Prince Charles is helping transvestites become classy chicks by day and sexy vamps at night.

Canvey mum Lisa Wright has been given £3,000 from the Princes' Trust to start up a business called "Tranzit" - selling women's clothes for men on the internet.

The main range boasts elegant evening dresses - tailored just for men - while the more risque designs include rubber, leather and latex creations.

Lisa, 29, said: "I got the idea when I used to go clubbing in London. There were lots of men dressed as women who looked absolutely awful. Their outfits were so ill-fitting.

"The only place they could get clothes were high street stores or specialist shops which sell tacky, nylon-type items and charge a fortune.

"Transvestite clothes need to be specially made, with less room around the bottom, bigger shoulders and nice choker designs to hide Adam's apples".

Lisa said she will be producing a small range for cross-dressers who prefer fetish clothes in rubber, leather and latex and a special silver-coloured Millennium dress with huge slits up to the thigh.

She added: "At the end of the day, I am trying to get rid of the tatty, seedy image of transvestites who do not know how to dress and instead make them look nice and respectable."

Lisa, who trained as a nurse and has a 10-year-old daughter, approached the Princes' Trust with her idea of setting up an internet mailing service.

She said: "I did think the Princes Trust would not want to tarnish its image by becoming involved with my business idea but there was nothing in its rule book to say there was a problem.

"I've used the £3,000 to buy a sewing machine, put in a telephone and fax line and I am in the middle of setting up a website.

"The majority of transvestites are married men who hold down excellent jobs but they just like to dress as women. I am trying to get away from the stigma that they are all weirdos."

Lisa, a former pupil at Furtherwick Park School on Canvey, has already undertaken an NVQ fashion course and did a business course run by Essex Training and Enterprise Council in Basildon.

Princes' Trust area manager Anne Gredley confirmed Lisa's transvestite clothes business had been given £3,000.

She said: "It was a very viable business idea. Our board was very supportive of her plan. She has found a niche in the market and we think she is going to be very successful.

"The Trust does not support businesses which bring it into disrepute or anything to do with religion, politics or sex. We do not have anything to do with body piercing businesses either as piercing is viewed as an invasion of the body.

"Lisa's business is nothing to do with any of those. She was long-term unemployed and a single mum, so she fulfils the Trust's criteria."

Measuring up - Lisa has a new business taped thanks to the Prince of Wales

Picture: STEVE O'CONNELL

(Right) Supportive - Prince Charles

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