Amanda Wakeley: StyleDNA

In this episode I go on a style journey with former British number one Tennis player, Broadcaster and Commentator the serene and gorgeous Annabel Croft. Annabel is the BBC commentator and pundit for the coverage of Wimbledon and hosts the Wimbledon finals ceremony … of course we chat about planning her on screen looks particularly for the final’s days.    Annabel grew up on the tennis circuit, (the Tour), and in her words she spent her entire childhood in a uniform …either school or tennis kit. We chat about her choice of tennis dresses and how important that was to her in an era before the fantastic technical fabrics we have now and how the Williams sisters have set a new bar in terms of women’s tennis fashion.   She talks openly about getting a little lost stylistically after having her children but Annabel clearly loves fashion and her daughters Amber and Lily have become her trusted style gurus, sometimes pushing her out of her comfort zone but always knowing what will work on her. . We talk about her brilliant (and brave) participation in Strictly Come Dancing in 2023. Obviously we talk about her wardrobe, the talented team led by Vicky Gill and her partner Johannes, with an incredible eye for detail, having a lot of input into her costumes to make sure they enhanced the dance and her movement. But SO brave, as Annabel had lost her husband, the love of her life, Mel,  just a few months prior to this after a short battle with cancer. She talks movingly about still sleeping with his scarf … and the pain of seeing his clothes in the wardrobe … and the emotional attachment she has to certain items that he bought her or loved seeing her wear…   Annabel talks with an almost disarming honesty …such openness and warmth … I loved this conversation with a woman I am lucky enough to call my friend. Thank you Annabel for this lovely conversation.

In this week’s episode of Style DNA I chat with the original Princess of Punk, the truly extraordinary, iconic and zany, Dame Zandra Rhodes DBE. Known for her fabulously bold prints, she launched her eponymous fashion brand 56 years ago. Rhodes is renowned for perfecting the art-of-print as an intrinsic influence on garment shape. With dramatic designs and her own distinctive look, she paved the way for fashion as theatre and entertainment.   We chat about dressing international stars including Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross, Barbara Streisand and Jackie Kennedy, as well as British Royalty, most notably, Princess Diana and Princess Anne… and I cheekily ask her if, given the opportunity, what she would design for the current Princess of Wales…   She talks about how her big career break was in the 70s, meeting two Ukrainian models who persuaded her to take her collection out to America where they were sure they could find her a backer… she arrived in New York with a letter of introduction to Diana Vreeland who fell in love with her designs and instantly commissioned a huge shoot for Vogue starring Natalie Wood…and the rest, as they say, is history.    Rhodes grew up in Kent and was surrounded by fashion from an early age as her mother was a pattern cutter for The House of Worth. She would quietly watch the bridal fittings and appear in the children’s section of the shows. She evolved her own style including her love of pink hair and a dramatic eye…and always has, and still does, wear the clothes she has designed.   In 2020 she formed the Zandra Rhodes Foundation, a charity that ensures future generations of designers, artists, researchers, students and educators are able to study her life and designs, with an emphasis on her methods and techniques. Dating from the mid 1960s to the current day, the Foundation is working to catalogue her six thousand garments, printed textiles, drawings, accessories, fashion films, kodatraces, silk screens, press cuttings, personal memorabilia and collected artworks. A central collection will stay with the Foundation and the remaining material will be donated to permanent collections of major museums across the world, including the Fashion and Textile Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.   Now in her 80’s her focus more recently has been on strategic collaborations with fashion and lifestyle brands such as IKEA of Sweden, Happy Socks and Poppy Lissiman. In 2003, she founded London’s Fashion and Textile Museum, which to this day showcases some of the best in fashion and textile design.   She recently published a book, Iconic - My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects …it’s  an insightful memoir told through a variety of mementos collected over the years, in which Zandra shares her life story for the first time…definitely worth a read!   I hope you enjoy this conversation … thank you @Zandra_Rhodes for taking me on your style journey.

In this episode of Style DNA I go on a style journey with Entrepreneur, Celebrity Influencer, Presenter and Media Personality …the exquisite Rosemin. I first met Rosemin when she hosted a dinner for me in Dubai in 2018 to promote my new collection…what was lovely is that pretty much every woman attending that dinner arrived wearing Wakeley, and it felt like the most generous endorsement of me as a designer.   Rosemin grew up in Canada, her family emigrated there from East Africa in the 70’s escaping Idi Amin’s regime and effectively having to start over but exhibiting an incredible entrepreneurial work ethic to Rosemin and her brother. Her early passion for fashion took her to study fashion marketing at The London College of Fashion and then Rosemin cut her teeth in the fashion world working for Mr Ford, as in Tom Ford himself. Clearly the opportunity to work so closely with him was incredibly important to Rosemin, witnessing first hand how he approached his Creative Director role.   Following her time at the Gucci Group she was head hunted to help launch Juicy Couture in the UK and Europe. Her honed eye meant that she approached celebrity seeding in a very targeted way, and it worked. Celebrities from Kate Moss, to Gwyneth Paltrow to Queen Rania of Jordan were all photographed wearing the newly expanded collection of Juicy… the sunglasses, the slip dresses and the trench coats.   Rosemin recently remarried in Paris and we talk about her Faraz Manan wedding lenge (exquisite) and her Tamara Ralph gown (fairytale)..and why she chose these designers. We discuss the longevity of Chanel…what a brilliant job Stella McCartney is doing championing sustainability in fashion…her style icons…and the joy of wearing an Abaya …   I hope you enjoy this episode …thank you Rosemin for being such an inspiring guest!

