California Apparel News

Designer Vickie Castaldi got her start designing non-standard sizes at the age of 10 when she started designing skirt and dress patterns that fit her nearly full-grown frame.

“I had to design my clothes because nothing in the stores fit me or I didn’t like the fashions offered in my size,” Castaldi said.

Castaldi sees herself as a missionary in a market that is continuously growing—up 10 percent in the first nine months of last year, compared with a 2.8 percent growth in women’s clothing overall, according to NPD Shoppers Panel.

In the past three years alone, her Vikki Vi dress and sportswear collections have increased in combined sales from $4 million to $10 million annually and are projected to hit $15 million this year, according to Howard Bushinsky, chief executive officer of TMI Holdings, parent company of Vikki Vi.

According to Castaldi, the company’s success is a testament to the rapid evolution of three generations of plus-size fashion. In her opinion, plus-size fashion has come a long way since the days of gaudy apparel.

“Women wanted to cover their bodies with layers—the tiered dress,” Castaldi said. “Or, they wore a tent-style dress that was similar to a muumuu. At times they looked frumpy, and that’s the way they wanted to look because they didn’t want to show their bodies.”

Nowadays, Castaldi said, plus-size fashion take its cue from junior contemporary fashion. “These days women have a lot more self-confidence and don’t want to wear the traditional ’float’ or ’bubble’ silhouette; they want to look like all the other sizes,” she said. “Today she is younger-thinking and more proud of her silhouette. She likes slim skirts and tunics. She doesn’t want anything oversized and sloppy.”

Castaldi expanded her design skills at Washington University in St. Louis before working as a dress designer at Los Angeles-based Susan Howard in the early 1970s. There, she helped usher in a whole new market for the manufacturer by starting a division for women sized 16 to 26 called Vee Vee before she set out to launch her own plus-size label.

Castaldi says Vikki Vi continues to operate under the same concept it began with when it hit the market in 1988—“Building confidence with a better fit.” Since then, the company has created a new line called Ve Ve (a missy and petite company Castaldi began after Vee Vee closed its doors) and joined forces with Softwear by Mark Singer under the operation of TMI Holdings Inc.

Vikki Vi has established itself as a one-stop plus-size fashion line with styles that cater to women who vary in size and shape. The line includes two collections that offer solutions to size-specific women who may be a few inches too wide in certain areas in the form of wider cuts and form-fitting fabric. The Vikki Vi line is also available to plus-size petite women 5’4” and under.

Vikki Vi’s dress collection includes tank dresses with matching trapeze jackets and two-piece dresses with either a long-sleeve tunic or shawl kimono cardigan, and the dresses come in sizes 14 to 26. (Castaldi said the company also handles special requests for sizes 28 to 32.) In sportswear, the line offers pants, shirts and novelty coordinates in sizes 16 to 18 (1X) and 20 to 22 (2X).

Both collections’ popularity stems from the company’s choice of fabric—slinky, a loose-fitting acetate/spandex fabric that has a classic draping effect.

Castaldi says that selling the collections to department stores hasn’t been a problem so far, even though in previous years, most plus-size lines have had to start out in specialty retailers and fight their way to department stores; then, they had to compete for retail space.

“There is definitely less plus-size clothes being sold in specialty stores today than there used to be,” Castaldi said. “Most of it is being sold in department stores where plus-size business is found out in the open on the same levels as missy and junior lines—and not stuck in the corner next to the bathroom.”

Vikki Vi is currently being sold in department stores throughout the U.S., including Nordstrom, Jacobson’s and Bloomingdale’s. The line has also built a small boutique following in California, with apparel being sold at Minoosh in Beverly Hills; Three Foxes in Laguna Beach; Eile in Sonoma; and City Lites in Palm Desert. Wholesale price points are $39 for a pair of pants to $66 for a dress. Vikki Vi has a showroom at California Mart suite A-381. For more information, call (213) 624-7800.