One six started in 1986 when a fashion designer named Helen Teague founded a company called Big Clothes.
Helen’s mother was a renowned Ghanaian seamstress whose dresses were worn by many, including the wives of presidents. Helen felt the draw of her family’s history in fashion and design.
Helen soon realised that her training as an architect was uniquely helpful when designing clothes, especially plus size clothing. A lot of plus size clothing fails to understand is the concept of plus size proportions. Helen understood plus size bodies and how to shape a flat fabric round the curves.
She identified as far back 1986 that nearly half of the UK female population wore a size 16 and above and they were under-catered for.
In order to avoid the mistakes of many plus size clothing companies at that time, Helen developed an architectural formula to cover a variety of shapes that plus size women come in.
This brilliant concept gave birth to the forerunner of One-Six. Helen introduced 6 sizes, which then became the 1-6 sizing system, the system that inspired our company’s name. See below our size chart.