Plus-size women have a new online source for clothes, accessories and a self-esteem boost. Two Cincinnatians, Jeff Recker and Charlie Mason, powered up www.plussize.com for business earlier this month to tap into the lucrative plus-size clothing market.

        The site offers a message center where plus-size women can chat about fashion, beauty and life in general, a weekly first-person story and an ego-massaging message from plus-size model Christine Alt. Shopping for featured plus-size clothes is available on the site, and connections are easy to about three dozen stores, including Nordstrom, Just My Size and Spiegel. But, if the site you connect to doesn't have a search box where you can type in “plus size” you have to wade through the regular merchandise. We tried four sites; three of them had search buttons that narrowed our hunt. We gave up on the fourth.

        “We found that about 300-400 people a day were punching in plussize.com on their computers, so we purchased the name,” Mr. Recker says. "We started doing research and found the plus-size market does $30 billion a year. It's the fastest-growing segment of the apparel market."

        Not surprising when more than half of all women wear sizes 12 or over and one-third wear size 16 or larger.

        Skorts are back: That odd combination of a skirt and shorts, the “skort,” rears its head every couple of years because of its practicality. On little girls, it makes even more sense and, on them, it's cute. The Talbots Kids Summer Survival Guide features the combo geared to, shall we say “active,” little girls who love skirts but may spend a lot of time in decidedly unladylike activities. Sizes 2-8. $34. (800) 543-7123 or www.talbots.com.

        Watch this: A showing of museum-quality watches from throughout the 20th century will be June 14-17 at Bailey Banks & Biddle jewelers at Kenwood Towne Centre. It will include Movado's signature Museum Watch, influenced by the Bauhaus movement and designed in 1947 by American artist Nathan George Horwitt. There's also a pocket watch created for the Paris Exposition and a pop art watch designed by Andy Warhol. The shop is open 10 a.m.-9 p.m. June 14-16 and 1-6 p.m. June 17. Information, 793-2205.

        E-mail: jkraft@enquirer.com.

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