The fashion debate has started up again in a massive way this month, thanks to Mary Portas in her Queen of Frocks show. Will anything change this time, now that the 14 million-or-so women over 40 who had resigned themselves to being invisible are suddenly realising the problem isn’t them?

I’m pretty typical of the issue: I’m 50 years old, and I’m size 16, or maybe even 18 – who knows;  my boobs have always been big, but now they occupy a small country. I’m not struggling with any significant emotional issues around my body, yet it’s been years since I could find anything I wanted to wear in the high street. I don’t bother shopping there any more. I rarely buy clothes at all. From what I’m hearing,  there’s a large chunk of that 14 million women who feel the same way. 14 million, retail people – are you listening? We should wave our wallets under their noses and say “Is there a recession? IS THERE? Breathe this in, sonny boy, it’s CASH.” They’ll rediscover our value so fast you’ll think they invented us.

The general message at the moment, though, seems to be “diet yourself into a size 10 and you too can have access to style” – but where do people get off telling me how to live, what to be? I’m 50 years old - I’ll scream it if you like – I don’t give a damn what a bunch of kiddies and skinnies think, whether they like my figure, whether they think I fit into their view of the world. The idea that I should mould myself against them is laughable – they think hyper-heels are A Good Thing, for heaven’s sake. I like older women to be larger – they then seem to have so much more presence than do the starving size 10-ers. Given that I think older women should be dominating UK life, keeping the Flies in order, that’s A Good Thing.

The funniest part of all this hand-wringing now is that it’s the Fashion Industry’s own promotions that are strangling this 14-million-strong market. 14 million – did I mention that?  They’re guilty of decades of telling us the Only Way is Youthful, using only flat-chested lanky schoolgirls as models, failing to explore what we want and how we live – making us feel so irrelevant to the world that we withdraw and live in big black t-shirts. Writing this I get annoyed all over again: how dim do they have to be? Perhaps they’re still under the impression that fashion is about the designer’s art, rather than about the end-user. The designer wants to find women who will make their pretty pictures look good, whereas I want a designer who makes ME look good. [Something, if you were watching Queen of Frocks Episode 2, Portas singularly failed to do, seeming to have a revulsion for real women's bodies.  She may be fighting the fashion industry, but only for skinny older women like her.]

Yet art isn’t only for flat girls. I’m constantly astonished at how uninspired is the fashion aimed at the older woman. Why does all creativity abruptly stop? I often see clothes that I like, fabulous pieces – but they’re designed for skinnies and aren’t cut correctly for my shape. I’ll keep saying it: you simply cannot design on a size 10 dummy, add some inches and think it’s going to work on my curves! When are they going to admit that the average cup size (particularly for the older figure) is far larger than a B cup? Did you know that very often the first time a size 16 is tested is when a customer takes it into the changing room? All insanity.

Well. I’m working on a plan – I don’t know how long it will take: I want to create a Style Show which is aimed firmly at the older woman. Not the shapeless, depressed, invisible women of people’s imaginations – but ones like me: the don’t-care, fun-loving, life-loving ones that are taking over society. I hope you’ll join us, the Visible Women.