Logo, which sells polo shirts, fleece jackets and other gear to large companies, has seen demand for its largest sizes fall by half over the past year, according to Edmond Moss , its sales director.
“We used to sell a lot of fleece jackets in extra, extra large,” Moss said. “Now everything has gone down by at least one size.”
Sales of the three largest sizes of women’s button-down shirts fell 10.9% in the first three months of 2024 compared with the same period in 2022 at a dozen brands, according to Impact Analytics, which helps retailers manage their inventory and size allocations.
Sales of those same button-down shirts in the three smallest sizes grew 12.1% over that period. Impact Analytics analysed purchases in physical stores located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It focused its research on this area because it has the highest concentration of individuals in New York City taking these drugs specifically for weight loss, according to market research firm Trilliant Health.
A similar trend played out for women’s dresses and sweaters, as well as men’s polo shirts, sweatshirts and T-shirts, according to Impact Analytics.
Prashant Agrawal , Impact Analytics’ founder and CEO, said it wasn’t possible to know if the size changes resulted from people losing weight or a shift in clothing styles, but added that such a pronounced shift is unusual. “It’s not something we’ve seen before,” he said.
Some executives are worried that the shift could reduce demand for plus-size clothes.
“I’m trying to figure out what we have to worry about in the future,” said Doug Wood , the chief executive of clothing retailer Tommy Bahama, noting that as more people lose weight it could hurt sales of its “Big & Tall” collection designed for very large men.
Jillian Sterba went from a size 6 to a size 10 after the birth of her child. When the weight didn’t come off with diet and exercise, she started injections of semaglutide in October. Since then, Sterba, who is 36 and lives in Austin, has lost 35 pounds. She is now a size 4. “Almost half my clothes are not wearable,” she said.
She bought new jeans, tops, bras and underwear. “I had been wearing flowy tops before but now I’m wearing fitted shirts,” she said. Still, Sterba said she is keeping 80% of her old clothes just in case she gains back the weight.
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Sky-high pricey artworks may not be flying off the auction block right now, but the art market is actually doing just fine.
That’s a key takeaway from a 190-plus page report written by Art Economics founder Clare McAndrew and published Thursday morning by Art Basel and UBS. The results were based on a survey of more than 3,600 collectors with US$1 million in investable assets located in 14 markets around the world.
That the art market is doing relatively well is backed by several data points from the survey that show collectors are buying plenty of art—just at lower prices—and that they are making more purchases through galleries and art fairs versus auction houses.
It’s also backed by the perception of a “robust art market feeling,” which was evident at Art Basel Paris last week, says Matthew Newton, art advisory specialist with UBS Family Office Solutions in New York.
“It was busy and the galleries were doing well,” Newton says, noting that several dealers offered top-tier works—“the kind of stuff you only bring out to share if you have a decent amount of confidence.”
That optimism is reflected in the survey results, which found 91% of respondents were optimistic about the global art market in the next six months. That’s up from the 77% who expressed optimism at the end of last year.
Moreover, the median expenditure on fine art, decorative art and antiques, and other collectibles in the first half by those surveyed was US$25,555. If that level is maintained for the second half, it would “reflect a stable annual level of spending,” the report said. It would also exceed meet or exceed the median level of spending for the past two years.
The changes in collector behaviour noted in the report—including a decline in average spending, and buying through more diverse channels—“are likely to contribute to the ongoing shift in focus away from the narrow high-end of sales that has dominated in previous years, potentially expanding the market’s base and encouraging growth in more affordable art segments, which could provide greater stability in future,” McAndrew said in a statement.
One reason the art market may appear from the outside to be teetering is the performance of the major auction houses has been pretty dismal since last year. Aggregate sales for the first half of the year at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, and Bonhams, reached only US$4.7 billion in the first half, down from US$6.3 billion in the first half a year ago and US$7.4 billion in the same period in 2022, the report said.
Meanwhile, the number of “fully published” sales in the first half reached 951 at the four auction houses, up from 896 in the same period last year and 811 in 2022. Considering the lower overall results in sales value, the figures imply an increase in transactions of lower-priced works.
“They’re basically just working harder for less,” Newton says.
One reason the auction houses are having difficulties is many sellers have been unwilling to part with high-value works out of concern they won’t get the kind of prices they would have at the art market’s recent highs coming out of the pandemic in 2021 and 2022. “You really only get one chance to sell it,” he says.
Also, counterintuitively, art collectors who have benefited from strength in the stock market and the greater economy may be “feeling a positive wealth effect right now,” so they don’t need to sell, Newton says. “They can wait until those ‘animal spirits’ pick back up,” referring to human emotions that can drive the market.
That collectors are focusing on art at more modest price points right now is also evident in data from the Association of Professional Art Advisors that was included in the report. According to APAA survey data of its advisors, if sales they facilitated in the first half continue at the same pace, the total number of works sold this year will be 23% more than 2023.
Most of the works purchased so far were bought for less than US$100,000, with the most common price point between US$25,000 and US$50,000.
The advisors surveyed also said that 80% of the US$500 million in transactions they conducted in the first half of this year involved buying art rather than selling it. If this pattern holds, the proportion of art bought vs. sold will be 17% more than last year and the value of those transactions will be 10% more.
“This suggests that these advisors are much more active in building collections than editing or dismantling them,” the report said.
The collectors surveyed spend most of their art dollars with dealers. Although the percentage of their spending through this channel dipped to 49% in the first half from 52% in all of last year, spending at art fairs (made largely through gallery booths) increased to 11% in the first half from 9% last year.
Collectors also bought slightly more art directly from artists (9% in the first half vs. 7% last year), and they bought more art privately (7% vs. 6%). The percentage spent at auction houses declined to 20% from 23%.
The data also showed a shift in buying trends, as 88% of those polled said they bought art from a new gallery in the past two years, and 52% bought works by new and emerging artists in 2023 and this year.
The latter data point is interesting, since works by many of these artists fall into the ultra contemporary category, where art soared to multiples of original purchase prices in a speculative frenzy from 2021-22. That bubble has burst, but the best of those artists are showing staying power, Newton says.
“You’re seeing that kind of diversion between what’s most interesting and will maintain its value over time, versus maybe what’s a little bit less interesting
and might have had speculative buying behind it,” he says.
Collectors appear better prepared to uncover the best artists, as more of those surveyed are doing background research or are seeking advice before they buy. Less than 1% of those surveyed said they buy on impulse, down from 10% a year earlier, the report said.
Not all collectors are alike so the Art Basel-UBS report goes into considerable detail breaking down preferences and actions by individuals according to the regions where they live and their age range, for instance. The lion’s share of spending on art today is by Gen X, for instance—those who are roughly 45-60 years old.
Despite a predominately optimistic view of the market, of those surveyed only 43% plan to buy more art in the next 12 months, down from more than 50% in the previous two years, the report said. Buyers in mainland China were an exception, with 70% saying they plan to buy.
Overall, more than half of all collectors surveyed across age groups and regions plan to sell, a reversal from past years. That data point could foretell a coming buyer’s market, the report said, or it “could be indicative of more hopeful forecasts on pricing or the perception that there could be better opportunities for sales in some segments in the near future than there are at present.”
In the U.S., where 48% of collectors plan to buy, Newton says he’s seeing a lot of interest in art from wealth management clients.
“They’re looking for ideas. They’re looking for names of artists that can be compelling and have staying power,” Newton says. “That’s definitely happening from an optimistic standpoint.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.