This weekend, I went to my local Co-op and bought some flowers, some bread and a copy of the new edition of Company magazine which hit the shelves last week.

And I’ve been cross ever since. The magazine promises a “Model Free Issue” which doesn’t overly excite me, as I buy it every month anyway. It actually completely escapes me, as I read through because all the girls in it, seemed pretty model-esque to me. And then on page 132, I saw something that made me angry. The reader, a gorgeous girl who has Venus-red hair and a flawless face has been photographed as part of the “model free issue”. The three pictures in the “Bare Essentials” are not flattering to the model or the photographer – who has photographed upwards. I know this angle isn’t complimentary – I have had to be there and get the money shot on a shoot before, and an up-the-noser isn’t ever one. The lighting is hideous -her body is paled out to the background. And lastly, the garments aren’t flattering – the bodice is not doing anything for her, the M&S bodysuit makes me feel sad, as I know a smaller model would not be patronized into wearing such a piece and the Topshop bustier, does not fit, and not to the insult of the model, but to the stylist.

As a size 14-16 and a 5 foot 10” Glamazon, I have been used to people commenting on my size and using back-handed comments to make me very aware of it. Some of the common things I’ve heard range from “You have such a pretty face, its such a shame” to “Marilyn Monroe was a size 16, you know, so it’s great you embrace your size” – when I didn’t ever bring up my size. Having worked in fashion for five years as a designer, I have felt the pressure of competitive eating disorders within the industry. One boss, a short, bald, Turkish man with awful teeth, humiliated me in front of everyone in the office, when he told me I was unhealthy at a small size 14, which is the smallest I have ever been in a meeting when I suggested we take the size grade up to an 18 on a pair of knickers. Insert joke here, about short man syndrome.

Another boss, when I was working in Hong Kong, took my plate off me at dinner – I didn’t want Coral for tea anyway, but thanks – and advised me that if I ‘ate rice, you will get thin’.

This article isn’t about me so much, but it comes from a part of me that is compelled to defend my normal curves. I don’t need to go into how the average size woman is a size 16 or a 36DD. We are reminded everyday how different we are by the media.

Mika sang “Big girls, you are beautiful” and had a herald of ‘big girls’ in the background, like lambs to the slaughter. I have seen Beth Ditto on the front of LOVE magazine, not looking so love-ly, but, shut up, because it was supposed to be ironic, right? A lady with a bit of curve has courted controversy in the press for a longtime-Sophie Dahl for Opium was removed for looking too ’sexual and womanly’. Then Sophie got fed up of being the token big girl, and slimmed down to ironically present a slightly dozy, but cute cooking programme.

Mark Fast has a stylist walk out at his show, because he used a size 14 model-Really?

And now, the American superstore, Lane Bryant was banned from showing its new plus-size lingerie in between ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and caused uproar as the same channel has happily shown the VS Angels adverts previously. SHOCK, HORROR.

I roll my eyes as ‘Aunty’ Gok, uses Burlesque to give a lady a boost of self esteem. ‘Aunty’ Gok seems to forget that shimmying round a life size Martini glass with no top on, may be liberating for all of an evening, but it doesn’t get a girl through life feeling confident – unless she is actually, a burlesque dancer. I can’t be too hard on Gok Wan though – or Trinny and Susannah and their replacements. They are acknowledging the need for real women and I myself signed Gok’s petition for body image to be talked about in schools so girls think it is ‘normal’ to be a ‘normal’ size. I am bored when I read another article about a plus-size model who rebelled against the pressure of the Size 0 brigade. And, it is definitely a step into the right direction when Candies and Britney showed us how much she had been touched up.

It doesn’t need to be this hard though, does it? The point of fashion, is you get to create a fantasy. Really, if you have a good stylist, it’s pretty easy to do, and they should endeavour to find the best fitting, most fantastical garments out there. And those garments do exist, because I wear them everyday – I can still push my tits up so they look voluptuous and my hips can fill the smooth line of a pencil skirt easily, without a roll of flesh hanging over the top. I don’t wear a bodysuit when I go out, occassionally a pair of SPANX under a dress.

Bigger, curvier covergirls, look as stunning as their thinner counterparts – you only have to look at Nigella, Crystal Renn, Kelly Brook and Christina Hendricks to know this. There is the fashion out there – basic high street shops do go up to a size 16, so its not even really an excuse anymore. It’s really not that hard either to put a size 12 on a magazine cover and involve her in a fantasy with makeup and clothes, and hell, if the photos are that bad, airbrush us like you do everyone else.

Finally, with regards to the Company article, I am so cross that they got it so wrong, when it wasn’t that hard to get it right in the first place. I wouldn’t dream of wearing a cropped bra top, because I would be asking to have the piss taken out of me. And it just feels, that the fashion and media industry is taking the piss, and has done, for too long, and secretly knows it too.