Barneys & Friends: Simon Doonan Does Plus Sizes?

And now for something a little bit unexpected, fashion week fixture and Barney's Creative Director, Simon Doonan has expressed interest in creating a plus sized line.

If Simon Doonan designed a clothing line he'd focus on an oft-overlooked demographic. “I would love to do a plus-size line,” he told us at last night’s El Museo gala at Cipriani. "I think there’s a huge opportunity for doing clothes that are size 12 and up."

Doonan noted it's ridiculously hard to become a somebody as a fashion designer these days. "There’s more designers than the world would ever need in a hundred million years, there’s more clothing lines, there’s 400 bloody shows in the New York fashion week. So there’s no shortage for womenswear. But I think there’s an opportunity to do insanely great things in the plus-size market," he said (ahem, Project Runway alums). He continued, "As a freakishly undersized male, I understand the plight of the oversized female. You know that thing of looking for clothes and they’re not there."

Having a selection of plus sized clothes at Barneys would be heavenly but will this ever come to fruition? My inner skeptic says no but perhaps I'm just jaded. This is one of the few times I have ever heard anyone in his position express interest in making plus sized clothing but as we all know having an interest in doing something and actually taking the initiative to do it are two very different things. He does however make an excellent point - there is a need for high quality clothing in plus sizes, only a handful of designers are making anything for the plus sized market. I'm sure Mr. Doonan would be a welcome edition - he has loads of personal style and his book Eccentric Glamour was a witty ode to fashion non-conformity. Lets see if he puts his money where his mouth is.