Our Story
Ashley Stewart is a leading fashion brand dedicated to inspiring confidence and empowering women of every age, shape, and background to live a bold, authentic life through fashion.
Inspired by her beloved Aunt Ashley, Founder James Rhee established the first Ashley Stewart store in Brooklyn, New York in 1991 as a tribute. He envisioned a retailer that empowered plus-sized women to redefine beauty, style, and fashion on their own terms—celebrating bodies of all shapes with trendy clothing, quality fabrics, and exquisite tailoring.
What began as a single storefront on Fulton Street has grown into a nation-wide fashion destination and sisterhood of over 100 Ashley Stewart boutiques and our bustling ecommerce flagship ashleyandstewart.com.
James named the brand after his spirited Aunt Ashley who filled the family’s home with joy, confidence, lightheartedness, and a sense of individual style. Like our customers who inspire us daily with their stories, she embraced life unapologetically as her beautifully authentic self. Her indomitable spirit lives on in Ashley Stewart.
Our Purpose
Ashley Stewart aspires to reinvent the fashion industry one woman at a time—through our community, our clothing, and a commitment to empower women to challenge beauty stereotypes and lead with confidence.
Our vision is to build the largest, most vibrant community educating, inspiring, guiding, and outfitting women for life’s moments big and small. We exist to serve all women without judgement, with compassion as allies, friends and partners in their self-love and style journey.
Our deeper why extends beyond clothing or vanity metrics to touch the very core of how we see ourselves and what we believe possible in this life. Our aspiration is audacious yet grounded in a belief that empowering people ultimately empowers humanity.
We invest in relationships built on empathy, not insecurity or superficiality. Our currency is confidence stemming from self-love and acceptance. Our community thrives when we lift each other up—through shared stories, candid conversations, or an outfit that speaks your truth louder than words can articulate alone.
We believe fashion is freedom. And freedom is empowering women of all backgrounds to rewrite outdated rules of beauty on their own terms without apology or compromise.
Our Values
Community
Our customers are not just clients, but members of an inclusive sisterhood. Their stories inspire our designs, their insights shape our direction, and our care for their growth fuels everything we do. We foster community through shared experiences in our boutiques and online platforms designed to educate, empower, and uplift.
Confidence
We believe every woman has a light within waiting to shine brighter. Our designs, language, and attitudes aim to stoke that inner spark to glow confidently from the inside out. We encourage women to live boldly as their beautifully authentic selves, define beauty without constraint, and lead with the confidence to transform not just their self-image but also communities.
Quality
Our belief in quality permeates all we do—from curating fabrics that feel as good as they look, to recruiting passionate teams invested in service, to building technology focused on understanding customers better. Our brand promise: to create flattering clothing for women to enjoy for years, designed and produced responsibly with exquisite attention to detail.
Our Impact
While our business continues growing to outfit more women nationwide, our impact transcends units sold. We estimate over the past 30 years Ashley Stewart has:
- Empowered over 5 million womento embrace their beauty, style their lives boldly, and walk through the world with confidence from the inside out.
- Built a sisterhoodof over 300 boutiques nationwide serving as community hubs where women encourage each other’s growth through candid conversations about beauty, health, careers, relationships, family and more over the hum of a busy dressing room.
- Provided education and professional development opportunitiesto over 15,000 women, many from underserved communities. As a leading national retailer led by people of color and serving multicultural communities, we take seriously our responsibility to foster talent, dismantle barriers to advancement and pave paths to leadership that reflect the diversity of our customer base.
- Sourced over $250 million worth of fabric and materials from women- and minority-owned businessesas part of our commitment to responsible, ethical production practices elevating people of color and multicultural communities across our supply chain.
- Diverted over 5 million clothing items from landfills to donation centers and textile recyclersthrough clothing take-back initiatives in our stores.
Our measurable social and environmental impact stems from business practices guided by our mission and rooted in our communities. But our true impact resists quantification, evident in the consolidation someone feels wearing a perfect dress for an important occasion, the flash of self-assuredness catching their reflection in a store window, the ripple effect of self-love and body acceptance radiating into families, friendships and communities nationwide.
The Ashley Stewart Experience
Our Stores
Our nationwide network of Ashley Stewart boutiques serve as fashion anchors welcoming women into vibrant community spaces that foster candid conversations and meaningful connections. Our boutiques and the passionate team members who bring them to life aim to uplift every woman who walks through our doors.
You’ll find trend-driven designs thoughtfully organized by lifestyle or occasion to inspire head-to-toe looks. Outfit recommendations hang together ready to transition effortlessly from workdays to weekends. Our Buy More Save More sales add affordability into the mix so women can experiment with new styles without breaking budgets.
Dressing rooms designed for women, by women feature soft lighting, full-length mirrors and space to move—so women can see themselves clearly while trying on potential new looks. Our boutiques invite women to slow down, tune out perfectionistic inner voices, and allow their authentic selves to shine through.
Personal Styling
Connect live online or in store with an Ashley Stewart Stylist for real-time outfit recommendations, tips which silhouettes flatter your body type, guidance transitioning new trends into your existing wardrobe, advice dressing for important occasions, or just an empathetic ear and vote of confidence when you need it most.
With expertise dressing women of all shapes for over 30 years, our Stylists understand fit, fabric, color and proportions that celebrate your body. Lean into their compassion without judgement as you articulate preferences, ask candid questions about how clothes interact with your body, or name insecurities styling pieces can help strengthen. They’re your ally outfitting life’s moments big and small.
Our Community
At Ashley Stewart, we aspire to build the largest, most supportive community representing women of all backgrounds, identities, shapes and stories—connected by a shared commitment to redefining outdated beauty ideals while leading lives filled with bold authenticity.
Our various online community forums like Voices of Ashley Stewart facilitate supportive connections. Share your story or listen to someone else’s. Ask for advice navigating life situations from careers to relationships to health. Lift others up through virtual high fives or comments conveying compassion.
Through shared stories and transparent dialogue, we chip away at confining stereotypes and build each other up. We redefine beauty as confident self-love expressed creatively through personal style interpretations. And we lead inclusive movements reshaping society’s limited narratives about gender, age, ethnicity, size, ability or identity into more empowering spaces where people can show up freely and unapologetically as their fullest selves.
At Ashley Stewart, no woman walks alone on her path toward self-love and acceptance. Take the next step, sister, and join our empathetic community. We’ll link arms and walk boldly toward positive change together.
Shop Our New Arrivals
Check out ashleyandstewart.com to discover trending plus-size clothing celebrating curves and suited for real life. With new styles arriving daily, you’ll find everything from work-ready blazers and everyday basics to showstopping party dresses and statement outerwear designed specifically with our women’s bodies in mind.
Shop brand new arrivals or peruse our thoughtfully curated lifestyle collections like Work It Girl, Night Out, Sunday Best, Travelin’ Light, and Mix n’ Match Separates. With sizes 12-36 in standard and petite frames, we fit more body types, shapes and heights than limiting industry standards dictate.
Browse the site or download our app to fill your cart, then choose free returns and exchanges for effortless wardrobing. New customer? Sign up for texts to receive 25% off your full-price purchase.
Questions about fit, styling or anything else? Connect online or in store with a knowledgeable Ashley Stewart Stylist anytime. We’re here to guide and inspire your bold journey toward confidence and personal empowerment through fashion designed for you.
