Old Navy takes the final step in its alienation of the plus size consumer

After a spring and summer season where it appeared Old Navy was only stocking shorts, pants and skirts in sizes 00-12 in their stores, they finally reached their goal of cutting their Women's Plus department from retail locations, relegating customers to a corner of their website. Much like the dusty old basement corner, hidden amongst childrenswear and maternity I found the women's plus section to be in their store in the Garden State Plaza, Paramus, New Jersey, when a sales associate told me, when asking the availability of an item hanging on a rack of 00s, 2s and 8s, to "try the plus department" (I'll try and excuse the fact that I wear anywhere between a 14 and an 18 in the Old Navy size range, which used to go up to 20, and many of the clothing items in women's plus are too big for me. Also commonly un-fashion forward and at times bordering on dowdy, but that is for another post another time). I was told by one changing room assistant to "check on the website," and another "We don't carry it in that size." Why? "We just don't." By the way, many of the shorts and skirts available this summer to ON's more petite customers were not even made in larger sizes. This all becomes even more particularly frustrating to me to feel conflicted in boycotting this practice when some of their fall items look so cute. On the website, natch.