Do you want to play a game?

Hi guys,
Last Wednesday afternoon I had just got back to my desk from a trip to the pub (for a lunch of sticky BBQ chicken and chips) and was sitting down to check my emails and enjoy a bar of Galaxy chocolate. As a was scoffing my second square of chocolate, I opened an email that was entitled "Fancy playing Weight Watchers?"

Now I post enough outfit photos for you guys to know that I'm not a skinny girl. But I'm not plus sized either. I've always been fairly comfortable in my own skin, but I've also noticed that since the wedding I've put on a few pounds: settling into married life, and cooking super sized feasts with my husband meant that any weight I lost for the wedding is now firmly back, plus (to be honest) a bit more too!

So I responded to the email (I finished eating my chocolate bar first) and said yes. If losing weight is a game then I want to play! Weightwatchers isn't just a last resort for the morbidly obese (as I has previously, very wrongly, assumed) You can join and play along if you just want to drop a dress size, lose those last couple of pounds, or just get back into healthy eating habits.

I currently wear a size 16 (14 on a good day) and would like to be comfortably back in all of my size 14 clothes again. Not a massive target: I'm not planning to give up food and look like Kate Moss or anything. But definitely a big enough starting challenge for me, and I know dropping those pounds will make all the difference to how I feel when I get dressed in the morning.

So the upshot of all of this is that I'm going to give it a go. Try to shed a few pounds so that I feel healthier and my clothes feel better. Exercise a couple of times a week and leave the biscuit tin alone. And, if you don't mind, I will occasionally be sharing my journey with you guys. Wish me luck!

Love Tor x

Mannequins: What's your size?

I wanted to write about this last week, but what with the fashion week craziness I just didn't get the chance. Debenhams are trialling size 16 mannequins in their Oxford Street store windows.

Currently Debenhams use standard size 10 mannequins in all its windows display, but the majority of women in the UK are either a size 14 or 16; in fact, 42% of Debenhams sales come from selling garments in those two sizes.

I think they look great but I kind of wish they had opted for a size 12 or 14 mannequin: something a little more representative of a normal healthy weight rather either than one extreme or the other. I feel like a size 16 is heading more towards the plus sized category than something that is realistic and aspirational and achieveable that loads of women can see and appreciate as beautiful. Still, bigger women like myself being represented on the highstreet can only be a good thing, and it will be nice to walk down the street and see a mannequin that I can relate to in a size I could actually wear!

What do you think? Do you think this is a step in the right direction? What model size would you prefer?

Love, Tor xx

Everyone's talking about: V magazine's "Size issue"

Everywhere I turn today I am accosted with posts, pictures and articles about V magazines size issue. And it hasn't even been released yet!

Overall I have read postive posts and comments, but I have also noticed how many people spew hatred about having to look at pictures of someone who might be a little bit fatter than them: is it really that big a deal? But of course it is a big deal, if for no other reason than that we aren't used to it. Most magazines only feature what I refer to as "standard" catwalk models: tall, thin, flat chested. But (and I say this as a curvy girl myself) I can understand why.


When i'm flicking though a magazine or catalogue I rarely notice the models: i'm looking at the clothes. I don't know if this is normal or unusual, but I never know which model has appeared in which catwalk show, even if I was there. I don't look at the models at all, only what they're displaying. And androgenous women are the perfect clothes horses; boobs and hips are sexy and appealing and they get in the way when i'm focusing on looking at a dress!

Now if i'm reading an editorial it's a different story, and some clothes hang better on bigger women; so I think that magazines should have more versitility in the models they use. And I think it's nice to see a women who looks like you wearing a dress you quite like; hell, it might even encourage you to go out and buy the dress! But I don't think this should become a big "versus" argument: there is no war! I'm not sure why some articles are giving big ticks to plus sized models and then in turn, subliminally perhaps, putting a big cross next to the standard ones. "That's one for the big girls" "The big girls are taking over" Isn't there room for everyone?There certainly is in our society, where I wouldn't dream of pitching women against each other based on their height or weight (except, perhaps, if I was organising some kind of wrestling tournament) I understand the fashion world is different from the "real world" and not all shapes and sizes can or will be embraced, but I just can't believe that a few inches on a waistline can cause these kind of headlines.

I would also like to point of that the "Size Issue" featured plus sized and petite women. So why are we only reading stories about the plus sized models? I know it's a slow news week, but maybe some of the tabloids need to take a step back and get some perspective.


I won't be deciding how I feel about the success or otherwise of the issue until i've actually seen it: a few widely distributing pictures does not an opinion make!


Love, Tor xx

PS - I would also like to point out the only positive of all this debate: I seem to be having a girl crush on Crystal Renn!