Get UR Freak On, Giles Deacon

The high street has become famous for its collaboration ranges - Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Viktor & Rolf for H&M; Celia Birtwell, Marios Schwab, Christopher Kane and dozens of others for Topshop (not forgetting Kate Moss for Topshop debuting on 1 May 2007, available online at Topshop Online, which ships to the US and Australia); Roland Mouret for the Gap (yup, I still use the appellation 'the' when referring to the Gap - I'm old school).

On Monday another name joins these exalted ranks: Gold by Giles is British favourite Giles Deacon's collection for New Look. New Look used to be the do-not-go-there of the high street. Mondo tacky, you could get an electric shock just walking by there - think polyester baby, all the way. It has since revamped itself a little, but it's still not in Topshop's league. All the better, really, since its continued allegiance to the occasional polyester monstrosity keeps the average price down, where Topshop's prices have gone through the roof.

Anyway, the Gold by Giles collection: 34 pieces ranging from accessories to coats, with a £4.00 (US$8.00) starting price point, up to £60.00 (US$115.00). Drew Barrymore is the model for the collection. According to Deacon, "she's an A-list star but there's something believable about her. She's glamorous but she's not a product, she's a person. She's got a history, she's got curves."

The Guardian has a great article by fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley about the Giles collection. It sounds delightful, not least because Deacon is one of Britain's biggest stars, walking the tightrope between commercial and creative perfectly over the last few years.

What a shame then that New Look only stocks UK sizes 8-18 (US 4-14). Similarly Topshop's biggest size is a UK 16 (US 12). Topshop has a Tall and a Petites range, but not a plus-size range. In fact, most of the high street stores are willing to cater for petites (5'3" and shorter), talls (5'8" and taller), and Tinys (with sizes running as low as a UK 6 (US 2) at Topshop, but not Plus-sizes. H&M styles a lot of its pieces as XS, S, M, L and XL rather than using anything so vulgar as, y'know, standardised sizes, and dropped its Big is Beautiful range circa the Lagerfeld collaboration.

I really don't understand what the marketing reason is behind the limited sizing. Are plus-sized women understood to be too poor for Topshop and New Look (snerk. New Look is - or was, before Primark - the cheapest British chain around)? Or perhaps plus-size women don't like pretty clothing? Really, what is it? Why can't you be bigger than a UK 18 or a US 14 and wear fashionable clothes? Everyone deserves a slice of the awesome fashion pie that will be Giles Deacon for New Look and Kate Moss for Topshop.

Effectively censoring your market by making these ranges inaccessible to curvier women is a mistake. I know the clothes will fly off the shelves anyway, and neither store is risking any financial loss by limiting its sizes, since Moss and Deacon are what's going to sell the pieces, but really - at some point your customers are going to be PISSED OFF if we aren't already. I guess the chains are hoping we'll console ourselves with the accessories, since all celebrity collections by law include bags, shoes, purses and jewellery, probably so lazy journalists can use that "you never have a fat day when you're bag shopping!" line that they love so much.

What does everyone think about this? Since the whole concept behind these collaborations is to make high-end designer clothing and innovative style accessible to all via affordable pricing, it seems hypocritical to then exclude most of those 'all' by not providing wearable sizes. And for Deacon to choose a face for the collection because "she's got curves" but then produce a collection that isn't sized for those with curves, well...that ain't good. But I can't see anyone boycotting New Look come Monday in protest, either.