Shopping being a plus size is not fun here in the UK- especially if you are at the younger end of the scale. During the last couple of years we have also lost Etam's plus size range (which was a strange mix of fashionable and frumpy!) and the Seven range from Evans (which was terrible towards the end but previously had been very good). So on the high street that leaves us with Evans, Ann Harvey (yuk if you are in you 20's!), Inspire at Newlook, Mark One and Marks & Spencers plus size range. That’s five shops - you could do your sale shopping in less than an hour if you wanted! Of course there are one or two other lesser found shops that have plus size collections and there are a couple of the bigger retailers that offer sizes 16-22, but with the exception of Evans and Ann Harvey there are no other high street shops that are dedicated to plus sizes… And it often seems that certain shops take no care with their plus size ranges – one season you’ll find plenty of gorgeous things, the next t-shirts and jeans are the limit.
Online though it’s
a completely different story - there is so much more choice and several online
shops are dedicated to providing funky plus size clothes to those of us and of
course there is ebay…
In my opinion the
BEST place to buy plus size clothes is ebay. Why? I'll tell
you! As long as you are savvy enough to know how to search - you can find
anything you want. You can get Etam and Seven range clothes, which are no
longer in the shops, not to mention the various ebay shops, which sell new and
fashionable clothes, and there are also several specialist designers which make
and sell unusual and gothic clothing. As ebay is worldwide institution
you also have access to plus size clothes from America who do plus size far
better than we do! And of course
because a lot of the clothes on ebay are second hand you can get them cheap...
Some
recommendations to check out on ebay UK:
There are quite a
few shops similar to Big Girl’s Wardrobe on ebay – however most of them are
just pale imitations of each other offering the same stock. Big Girl’s Wardrobe seems to have the edge,
as it looks incredibly professional and adapts to fashion trends – it always
seems to have items you won’t find anywhere else!
Elviras Closet
sells some of the most beautiful gothic plus size clothing you’ll ever
see! Lots of velvet, lace and polka
dots! Whilst some their items are
definitely club wear – a lot of them would make excellent evening wear… They also make lots of one off pieces for
those of you who like their clothes unique.
Some tips on
searching ebay…
Keep your search
simple – try to keep it to one word. You will find quite a lot of clothes by searching for well known plus
size ranges. I recommend the following:
- · Chapter
- · Inspire
- · Etam
- · Seven
- · Evans
- · Torrid
- · Hot Topic
- · Kiyonna
- · IGIGI
If you are looking
for something more specific try searching for a detail eg. lace up or
crochet… Its really a case of knowing
what you want. Of course you can also
window shop through the categories and you may come across something
special. Its also worth expanding your
searches to find ‘items available to the UK’ as you will then be able to see
items from abroad too – as said before America has a far superior range of plus
size shops which I will get on to at a later date…
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