I hope that you are all in the mood for a rant because I’ve hopped on a train to Rantsville and there seems to be no indication that I’m going to be getting off anytime soon. I want to start by saying what has been statistically proven time and time again: the vast majority of our country is overweight. This is non-debateable.

I’m not here to go into the merits of why we are or why we are not… that is not the point of this article. Many of us, absolutely including me, have a little too much cushioning and as long as you’re not killing yourself that’s completely fine too. What is not fine is the fact that almost no one in this country is, pardon the pun, catering for this.

 Just last week I was looking for a dress for a wedding and to be honest, I would have had better luck trying to squeeze water out of a stone in the Sahara on a particularly hot day. Round and round I went, wringing my hands in earnest and imploring sales girls to show me their wares and time and time again I was either greeted with strange looks or advised to go elsewhere.

Why, oh why, are bigger women only offered strange-looking kaftan tents to wear?

It beggars belief that in a country so heavily populated by bigger people, no one has thought to get clothes that most of us can wear. Even tights that don’t bunch up around your hips and ride down your legs before the evening has even started become as rare as gold dust.

I actually had one shop lady tell me that she’s never seen tights in bigger sizes which forced me to quip: “Why? Don’t bigger women have legs like everyone else?” It’s beyond ridiculous and I have no idea why people don’t speak out. This brings me to my next point. Why, oh why, are bigger women only offered strange-looking kaftan tents to wear? They may be bigger but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to wear things that make the best out of their figure. In fact, they probably want to do it even more.

Just because you’re bigger, it doesn’t mean that you want to spend your life wearing a sack. Everyone deserves nice clothes that are flattering and that they can wear whatever the occasion.

What’s more, there should be styles specifically made for bigger people instead of companies just making sample sizes bigger and wider without paying attention to how something might look on someone with wider hips and larger bosoms.

If any reader out there is running a shop or is thinking of investing in a brand, please do get onto this. Not only will you be tapping into a goldmine financially, but you’ll have the eternal gratitude of most of the people in Malta. If you’re lucky, they might even buy you dinner.