Earlier this year, Banana Republic threw small guys a bone: They debuted Extra Small sizes in dress shirts, polos, T-shirts, sweaters, and a few pieces of outerwear. Huzzah!
BR’s a dependable source for mid-priced office attire, so it’s great that they’ve expanded to include sizes for the shorter third of the US male population. And sort of surprising that it took them this long to tap into that market (given that Brother Gap has had XS for ages).

But… the XS sizes are only available online. Bah.

It sucks that their XS clothes aren’t carried in stores — especially because the issue of fit is all important for short men. And they don’t have the best return policy. You can return most (but not all) items in store. But if you need to ship something back to them, it’ll cost you. My feeling is that if you can only order something online, you should be able to return it for free (a la Zappos).

Bottom line for me is this: It’s nice that they’re making an effort. But there is no good reason that big chains like this can’t devote a little bit of floor space to us. Especially when you consider that every time you see a sale rack, it’s loaded down with larger sizes that they made too many of and can’t seem to move. You hardly ever see many smaller sizes on sale.

So if you’d like to see Banana Republic sell XS men’s clothing in its stores, tell them what you think.