Retailers are finally wising up that plus size clothing is colored green, money green. The numbers don’t lie. The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) has reported that 2/3 of American women are overweight or obese. That means they need to buy their clothing somewhere and they have the cash to spend. While the CDC is encouraging the slimming of America, retailers are ready to accept you just the way you are and are increasing their plus size budgets and inventories.

With the country in a recession, retailers are looking for areas that have growth and putting their concentration there. That’s where the plus size departments come in. In the months prior to April 2010, the overall clothing market dropped .8 percent. But, if you look at the numbers for plus sized fashions, it increased 1.4 percent.

Now, like their slimmer counter counter parts, the fashion world has a plus size fashion week in fashion mecca New York. Gone are the days of large purple mu-mus and in are the days of career wear, dresses and casual wear for the plus sized patron. While there have always been a few speciality stores in the marketplace like Lane Bryant, The Avenue and Catherine’s, a plus sized woman longs to shop in the same department stores as her slimmer sisters. As the age of the Internet has blossomed, online retailers have jumped on the plus sized bandwagon and captured a large share of the market.

Retailers point to the fact that plus sized clothes take up more valuable retail space and the plus sized woman wants larger fitting rooms, taking up valuable real estate. But the trend is clear, that these obsticles must be jumped to bring in the dollars that the size 14+ woman has to offer. While some companies, like Liz Claiborne and Old Navy have stopped their plus size offerings in the stores, still others like Target and Forever 21 are reaching out to the younger plus sized audience.

The success of Fashion Week 2010 was so great that June will see the 2011 version and a date has already been set for 2012′s.