"They're having a laugh"

Was my reply when I was told that Bev had had to pay over £20 for a plain white t-shirt from a big mans clothes shop in Nottingham.

Annoyed at this I went home and had a look on the internet to see if I could get any better value for money.It was the same story dire big and tall garments at inflated prices.

At the time I was working in the IT industry and so with a couple of friends and more than a few jars of Guinness in a local pub we reassured ourselves that we could develop something better.

Big Tee Shirt was born in the year 2000 with 100 mixed cotton t-shirts made for us by a small local clothes manufacturer to our size specs.Those of you who have already purchased big and tall clothes from us know that we try to adhere to our size spec which some find a little generous.We make no excuses for this and being a big bloke myself I have always wanted to feel comfortable in a garment and not conscious of that gripping feeling that ill fitting or too tight clothes gives a big man.

The 100 t-shirts were delivered to us in a sack bag with no packaging and not even finished off(small bits of sewing thread left over by sewing machines).We had to empty the t-shirts out onto our kitchen table sort them finish them and pack them into plastic bags.Oh how we enjoyed that job :-).

Next was the website. As you can see it was no work of art but it was a start and before we knew it those 100 t-shirts had been sold so it was back to get another load for finishing and packaging. We did burn the midnight candle in those early days but it was made easier by the support of my fantastic wife Bev.

As Big Tee Shirt grew in popularity we were asked for different styles so we increased our ranges bit by bit but storage became a problem then but a good friend let us use his spare bedroom and so for a while Big Tee Shirt was a true bedroom business :-).

In early 2001 we had an unexpected boost in that the Sunday Times ran a small article in the colour supplement.We didn’t know anything about this and was never contacted by anyone from the Sunday Times so had to assume that it was a satisfied customer so whoever you are we thank you.

In 2001 we opened our first shop in a little town called Kimberley in Nottinghamshire.

Also that same year we were approached by ITV to supply the clothes for the original Fat Club programme followed by the original Celebrity Fit Club in 2002 in which we had to supply big clothes for Rick Waller,Tommy Walsh and the other celebrities including that lovely woman Anne Widdicombe.On a more recent note we have just supplied some of the clothes for The Biggest Loser UK 2007.

In early 2002 we decided to move down to the East Coast of Lincolnshire so closed the Kimberley shop and established ourselves here.We now have a big mans clothes shop called Mr Bigstuff in which you can buy a good selection of our big and tall clothes.On the website we stock in excess of 550 lines all tailored for comfort and style for the bigger man.

So there you have it.The Big Tee Shirt story thus far.

Like any business we are evolving and trying to improve all the time. We now try to stock only the best value for money lines in plus size clothing that have consistent size specs and quality.If a product is not right for us then it is not right for our customers.We don’t operate a market stall here.

Our business ethic is simple.

“We aim to treat our customers in a manner in which we would like to be treated ourselves”

Steve