When was a sixteen year old, I was size 16, and there seemed to be virtually nothing to fit me in the stores then. Everything and everybody else seemed to be size 10-14. I slimmed down to a size 12 and then spent my twenties yoyoing between a fat, slim and medium wardrobe.

Evans at this time was an old lady shop, with nasty manmade fibre clothing in old fashioned styles.

Then it picked up for a while, and I found some clothes I liked, particularly when they stocked the odd 1647 label item. That seems a very good fit... 1647, the label belonging to Dawn French, has great designs and a bloody disastrous customer service. When my sister ordered me some clothes for an important presentation, they didn't arrive in time, and although I refused to take delivery she was charged twice for the items. There was a whole rigmarole where she kept phoning to complain that they had charged her, they kept checking and saw that they had refunded her once... and didn't check that they needed to refund twice having charged her twice. It wasn't pretty and I said I'd never darken their doorstep again. I never have, although I have bought the odd thing on ebay.

Evans has very good customer service, and a well-run shop and mail order network but pretty dire clothing for fat people. They seem to have specialised in ignoring that their customers are fat and therefore have certain things in common...in favour of fashion items. The difficulty with this is that their clothes are no longer fit for purpose for most of their customers.

The combination of 1647 designs and Evans business sense was great, although they didn't ever stock many of the 1647 pieces. Now, they seem to be on a downward slide where everything seems either aimed at the young or the elderly with hardly anything for people like me who fall in between, and virtually nothing for anyone who likes their clothes to be as flattering as possible.

If you are a fat woman, you will usually tend to keep your arms covered up, and also your bottom and fat stomach. Thus if you wear a top it will tend to be one which covers those difficult areas. You will want skirts to be that much longer, and jackets and cardigans too. 1647 recognises that. Evans does not. Their latest collection is hideous and seems not to realise that if you have a fat stomach, the last thing you want to do is to put something clingy on it. Can you imagine how awful this will look?

I keep writing and complaining, but apart from offering me the chance to be advised by one of their helpful store assistants, they have not taken any of my comments on board.

Incidentally, if ayone has money to invest in producing clothing for fat women, woolly tights would be a winner. I have seen dozens of posts on lots of fat forums from people desperate to get their hands on some, and yet none of the fat person shops seems to stock them... and it's been that way for a couple of years.