How Plus BKLYN Redefines Secondhand Fashion For The Plus-Size Community
Founder of Plus BKLYN, Alexis Krase, works to make fashion more accessible to a community often left out of the conversation.
“PLUS SIZE CLOTHES THAT DON’T SUCK!” reads the bold, all-capped pink letters on the sidewalk sign outside the shop, Plus BKLYN. The window frame, adorned with vibrant Valentine’s Day-themed candy hearts with sayings like “Thicc,” “Ur Butt Looks Good” and “Hot and Fat” and the shop’s bright, pink wooden doors immediately counteract the rainy and gray skies of Williamsburg.
Entering the shop, 2000s music — more specifically The Pussycat Doll — blares from the speakers. Light-green painted polka dots cover the floors beneath the cheetah print carpet and the walls are bathed in baby pink and blue hues. Faux fur off jackets peek out of the tightly packed clothing racks and light from the gold chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling bounces off sequins, creating tiny disco flecks across the room. The clothing racks are full of every pattern, fabric, and color imaginable ranging from sizes 12 to 6X, and it’s hard not to shop when every inch of Plus BKLYN is full of one-of-a-kind treasures.
Sitting in the far back of the shop on a hot pink, velvet loveseat lies Alexis Krase, the owner of the brick-and-mortar store, enjoying an iced coffee in hand, wearing a multi-colored overall set with a faint checkered pattern. It’s no surprise to see how Krase’s personal and colorful style has been reflected on every square inch of Plus BKLYN. But curating these unique and fashionable garments hasn’t always been easy for Krase, who founded the shop in 2017 of what she saw as a necessity for plus-size fashion.
“I started PLUS BKLYN out of my lived experience as a plus-size person having no options,” says Krase. “I mean, that was it. I felt this problem so acutely. I’ve been fat my whole life, which I don’t think is a bad word. I always loved fashion and having playful options. I was always trying really hard to make it work in a world that had so few options for me.”
New York City, arguably a fashion capital of the world and a thriving mecca for thrifting and vintage communities, boasts hundreds of clothing shops made to fuel fashion connoisseurs. From the upscale designer boutiques in SoHo to the streetwear scenes in Harlem, the city offers a diverse range of styles but often excludes an important part of the community — plus-size individuals. Plus BKLYN is a rare gem among these, being one of the only two NYC stores specializing in true vintage and secondhand clothing specifically tailored for plus-size people.
Rummaging through the store, Krase breaks down every single fixture from the contemporary pieces up front to the mod ’60s attire in the back. The metallic hangers graze the rack bars as she shows off pieces from each section. “This is a piece I love from a brand called Nor Black Nor White” she explains as she twirls around a red, crushed velvet dress that happens to have pockets, a true luxury when it comes to womenswear.
Walking towards the checkout desk, Krase points to a gallery of art she calls the “Body Positive” wall. Embroidered hoop stands of plus-size figures, word art that reads “Your Body is Powerful” and a drawing of a Black plus-size model with the slogan “The Take-Up Space Society” are just some of the artwork Krase has collected over the years to emulate Plus BKLYN’s dedication to promoting body positivity.
“I wanted to create a space that was bright, colorful, loud, welcoming, fun and the complete opposite of the traditional experience of being a person who gets to shop for clothes as a fat person,” she says. “Think about it, even when you go to H&M, Forever 21 or places that carry plus sizes, where are the plus sizes? They’re in a tiny, poor-lit section in the corner and you’re regulated to that area as the poor fat girl. Here, we are like “I have arrived in this pastel palace.”
Sitting back down on the plush loveseat, the glow from the heart-shaped “Plus BKLYN” neon light reflects off Krase’s glasses as she explains why Plus BKLYN works to fight exclusivity in fashion through a commitment to sustainability, all while ensuring that the curated clothing is something genuinely worth wearing. “There is a socioeconomic impact of being fat,” she exclaims.
“There is a huge ecosystem of plus-size clothes that exist in the realm of what I would categorize as problematic. Fat people have existed from the beginning of time, but so many of the clothes that were created for us were designed to hide our shape and are full of drab, matronly, dull colors. The curation here is the inverse of that. Fun, colorful, hip, young, downtown, cool. We hire fashionable people, who have a really strong perspective on fashion, who know brands, know what’s on trend. Ultimately, at the end of the day, fat people just want all the same shit that our thin counterpart friends have in our size, you know?”
Her eyes drift to new customers walking into the store as the two employees up front, Lauren Renner and Stephanie Mallick, kindly welcome them in. There’s an undeniable warmth floating through the air when Renner and Mallick interact with the customers– small banter can be heard as the two discuss Zodiac signs and astrology with them. The customers begin swifting through the racks and one heads to the dressing room with a plethora of options to try on.
“I feel like the thing that I continue to be surprised by is how many times people come into the shop and they cry happy tears or just feel a level of emotion because they’re like, ‘This is the first shopping experience I’ve had where everything that I tried on could fit me,’ and that’s a fucked up thing in reality, but I think the fact that we can provide an experience that is the opposite of what is otherwise a horrific, livid experience that so many have had is the thing that brings me joy in what we do,” says Krase as she gestures over to Mallick to come over and talk. “There was one time when we had…” Krase pauses. “Remember that teenager who came into the store?”
Coming around the corner of the checkout counter, Mallick brushes her hair to the side and starts recounting their shared experience: “I always think about that day because she was a teenager in high school. You know, plus size, beautiful girl, maybe 3X to 4X range,” says Mallick. “Her neighbor found out about us and wanted to create a special shopping day experience for her. I think they drove like two hours [from Connecticut] and she was spending her tax return on this girl and just wanted to make her feel special and loved. The person buying for her was worried that she wouldn’t have enough money, but everything was under her budget since everything was secondhand and reduced. It was accessible for her to have treated this girl to so many amazing things and she was hugging all of us and they were both so happy.”
Walking out of the velvet dressing room curtains, one customer, Eden Meribor, struts out in a tan wrap dress, to which all the employees plus Krase stop the conversation to give her their undivided attention.
“That looks amazing!” shouts Renner. And another, “That looks gorgeous on you!” coming from Mallick.
“I was worried that the color would be too close to my hair color,” Meribor says as she walks up to the tall mirror on the closet door, dancing in the garment and fixing her dirty blonde hair. She twirls, adjusting the straps and laughing as the rest of us parade her with compliments before she goes back behind the curtain.
After countless minutes of rain drizzling and cloudy skies, the sun finally shines through the main window of the store, filling the shop with its fullest capacity of brightness. The fuzzy, pink doormat looks a little less damp. The metallic cowboy boot earrings Krase displayed in front of the store are now sparkling. But the overall aura of the shop remains the same, seemingly undisturbed by the weather’s fleeting influence.
Peering out of the dressing curtain, Meribor, now in the outfit she walked in with, comes out with a smile beaming across her face heading towards the checkout counter. “Thank you for having this space,” she says to Krase before leaving with a shopping bag in her hand.
The store, now empty with just Renner, Mallick and Krase chatting amongst themselves as Krase shows them videos of her young children, feels peaceful. The sound of laughter and talks of the newly created “Shop Rules” spread an infectious warmth that lingers across the place.
“For us, it’s like ‘Okay yeah, as a business, we are a clothing store,’ but for so many people, we are so much more than that,” Krase says, holding her hand on her chest. “We serve a marginalized community that has had historically so few options and has been made to feel as if they don’t have a place in society, and there are a whole lot of emotions behind that. We have become kind of a community hub. For me, the shop and our mission of just creating a place where fat vanity can exist and a place where people can embrace who they really are is the part that I am most proud of.”
