In two days the Beth Ditto's collection for Evans is launching, so media is full of articles on Beth and interviews with her. I've just found two really interesting ones - in Guardian and Daily Telegraph.
Beth may be a singer (although not trained), but I hope she will do as good in fashion as she does in music. She's got designer's intuition and - contrary to "regular" designers - faces problem of shaping big body with clothes every day.
"The shapes for a fat person have to be different. Even stores for big girls get it wrong. With some of the designs, the people from Evans were skeptical but I was like: 'Trust me.' And then when the model put it on, they were like: 'Oh, I get it now.'"
And then on leggins:
"Leggings!" Beth trumpets, brandishing a pair that would house a bale of supermodels. "I'm proud of these! These are going to be life-changing." Life-changing because, according to Beth, they don't suffer from the two perennial problems for bigger women's footless tights. Which are,
first, too much material at the bottom, so that they bag around the calf, and second, not enough material at the top. "See, if you're fat," she says, yanking up her vest to show me, "the waistband should come up over here, all the way up to under the breasts, so you feel secure and you get a smooth line. Not necessarily held in, but like nothing's going to be weirdly squeezed out." Sounds like she knows what she's talking about, doesn't it?
Anyway, the collection is a result of several months lasting collaboration with Lisa Marie Peacock - Evans' head of design. Ladies were inspired by Blondie, The Slits, Grace Jones, Mama Cass of the Mamas and Papas, the Bauhaus and Art deco movements and drag queens. The clothes are going to range from funky-flashy style of the 80's to more functional pieces. The prices will vary from 18 to 65 pounds.
And that would never happen without Kate Moss' help. Kate, who's very good friends with Beth, introduced her to Philip Green, who now hosts the collection within his own label. Moss got it right again.
I love that dress!