BIG GIRL’S PANTS

Zann Brown laughs as she remembers the scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary when the Hugh Grant character slides Bridget’s dress up to reveal her highwaisted Spandex tummy trimmers. “Absolutely enormous undies,” he exclaims with lustful delight.

Brown, a size 22, was frustrated at only having the choice of black, white or Bridget Jones-beige when she went shopping for underwear. In 2011 she decided to do something about it and set up a business making big, brightly patterned knickers.

Brown was making sizes 16-26 but recently extended her range to size 12 and 14, under pressure from would-be customers. “I said ‘You small girls already get lots of choices”, but they said ‘Not like these – these are awesome,” Brown explains with a chuckle.

Brown recently began as a casual stallholder at Salamanca Market after years of doing smaller markets, Agfest and online sales. Her knickers printed with saucy slogans got her into trouble when she first started at Salamanca after a member of the public complained. These are now tucked away discreetly at the back of her stall.

Apart from the odd leopardskin print, the emphasis of her range is fun, not sexy. “I haven’t got sexy because they’re built for comfort, not speed,” Brown says.

Hobart burlesque performer Erin Brandall, who has modelled for Brown’s Big Knicker Company, is a fan. “They have good coverage and I like that in a pair of knickers,” Brandall says.

Brown settled in Tasmania 21 years ago and divides her time between her underwear business, bookkeeping work and doing psychic consultations. She says, being a psychic, she checked out whether the historic house she rents near New Norfolk was haunted. “There are a couple of ghosts there but they like me and I like them,” she says.

* Visit the Big Knicker Company Facebook page to see when and where Zann Brown will be at Salamanca Market.