Annalisa Barbieri explains why finding, dressing and photographing a size 14 model is an uphill struggle

You could hear the distaste: 'Outsize? Good grief!'

Three issues ago, British Vogue used a big model on their pages, the exquisite Sara Morrison, with her marzipan thighs and full, confident stomach. It was a fantastic and inspiring shoot, but it made me smile a wry smile. Why, many folk must have wondered, don't more publications do shoots "like that"? Because the reality of putting together a "bigger model" shoot is that the odds are stacked against you. And this is probably why you don't see more of them.

Last year, we tried to do a plus-size shoot. Most photographers turned it down. You could hear their distaste down the phone: "Outsize? Good grief!" Then, earlier this year, we decided that one in every four or five shoots we would use a bigger girl with no trumpeting. A more average- looking lass, just a bit bigger than what you'd normally see, say, in a size 14, which is what most of us are anyway, and make absolutely no mention of it. Great idea. After all, most labels go up to a size 16, even Top Shop does on occasion.

The photographers weren't so much of a problem anymore, probably because we didn't bill them as "outsize" shoots (they weren't - we just wanted to redress the balance a bit). Next, you get yourself a girl. The usual model agencies have girls in a size 12, tops, so to get a girl who is a size 14 you go to a plus-size agency. There are two in London: Excel and Hughes. Excel has about 20 girls based in the UK; Hughes has 30. The rest are internationally based and if you want to use them you have to fly them in. But size 14 girls are hard to find because most of the plus-size work is at 16/18. But if you use a size 16/18 girl then you get into specialist labels such as Evans and Marina Rinaldi and that wasn't what we wanted to do. We just wanted to show more "real" looking girls and demonstrate that you don't have to be a size 10 to shop in most high-street stores.

Then, you get to the problem of clothes. Sample ranges, held by the PR offices of the designer or shop are in a size 10. Plus-size ranges are usually held in sample size 16/18. Getting a sample size of a dress in size 14 or 16 out of a normal fashion shop - not a specialist plus-size one - is difficult. Some labels are fantastically helpful, getting shop stock to help out. Others make umpteen excuses about why they can't get you a size 14. They may sell their clothes up to a size 16 but they sure don't want them photographed. Heaven forbid that their clothes be associated with "fatties".

One woman who knows this better than anyone is Janice Bhend, editor of Yes magazine, the only plus-size magazine on the newsstands. Bhend has been writing about plus sizes for 30 years. "Things have really changed over the past two years, but it's still very difficult doing a fashion shoot using bigger girls," she says, adding that even some shoe companies won't lend: "They say they don't think we're right for them."

Things are changing, but slowly, and with all these hurdles, it's hardly surprising that although a great many publications most probably want to do larger fashion, it's so difficult that they end up not bothering. So, the reason you see size 10- looking models on most fashion pages is because it's easy. Sadly (and ironically for an industry that craves change and new ideas) some find the thought of using big girls on fashion pages just a bit too scary.