Lizzie Doyle has had the same problem most bigger women have at one time or another. At a  size 18, she was very tired of not being able to wear decent clothes.

"As any of you who are a size 16 or over will know, it's soul-destroying to walk down any high street and see all the fabulous, colourful clothes on offer and know that if you walk into any of those stores, you'll get the "Oh no, Madam. We don't stock your size!" answer."

(See the post about Next and their shop floor policy of hiding the odd size 18 and 20 on the racks but NEVER a 22...No, madam, you have to get that from the catalogue..."

Lizzie decided that the very proactive answer to the perennial problem was to start her own business and create the sort of clothes she wanted to wear!

"So many of my friends (even the ones I class as the skinny ones!) talk about how difficult it is to find clothes that actually fit. You know the thing I mean - the t-shirt that rides halfway up your tummy when you bend over or reach up; the trousers that are actually verging on indecent, they're so low cut; the other trousers that come with a silly tiny button on the top that pops off the minute you put them on; or the skirt that cuts off your circulation, the waist band's so tight."

Lizzie shares my opinion on some fat girl clothing emporiums (mentioning no names *cough* Evans *cough* and calls them the "how ugly can we make the fat people look" shops!

We all know the ones she means, they ideally want you to wear smocks in a myriad of garish colours (or black) but failing that, they think you should be in black man-made fibres, only available in deeply unflattering cuts, which you're expected to pay large amounts of money for. Just what you've always wanted!

Lizzie said no to all that - and her aim is to bring you great staples and basics that are a great fit, in lovely colours and fabrics, and that you can wear time after time.  The website is mainly wardrobe staples - but includes a few higher fashion items in the latest coluors and styles that  change every few weeks.

The company sources all fabrics except for one imported silk in the UK, and to add to the eco-friendly home grown vibem their factories are based within the London area, with the exception of knitwear which is made in Scotland and Wales.  No far east sweatshops for Lizzie! So....you pay a bit more, but the designs and quality are top notch and at least Lizzie knows what she - and presumably other people who are looking for an alternative to badly cut 'plus size' versions of high street fashion want.

Get some serious Lizzie style with the fabulous Jackie O coat (I'm sorely tempted myself) and the wide legged linen trousers, which are a pretty hot catwalk trend this winter. And when your slim friends ask where you got them, just smile enigmatically...

From Queen Simply Be, that's quite a cliche...but bear with me.

Have you ever thought that it's dieting and fear of getting fat that keeps you from being everything you want to be? Hell, I'm only human...I get depressed in shopping malls, especially when I realise that there are shops full of lovely things to wear that I am excluded from just because I don't fit in with the 'brand' or the proprietor's idea of what a woman who wears her/his clothes should look like.

The trouble is, all the time we wish we were someone else, looked like someone else, or try to fit in with the narrow acceptable parameters for the female form (for example if Angelina Jolie is too thin and Britney Spears is now too fat, where does that leave anyone who doesn't fit the extremely narrow measurements of what's actually OK?) we're not being who we are.

It's OK to want to look good. it's OK to want to be fit and healthy. It's even OK to want to be slim. But it's NOT OK that there is an entire industry of 'experts' who get rich by making us feel terrible.

Have you ever thought that it's in the interest of the big corporates like Weight Watchers to keep people returning month on month, miserable and dejected? Did you, like me, want to hurl a shoe at the telly when you saw the adverts after Christmas last year? You know, the one where husbands, children and neighbours all slag off a faceless woman for not being the woman she used to be now she's a fat cow? And what about the Lighter Life ads in buses (those of you unlucky enough to have to use them)? There was one earlier this year designed to tug at the heartstrings:

"My children think I am beautiful now I've lost six stone"

AAAAARRRGHHHHH! Talk about guilt guilt guilt. Your family, friends and neighbours will all love you more if you are thin. That's what they are saying. And it serves the diet industry well to keep people hating themselves, and telling them they have the magic bullet that will make them loved again. Why do we fall for it? They aren't doing it because they care about fat people's health. They only care about our money. The Sally Anne Voak post should convince anyone of that.

Well, I refuse to be taken in by this insidious crap any more. I've not paid a penny to Weight Watchers for their plastic food, boring magazine or pointless classes for well over 18 months now. Same goes for Slimming World and any of the others. It's time the money making self esteem bashing corporations realised that we are not ugly, worthless or stupid just because we are fat. If you agree - hit them where it hurts most - in the profits!

End of rant.