Fashion veteran Gifi Fields aims to carve out share in the plus-size market with the launch of etail business Scarlett & Jo.

Fields, who has supplied some of the biggest names in fashion retail and is famous for successes such as the popularisation of the ra-ra skirt in the 1980s, launched the scarlettandjo.com today.

“We already had a strong following for the brand and I was petitioned by customers to launch a site”

Gifi Fields, Scarlett & Jo

Catering for sizes 14 to 32, Scarlett & Jo will comprise about 60 lines. Product is already sold through retailers such as plus-size specialist Yours and Arcadia’s Evans chain.

Scarlett & Jo’s existing popularity among its target shoppers led Fields’ Coppernob business to launch a dedicated etail offer.

He said: “We already had a strong following for the brand and I was petitioned by customers to launch a site.”

Specialist bloggers are among established fans of the brand and some of them, along with other customers, model the styles online.

Scarlett & Jo

Scarlett & Jo

Scarlett & Jo caters to sizes 14 to 32

The etailer has also developed an innovative buy button on YouTube that enables customers to click straight through from videos to transact.

Fields maintained that plus-size shoppers are not well served by mainstream retailers, despite their push into the market, and that the attention to wearability and quality of Scarlett & Jo – including the adaption of styles to suit different heights and body shapes – were among its points of difference.

The UK plus-size womenswear market is estimated by researchers IbisWorld to be worth £708m at present and sales have grown at an annual compound rate of 6.7% over the last five years.