I understand - quite well, in fact - that even getting a business off the ground takes monumental effort that isn’t fully appreciated by those who have yet to do it. So I acknowledge that this particular ramble of mine may sound theoretical, out-there, beyond belief: I’ve seen more than a few of my rambles come true, however, so I’m putting this one out there with hopes that eventually, it comes around.

My city, Minneapolis, has a lovely downtown with plenty of office workers who can pretty well support the skyway convenience shops. However, it’s difficult at best to attract suburban shoppers.

The city planner’s take has been to make both Downtown and Uptown as suburban as possible. This led to erecting Block E, a chainstore monolith with movie theater, Applebee’s and Hooter’s. This year they’ve already lost the Border’s store that was meant to be a cornerstone building. Next door at the City Center, city blocks worth of shops stand empty as various versions of mall stores fail miserably there.

For some reason, the city planner has not put together that a suburbanite is not going to go into the city for the exact same things already available at a suburban mall. How and why the city planner fails to see this is beyond me; if it weren’t illegal, however, I would recommend that the next person hired for the job be tested for any symptoms of agoraphobia.

That’s great, Di, but what does this have to do with plus fashion?

I answer you: boutiques.

Minneapolis has a fairly kickass subculture fashion scene, clothing consignment shops that surrender plus size treasures, and a frustrating void of indie boutiques that cater to sizes above 8. We also have literally city blocks of unused space, and tourists need more reason to go downtown these days than “Ooh, overpriced restaurant. Ooh, Prince peed in public here in the 80s.”

So my thought is this: we’re already subsidizing these buildings. Why not drop the rent to something indie-business friendly and bring in as many burgeoning design houses as possible? Why not have a bunch of them be these new plus size sellers?

It would give the suburbanties a reason to come to downtown: plus size clothing boutiques beyond the usual fare at Torrid, Lane Bryant or Avenue. It would expose them to fashions before they became mainstream, and re-familiarize some with the concepts of tailoring, service, and having open feedback with designers. Perhaps some of the better known designers - such as Kiyonna, B&Lu and Igigi could become even better known, right in the heartland of heavy people.

It would be cool. And the resulting offshoot businesses would also be full of awesome - additional pickings in consignment shops, thrift and vintage, and I really hope to find a shop called “Flyover THIS.”