'We're just as fat as you'

Theirs is a story of rags to riches, back to rags then more riches. Well, sort of (they both come from well-off backgrounds). Their television career, which began on Granada, took ages to heat up and, four years ago, they temporarily hit the buffers when their dotcom company, Ready2Shop, fell apart, losing their backers a cool £10 million. Their first book, Ready2Dress, was also a flop, and 13,000 copies were pulped.

But their luck changed when Jane Root, the then controller of BBC2, took a punt on the pair - in spite of their distinctly undemocratic accents - and gave them their own makeover show, What Not To Wear, in which they humiliated the fashion-free and then gave them £2,000 to spend on new gear.

On the back of this, their second book, What Not To Wear, became a surprise Christmas bestseller, outselling the likes of Jamie and Nigella by three to one. It did so well, in fact, they later signed a three-book deal worth £1 million (What You Wear Can Change Your Life is the second instalment of this series).

The new book is more touchy-feely than the last, but the girls' advice is still, if you ask me, money for old rope (albeit carefully accessorised rope): if you have thick ankles avoid flat shoes; clogged mascara and foundation tide marks are make-up no-no's; red is a tricky colour to wear.

"You're right, it's not rocket science," says Susannah, slurping on a bowl of miso soup. "But love us or loathe us, we've always had empathy with women. We're not there to degrade them. We're there to champion them. We are on their side."

The state of a woman's wardrobe, they believe, can tell you an awful lot about the state of a woman's mind. "We've done a menopause show in the new series," says Trinny. "I went to a woman's flat with her daughter, and what we found showed such a lack of love for herself. I found it very upsetting."

They both hate the way British women put themselves last, the way they are so self-deprecating. "What comes over is how little support they get from men, and how that affects their self-esteem and confidence."

But does being bamboozled by Trinny and Susannah - who are tall, slim and, crucially, rich - really help with this? "Women aspire to be Trinny, but they identify with me," says Susannah, the warmer of the two. In any case, both of them, they insist, have had their fair share of travails.

As a teenager, Trinny, who is 40, suffered from severe acne (she had laser treatment to zap the scars), and later battled an alcohol problem. She also had two miscarriages, before she had her daughter, Lyla, last year. Susannah, 42, is a mother of three (she is married to Sten Bertelsen, a businessman), with a body to prove it.

"A naked Susannah is a fat white maggot, all folds and undulating movement," she writes in the new book. "The breasts have engorged to an E-cup, the stomach has emerged like a hernia, open and laid out for inspection above every waistband, and the arms, well, they are worryingly vast." You see: they DO understand.

The perfect woman, they tell me, would have Trinny's arms, tummy and "arse", Susannah's legs and ankles and a pair of "tits" halfway between the two of them (Trinny is flat-chested).

But, after 10 years, how is their relationship? Do they ever squabble, or get envious of one another? "Things are better than ever between us," says Susannah. "We're more accepting of one another." Trinny is nodding her head - it perches on the longest neck I have ever seen - vigorously.

"Sometimes, we say things inappropriately, and sometimes we say them in a very nurturing way. But we can't bear not to get on, so if we have a row, by the end of the day, we'll have cleared it up. Either I'm being too controlling, or Susannah's being too manipulative. The only time we screamed at each other was when we had the internet business. She'd just had her first baby, and I was going: 'Work, work, work!'"

Trinny says she is not a jealous person by nature - "if you are, you have a great passion for life that maybe I sometimes lack" - so it didn't even get her down when she couldn't get pregnant. "When Susannah first started having them, a baby was the last thing I wanted, so I was, like: 'Why is this embryo interfering in our working relationship?' Then, when I

Continued from Page 27 wanted one, I thought: 'Why is God doing this to me?' But Susannah felt it more. She didn't want to tell me."

Susannah looks - surely not - tearful. "I'm 'kiss and get pregnant'. So when I was pregnant for the third time, I didn't know what to do. In the end, I called Johnnie [Elichaoff, Trinny's husband, a musician-turned-company director] and told him. It was very hard." But, of course, Trinny's first thought was how happy she was for her friend, and then it turned out she was expecting herself, anyway - which put them "more on a level".

IN SPITE of their mean and muddleheaded comments about my style, I must admit that Trinny and Susannah are difficult to dislike; their tone might be strident, but you forgive them because they are hard on themselves, too (well, Susannah certainly is; from the way she swanks around, I suspect that Trinny, acne scars or no, thinks she is pretty hot stuff). Plus, they know when to stop.

"If a woman came in and stuffed her face with 20 doughnuts, I might tell her she had a food issue," says Trinny. "But I wouldn't say: you're a fatty. I think that's patronising."

By this point, I have wriggled back into my lovely princess coat and, perhaps sensing I feel a little forlorn, they try to pull something out of the bag.

"You have a peaches and cream complexion," says Susannah. "You have a beautiful mouth," says Trinny. Ah, what sweet girls. Naturally, I am smiling too soon. "But you should change the hair," says Susannah. "Yes," says Trinny. "You're turning into your mother."

What You Wear Can Change Your Life (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20) is published on 30 September. What Not To Wear is on BBC One from 29 September. Trinny and Susannah will be signing their book at the new Waterstone's store, 311 Oxford Street, on 18 September.