A welcome article from the Los Angeles Times (which won’t be news to any of us, but you might want to email it to those Who Don’t Know as a method of venting):

 . . . the average U.S. woman, who’s 162.9 pounds and wears a size 14, is treated like an anomaly by apparel brands and retailers — who seem to assume that no one over size 10 follows fashion’s capricious trends.

Fashion-forward boutiques such as Maxfield and Fred Segal rarely stock anything over a size 10, and in designer shops, sizes beyond 6 or 8 are often hidden like contraband in the “back.” Department stores typically offer tiny sections with only 20 or so brands that fit sizes 14 and up — compared with the 900-plus brands they carry in their regular women’s wear departments.

That leaves style-loving full-figured women with a clutch of plus-size chains including Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Avenue and Torrid. Or big-box stores such as Target, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart, the No. 1 seller of plus-size apparel in the country — though most of its selection consists of basic, often matronly items. Beyond this, plus-size clothing is largely relegated to the Internet, where customers who already have a complicated relationship with clothes are unable to see, touch or try on merchandise.

::snip::

It’s a which-came-first scenario, Cohen said. Because plus-size women have been ignored for years, they’ve stopped actively looking for shopping opportunities. But when retailers bring savvy style to the plus-size game (as Gap Inc. did with its short-lived concept, Forth & Towne, which carried fashion-forward clothing for career women in sizes 2 to 20), they often shutter their efforts before they have a chance to bloom.

“Retailers don’t have the patience to allow it to evolve,” he added. “This is a market that’s been underserved for 50 years. Customers are saying, ‘For 50 years, you’ve ignored me and now you expect me to react to it instantaneously?’ No.”

Francesca says: Read the whole article here. And then go shopping at Igigi.

Okay, I’m not a vicar. Not even close. Plummy will never confuse me with her beloved man of the cloth. But I do love the ritual of tea. I may start my day with the delicious bean of the coffee plant, but in the late afternoon nothing is quite so satisfying as a good cuppa, properly brewed with a tiny treat or two for it to wash down. Little sandwiches filled with things like olives or watercress, fresh scones spread with jam or butter, bite-sized cakes and cookies…these things refresh me like nothing else on earth.I don’t do it every day, but I like to do it at least once or twice a month. I make a small pot of the best tea I have on hand (unless I pick up something entirely for the purpose), make the snacks by hand, put the tea in my prettiest cup and saucer and the nibbles on one of my very pretty plates, and settle in for a nice few minutes with me. It’s a reminder that we all need to slow down once in a while and be nice to ourselves. It’s a bit of ritual in a world where we sometimes need the comfort of an act that feels entirely deliberate. As good as breaking bread with friends and family is, I think every now and again it’s important to break bread with just you. It’s also a chance to eat the things nobody else in the house will touch with a barge pole, but that’s another matter. Right now the important thing is that you find a few moments and do something that make you feel whole. For me, that thing is tea. for you it may be something else entirely. What matters is that you carve out a space in your life to do what makes you feel like you in the best way possible. Find it. Do it. Keep doing it, even if only once in a blue moon. We take care of everyone else. Sometimes we need to take care of ourselves as well. Tea might well be a good place to start. PS: extra points to the first person who can identify where the title comes from. PPS: This was not all one paragraph to begin with, but WordPress is apparently miffed with me today and refuses to do my bidding. Humph.