Fashion Bug

Fashion Bug was, for most readers, a women's clothing store — a plus-size and misses chain owned by Charming Shoppes. It is also an older piece of slang: before the term fashionista existed, people with a serious interest in fashion were often called fashion bugs. The store has closed; the expression survives. This summary covers both, because searches for the name still arrive looking for each.

The Fashion Bug Stores

In June 2012 Charming Shoppes announced that Fashion Bug stores would be closing, and the final stores closed in February 2013. The closure was part of Charming Shoppes' own change of ownership — the parent company was acquired in 2012, and Fashion Bug was the chain it chose to wind down, while its sister brands continued. Readers who shopped at Fashion Bug were directed to its sister brand Catherines, the plus-size chain that carried on serving much of the same customer with beautiful plus-size styles, and the Catherines link below is the live route for that need.

As a historical retail record, Fashion Bug matters to this site for the usual reason: directory and company information about closed chains helps researchers, landlords, jobseekers checking old employment, and shoppers understand what happened to a familiar name. The company is therefore kept on record as history, clearly marked as closed, rather than silently deleted.

The Expression 'Fashion Bug'

The slang meaning is older than the store's fame. To have the fashion bug — like having the travel bug — is to have caught an enthusiasm that does not let go: a serious, continuing interest in fashion, in following it, buying it and talking about it. The terminology entry linked below defines the term in that sense, and the fashionista entry covers the word that largely replaced it in everyday use.

How much do you love fashion? If the honest answer is “enough to read a summary of a summary term,” the bug has bitten. The rest of the summary section is built for exactly that condition.

Fashion Bug's Sister Brands

Fashion Bug did not stand alone. Charming Shoppes also owned Lane Bryant and Catherines, and the three chains divided the women's market between them: Fashion Bug served misses and plus sizes at value prices, Lane Bryant concentrated on plus-size fashion, and Catherines served the plus-size customer with a more classic hand. When Ascena Retail Group acquired Charming Shoppes in 2012, Fashion Bug was the brand retired, while the sister chains continued under the new owner. That is why former Fashion Bug shoppers were pointed to Catherines: of the surviving sisters, it was the closest match in customer and price.