April 29, 2012

The Limited Launches New Full Figured Line Eloquii

Thursday, April 26, 2012, The Limited launched their new full-figured line eloquii, which is headed by fashion designer Jodi Arnold. The line debuted at The Limited (the first Limited store nationwide to launch the line) in Somerset Collection in Troy, Mi. I had a chance to get a little one on one time with the designer to ask her a few questions about her new collection.

The only other place to buy eloquii is online.

How do you pronounce the name of this collection?
eloquii [el-lo-qui]

What does eloquii mean? Does it stand for anything?
It’s sort of a combination of the words Elegant and Soliloquy. We had a branding company that came up with it, we wanted something elegant and individual for her.

What was your inspiration for the line?
The line came about because the CEO (of The Limited) Linda Heasley kept getting customers coming up to her asking why didn’t they offer plus size clothing. Some women had given birth over the years or encountered other life changes that caused them to gain weight resulting in them no longer being able to wear The Limited clothing. Since there are not many choices in the plus-size market, she wanted to offer these women fashionable choices with great quality, so that’s how it came about and they launched it in November of 2011. We really want to bring quality and fashionable clothes to the plus size women, with more work ascetics.

How does this line stand out from Lane Bryant’s and other plus-size stores?
Well, what we hear is Lane Bryant clothes don’t last, it’s poor quality, or there aren’t enough options for workwear or it’s not a sophisticated aesthetic. We don’t want to bash anyone else but, that’s where we come in.

So this is the first eloquii (inside The Limited)?
Yes, we only launched online, so we decided to test a few stores in The Limited stores. We chose Somerset because it’s a large footprint and we want her (the customer) to feel like she has her own separate space, we didn’t want to just cram plus sizes clothing into part of the store, we want to make her feel as if she has her own boutique.

Do you plan out branching out from The Limited opening up eloquii all on its own?
Yes, but first we’re going to do six shops in shops like this one, which we plan on opening before June 15. Then we’ll be opening up our own eloquii stores in the near future.

So what seasons trends have you incorporated into eloquii?
We tried to give her everything that was on the runway, she wants to wear everything her thinner friend is wearing so were trying to tell her that she too can wear stripes, skinny jeans, etc. We don’t want her to feel that just because she’s the plus-size she cants follow the trends, so we’re showing her how she can wear them and giving her all the trends from the runway.

Is the line budget-friendly?
Yes, I feel as if we’re in line with where the competition is, I’ve read online, where some customers feel that our clothing is expensive, but we always have amazing sales, so when they actually buy and wear our pieces, they see that it last much longer and that’s what the price is about.

So what advice do you have for full-figured women who want to dress fashionable but feel as if they can’t pull it off because of their size?
I think you really have to open your mind and try it, on our website we try and show models styled a bunch of different ways showing them how to wear that collection for that season, and we’re finding that she (the customer) ends up buying the entire look head to toe. The thing is she hasn’t been given the option or had someone who really showed her what and how to wear it, once she realizes how to wear the different styles and sees someone her size wearing it she’ll realize she can wear it too.