If I’d resigned myself to a life of first-hand clothes, rather than setting my heart on vintage, I could’ve lived a far simpler life. I could’ve started a small business, maybe, or picked up a hobby. But I didn’t.

Instead, I’ve lost hours feeling love – followed by an almost immediate sense of loss. I’m now intimately familiar with the mixed feelings that come from vintage shopping as a plus-size woman. I’ve come to know all too well the excitement of grabbing something off a rail only to feel deflated as I see the size and find that it’s something that not even prepubescent me – hell, not even infant me– would be able to zip up. Who knew XXXS was a size?  

In the UK between 2015 and 2020, plus-size women’s clothing stores had an average industry growth of 1.9% and a market size of £734m, according to IBISWorld. According to Thredup, a secondhand online store based in the United States, the next 10 years will see the resale market grow much faster than traditional retail, with the second-hand clothing market expected to be twice the size of fast fashion by the year 2030. Yet attitudes towards extended clothing haven’t always been so progressive, which makes shopping vintage as a plus-size woman today far from easy. 

I’ve come to accept that vintage shopping is not intended for women of my size (I wear a UK size 18), but there are ways to get around it. My current obsession, which I’m scrolling through more than any of my other apps now, is Vinted, an platform for pre-loved fashion that launched in 2008 and has gained popularity in the UK in recent years. Whilst other apps have dedicated vintage sellers with a more curated selection of pieces (and a price that reflects that), I’ve found that Vinted is the home for older women who do not realise that the plaid two-piece set they’ve just listed for £12 is a spitting image of a print just released by Heaven from Marc Jacobs. Another brand I love is Berriez, a curated vintage store, which specialises in pre-loved extended sizing pieces.

To navigate the difficulties of shopping vintage, particularly online rather than rifling through a shop, I have learned to always filter the options into my size. It’s not nice to watch the 500+ available items shrink to an underwhelming 72, but it’s even worse to deal with the mental gymnastics of working out how I can squeeze my organs into a vintage corset, only to have it arrive a few days later and not even be able to fit it round my arm.

The vintage silhouettes that work best for me are cowl necks and early 00s workwear – blazers, slouchy trousers. The Vinted app is full of them, and that’s when I see it: a satin midi skirt that a lady from Scunthorpe is selling for £8 in my size. Suddenly the world feels a little less cruel. The journey to vintage plus-size nirvana is underway. 

Images: courtesy of Francesca Perks and brands.