Waistlines may be expanding at a rapid rate, but clothing stores seem slow to catch up. Shoptalk discovers a gem for the larger gent.

AUSTIN Orton is a big man with big ideas. So when the former aeronautical expert despaired of finding clothes that he liked and which fitted him, he started his own business. Now Big Ozzy sells clothes to big men all over Britain, Europe and even the US.

Mainly on the Internet, the business also has a shop, which is more of a walk in warehouse, in Leyburn. The day we were there, a happy customer from Dover was busy gathering up endless carrier bags - almost an entire wardrobe of shirts and trousers. "It's just nice to have a choice instead of having to take what you can get," he said - which is a fairly typical comment.

When Austin says big, he means BIG, with sizes starting where most chain stores finish. The shop sells men's clothes from waist size 44ins up to 70ins, jackets up to chest size 72ins and shirts up to collar size 25. And what makes them different is not just their sizes but that many of the clothes are young and fashionable, so big lads can wear exactly the same sort of colours and casual styles as their skinny contemporaries. (They also do some skinny styles for thin lads who are very tall.)

"The average age of customers buying from the website is probably 16-35 years old," says Austin. "Partly, that's because that age group uses the Internet more, but it's also the styles. Customers coming into the shop tend to be older."

Austin, who has been general manager of Teesside International Training Consortium, worked for the British Council, been an associate professor at Arizona State University and is a scuba diver and guitar player, started the business two years ago as a sort of ease down into retirement. Fat chance! "It's just taken off," he says.

The clothes are mainly British - though he stocks a wide range of the American Haft label. Some made specially for Big Ozzy range from country wear to hooded tops, leather jackets to dinner suits and are priced pretty much at chain store levels.

They also stock underwear, beachwear, nightwear, and leather belts - including bikers' belts - made by Lone Wolf Leathers in Swaledale. "Everything," says Austin. He says he's even about to stock a range of shoes from size 11-17.

Typical prices include: shirts by Double 2 and Pierre Cardin, £24; chinos, £20; posh trousers, £39; T-shirts, £9; suits from £120; joggers from £18; rugby shirts from £18; town and country gilet, £48; jeans from £22; pure wool jumpers, £58; body warmers £20.

Austin loves it when people discover the shop. "The number of times we've had men, or young lads, shuffling in in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt and then we can show them all these clothes in their size. They walk out with new clothes and you can see there's a spring in their step. They feel better about themselves because they know they look good," he says.

According to Austin, the fattest people in the UK are truck drivers. And he has a number of them as regular customers, including one who parks up his wagon at six in the morning, waiting for the shop to open.

"And mothers. We get a lot of mothers desperate to find clothes for their sons - even when their sons are in their twenties and thirties and should be doing their own shopping," he says.

Austin, a former pupil of Richmond Grammar School, started the business on the Gallowfield Trading Estate in Richmond, but has since moved to the business park in Leyburn, where clothes are stacked high in every conceivable corner and cheerful staff deal with the orders and personal callers. "Recent research said that 49 per cent of British men are overweight, so there are a lot of men wanting to buy big clothes," he says.

This could be the start of something even bigger...

* The Big Ozzy Clothing Company, Unit 2, Herriott Close, Leyburn Business Park, Leyburn, North Yorkshire DL8 5QA. Tel: (01969) 625565. Open Mon-Sat, 10am-5pm.Because stock changes so quickly, they don't have a mail order catalogue, but you can see everything very clearly on their website www.bigozzy.com.