I Hear The Fair Lady Singing

The tragic saga of Fair Woman, the dress shop in Lakewood specializing in clothes for very large women, began on Christmas Eve 1986. Someone broke in that night and stole all the size 42, 44, and 46 blouses. The largest dresses in the store, size 24 and 26, were also carted away. Apparently, this was the work of a fashion-conscious burglar looking for clothes that could hide a Sherman tank. The $280 sitting in the cash register was left untouched.

“Good Lord, Christmas Eve,” recalls Rhonda Fellows, the president of Fair Woman. “Whoever did it just threw a big rock through the window and climbed on in. Someone said the person needed some Christmas gifts for the family. All I can say is it must have been an awful big family.”

The problem bulked larger in months to come. Last January, the store was looted in the middle of the day by an armed robber who took money and jewelry. Then, later that same month, the store was robbed again. The burglar took fifty-two dresses, size 24 and 26 only. Burglary number four happened in February-sixty-nine dresses, size 24 and 26.

Rhonda says that most targe women hate to shop, but does someone feel a need to try on her dresses in the middle of the night?

Rhonda doesn’t think so. She says a police investigator told her there was an underground large dress operation in South Dallas, supplying heavy women with black-market clothes. This disgusts Rhonda: Fair Woman (there are still four other branch stores open throughout the city) is one of the few clothing chains in town making large-sized clothes respectable. “Large-sized shops are now big money-making operations,” says Rhonda. “They are expanding significantly.”

Anyway, Fair Woman was hit for a fifth time on July 10 (twenty-two dresses stolen, size 24 only), again on July 13 (fifty-two dresses, size 24 to 26), and for a seventh time on July 18. That was the biggest haul of all. The “fat fashion” bandits (two male suspects were seen breaking through the store window) got a truckload of clothes-150 different pieces, worth $9,000.

After that incident, Rhonda decided to chuck it in, even though the store was just a week away from getting a new security system. Unfortunately, another Lakewood institution has bitten the dust.

“It’s a shame,” Rhonda says. “We had so many clients from Lakewood who like to shop. But it was difficult for me to get my beauty sleep. I cannot tell you the number of nights the police would call and tell me to drive down there because someone had stolen all my size 26 dresses again.”