Within seconds of meeting Beth Ditto, I've been pulled into a generous embrace, my head yanked down a foot or so and planted between her astonishing bosoms. It's quite nice, actually, and not what I was expecting. There's always that slight worry that fat people are going to be a bit whiffy - especially fat punk rockers - but Ditto, who's 28 (both in age and dress size), is extremely fragrant. The chalky white arms squeezing my back are as delicious and comforting as slabs of freshly baked ciabatta.
Then, after we adjourn to a side room at the photo studio in west London for some peace and quiet, as an extra treat she whips off her top. Wowzers! Of course, I've seen it all before (she has appeared naked on the covers of both Love magazine and NME), but the nudie mag shoots scarcely do her justice. Her body is mesmeric. Rolls and folds topped with an adorable heart-shaped face. Having never had the least desire to paint, I'm suddenly overcome with an urge to take up oils and have a bash at capturing the play of light across her love handles. No wonder she's a muse to just about every designer going.
Looking at her up close, you no longer think she became fashion's latest darling in spite of her size. It's because of it. Not that there hasn't been debate - or, as a headline in Australian Grazia pondered, "Beth Ditto: fabulous or just fat?" Clearly, the journo had never met her. She is - if you'll pardon the lovey speak - fabulous. Upbeat, sharp as a tack and - unlike most of the punk lot - allergic to boring rants. Thanks to her semi-impoverished upbringing in the American South, she is also extremely hard-working and polite. And boy, is she funny. "In case you were wondering, these are real," she says, cupping her boobs. "But this," she continues, grabbing a shelf of tummy flab, "is implants." She honks with laughter and pulls her top back on.
Ditto is in London for a couple of days talking up her band Gossip's new album (not that it needs much talking up - it rocks), and overseeing the new plus-size collection she has designed for the high-street chain Evans. Isn't Evans a bit uncool, I say? "You know, I'm a dyke - a crunchy dyke at that - so I had to weigh up whether I wanted to do something so corporate," she says, her Southern tones at full tilt, "but it's been a dream. I literally sketched out these shoes," she points her jazz flats in the air, "and they made them and flew them back to me. And I wanted to do a lot of things you're always told not to wear if you're big." Like what? "Like anything with a good cut," she laughs. So there are stretch tops, fitted jackets, acid prints and cut-off trousers - all very un-Evans. But no kaftans? "Which is a shame," she nods. "I lurve a kaftan."
I assumed she would have been labouring under the martyred notion that it is impossible to find anything decent to wear if you're over a size 16, but she says not. "I don't understand all these women who say they feel betrayed by fashion. A piece of clothing can't talk - it can't tell you that you can't have it - so really, you're just telling yourself that. You make yourself the victim, because if you want clothes that bad, then make them yourself. You have to get creative if you're fat. I'm really good at turning a belt into a necklace, and I can always find a nice pair of earrings."
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She can see the problem with the industry, though. "I know that one year Karl Lagerfeld was refusing to make clothes for women of a certain size, and the next year he was asking me to play the Fendi party," she says. "What a contradiction they are! But they're probably just as big victims of not being able to see beyond the ends of their noses as all the people complaining about it. You have to get in there, shake it up." She thinks appearing naked on the cover of Love earlier this year did just that.
"Katie Grand [Love's editor] showed me the pictures and said, 'Can you tell what we Photoshopped?' I was, like, 'No', and she goes, 'We made you bigger!' Then, since I did that, old what's-her-name... what's her name at Vogue?" Anna Wintour? "Yeah, her. After that, she shot Adele [the voluptuous Welsh singer], so it goes to show that women of size can be part of it, too." Women of size? What a dreadful phrase! "I know," she says, blushing, "but they [her bosses at Evans] don't like it when I say fat women. So what am I supposed to say? Hefty hideaways? They're fat, goddammit."
Now she's a hit with the fash pack, labels such as Dolce and Chanel are happy to knock up one-off versions of their designs - usually shown on the catwalk in a size six or eight - for Ditto to wear to shoots and parties. This hasn't always endeared her to her well-covered sisters. "Some fat girl blogger was saying, 'It's cool that all these famous designers are making clothes for her, but they're not going to make them for everyone.' And the truth is, yes, they're not going to make them for everyone. They make only a few pieces just to fit me," she shrugs. "For the rest, I have to make it work my own way. Maybe it wasn't supposed to go round my shoulders because it was a skirt, but that's how I wear it."
In March, Ditto cut a dash in the French capital, perching on a succession of little gold chairs to watch the catwalk collections from the front row. Mostly, she sat next to tiny, birdlike women such as Kate Moss or Audrey Tautou, before attending the roster of evening parties with minimal food and maximum bitchiness. How did you find the circus, I ask? Did you feel like the fat girl at the prom? "That I was going to crush Karl when I give him a hug?" she says, raising an eyebrow. "No, not at all. Well, I did, but I don't care. I'm the only one there who looks like me. Everyone else just looks the same, so think about the joy of that."
Did you get any nasty comments? "No. Nobody ever talks about fat in front of me at fashion stuff. It's the same way I never see people do drugs when I'm on tour." What, never? "No. People know for the most part that I don't do it, so they keep it away from me. I did ecstasy once - and it ruled - but fat people shouldn't do drugs. Fat people should certainly not do cocaine. It's not that they're all unhealthy, but it can be hard on your body, on your heart, so you have to accept you can't do certain things. I don't want to die when I'm 38. It's not worth it. Plus, can you imagine if I was on coke? I mean, how much faster can one girl talk?"
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Ditto grew up in a two-bedroom house in Searcy, Arkansas, with her mother, six siblings and a revolving door of stepfathers and relations. Sometimes there would be 12 of them living in the tiny house, and her mother worked all hours as a nurse trying to provide. Beth - or Mary Beth, as she was known then - was left to her own devices, and would sometimes shoot squirrels to eat. She says her childhood look was best summed up during a chance meeting with Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas. "I looked like some wild animal with bruises on my face and chocolate round my mouth. I asked him to sign my dollar bill and he said [goes into throaty Clinton impression], 'I think that's illegal, little darlin'.'" Desperate to make music, she moved away at 18 - first to Washington State, then to Portland, Oregon - but, despite her extraordinary guttural voice, she wasn't an overnight success. It took Gossip four albums to make it huge with Standing in the Way of Control in 2007. Being a punk is apparently no less demanding than being a fashionista. "If you think fashion is snobby, go hang out with some punks," she says. "They are beyond elitist."
Luckily, her love life was stable. She has been with the same woman, Freddie, for years, though they don't live together. "We tried that once and it did not work. We got together when I was 19. I haven't had any other experiences in my life... and I won't." But a surprising domesticity has crept in, as she recently bought herself a house. "I would have bought my mother [who now works at McDonald's] one first, but she wouldn't have let me."
She squeals with laughter and says it's time for a cigarette before the shoot. Leaping up, her hand races to her nose. "Do I have a booger in my nose? Oh my God. I feel that's like a writer's wet dream." I inspect the nostril. All clear. "Goody goody," she says, visibly relieved as she heads back into the studio. By this point, the place has filled up with skinny malinky photographers, make-up wastrels and other assorted fashion famine victims. Beth shoots me a unfazed smile and thrusts her boobs skywards. "Okay, y'all," she shouts to the room, "it's showtime!"
Gossip's new album, Music for Men, is out on June 22