helen-louise's journal

This evening I am feeling awful for some reason. All useless and depressed. I have spare time (for once!) but no motivation to do *anything*, let alone tackling things from the list of Stuff I Should Be Doing. This may be connected to the latest rearrangement of meds, not sure :/

Right now I'm trying to find some environmentally friendly/ethical/free trade clothing in my size, ideally from places with physical shops that I can go to, and it's breaking my brain.

1. I want clothes that have been produced in an ethical and environmental way but which look like normal clothes rather than tie-dye "freesize" floaty hippy stuff. (I have nothing against such clothes but already own as many of them as I want. It's regular black trousers, jeans & leggings that I need now.)

2. Buying online is almost completely impossible because my size varies so much depending on which part of me you measure. In particular, my bottom is enormous compared to the rest of me, and I've always needed to buy trousers in at least one size bigger than I usually am - which then are often far too big around the waist. I basically have to try clothes on to be sure that they'll fit.

3. Most of the online shops I've looked at so far only go up to a size 14 or 16. A UK 12-14 is not LARGE, damnit! And it certainly shouldn't be the largest size the shop carries considering that 16 is the modal size here! (Do they want to exclude 50-60% of potential customers?)

4. Even if "plus size" ethical clothing retailers exist, I'm leery about them because "plus size" clothes always seem designed for tall apple-shaped women, and I'm most definitely a pear. I once tried on every pair of fake leather trousers in Evans, from a 16 up to a 26, just to make a point about their clothing shape. I was about a size 18 at the time, but I couldn't even get the 26 over my bottom and thighs, while there was enough space around the waist for Richard to get into the trousers with me.

*brain explodes*

I'm sure London must contain more ethical clothing shops than just the People Tree part of Whole Foods (which carries extremely limited sizes) and the People Tree bit of the Topshop in Oxford Circus, but I'm not doing terribly well in a web search. Hmmm. Also, hardly any of People Tree's clothes exist in a size 18 anyway. Bah.

For personal reference, list of shops that have nice clothes that DON'T COME IN MY SIZE:
Eco Fibres/Conscious Clothing - Brighton
By Nature - UK - thinks a size 14-16 is large
Ganesha Fair Trade Clothing - London - goes up to a 14 in some sizes & 16 in others
Equa Clothing - London - only for sizes 8-14
Natural Collection - particularly annoying because organic utility-chic trousers are the sort of trousers I'd rather like.
Namaste UK.

Some of Nomads Clothing stuff may fit me - I rather like the velvet princess dress and the midi sundress. A handful of their clothes come in 18-20 and 20-22, e.g. tie dye sleeveless dress.

Gossypium's drawstring trousers and pull on pants (technically pyjamas, but who cares?) are about what I'm after, at least for casual clothing, but it seems somewhat random what sizes they have a particular item in.

I also found a blog post Plus size organic clothing, but I think all the retailers are in the US and American jeans sizes make absolutely no sense to me.