In this episode of Style DNA I go on a Style Journey with the Founder and CEO of the online publisher SheerLuxe … the brilliant Georgie Coleridge Cole. Georgie founded SheerLuxe from her kitchen table back in 2007 inspired by the concept of sharing her recommendations, magazine style in a digital format. It was early days in the digital revolution, but knowing that she had slightly missed the heady days of print publishing she backed herself to create the now formidable SheerLuxe which has shaped what successful digital marketing looks like in the UK. She has a team of over 70 employees, over 700,000 newsletter subscribers, over 2 million social followers and a myriad of emerging and well-established brands and retailers as its commercial partners – from Net-a-Porter, and Harvey Nichols, to Reiss, Charlotte Tilbury & Chanel. Alongside well established retail brands they are huge supporters of British founder led businesses and entrepreneurship. Not surprisingly Georgie has a great sense of her own style and we chat about how her mother and she approach clothes and style in a very different way…but both care deeply about their appearance. I question Georgie about being a deb in the 21st century and we talk about how her wardrobe has evolved now she is spending more time at her new office  in the Middle East. I challenge her on ageism in fashion…something that I feel a lot of brands and publishers are missing a trick on…I do firmly believe that this is going to be the next big Ism… I hope you enjoy this conversation – and if you haven’t signed up to SheerLuxe I highly recommend it.   Thank you Georgie for being such a great guest.

In this episode I go on a Style Journey with the world-renowned florist, author and designer, affectionately dubbed the UK’s ‘Queen of Flowers’. . .the whimsically wonderful Willow Crossley. She is best known for her innate floristry skills and knowledge of botanicals and has worked with brands from Dior to Chanel, and private clients (including The Royal Family) in phenomenal spaces in Britain, Europe and America. She is also the author of four books: The Art of Handmade Living; Inspire: The Art Of Living With Nature; Flourish; and The Wild Journal: A Year of Nurturing Yourself Through Nature. Willow and I chat about her inspirations, growing up in the country, in the wilds of Wales… where she absorbed a love of colour. Back then all her pocket money went on magazines which she would devour and analyse with her stylish mother. She moved to London and studied at the London College of Fashion and went on to work at both Vogue and Tatler which certainly honed her aesthetic eye in an era when the editors were “super glam”.  We talk bridesmaids dresses…Willow has been a bridesmaid an astonishing 14 times!…and then her wedding dress and her blister-inducing Louboutins…and then moving to Provence and spending the summers floating around in Edwardian cotton pieces that she had collected over time. Back in the UK and based in the Cotswolds with a burgeoning business and 3 boys, we discuss her eclectic style, her love of colour, her passion (borderline obsession) for sneakers, and the challenge of staying warm and stylish for her frequently chilly work, as well as her collaborations with the likes of Brora and her approach to sustainable floristry as well as fashion. Thank you @willowcrossleycreates …I so enjoyed our happy conversation xx

In this episode of Style DNA podcast I take a Style Journey with the fabulous, inimitable and hilarious Katherine Ryan.   Unsurprisingly, being the brilliant comedienne that she is, Kathryn’s observations on life are hysterical and our conversation is peppered with witty quips. We discuss the fine line that comics walk so as not to expose too much of their family life but she has me hooting with laughter time and again as she peppers the conversation with snippets from her home life, including her husband Bobby’s inspired step-parenting, not to mention Botox (apparently you can’t have too much when you have babies as they need to see your expressions), and the side effects of having to take steroids during a pregnancy…all dryly delivered… When it comes to clothes, we discuss the power of dressing for the occasion – she says she “wants a world where females dress for their worth”…what’s not to love about that? Being drawn to older women. Why Celine Dion is her style icon and the fashion mistake her stylist didn’t allow her to make…and so so much more  I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it …thank you @kathbum for entertaining us all so brilliantly…

In this episode I go on a sartorial journey with the celebrated British Milliner Stephen Jones OBE. Jones is considered one of the most radical and important milliners of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is also one of the most prolific, having created hats for the catwalk shows of many leading couturiers and fashion designers, from John Galliano, Kim Jones and Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, the house of Schiaparelli to Rei Kawakubo at Commes des Garcons. His work is known for its inventiveness and high level of technical expertise.  Stephen’s hats have adorned Rock Stars and Royalty and way beyond… His major retrospective exhibition opens in October at the Palais Galliera in Paris.   Stephen is chatty and has a wonderful way with words, painting pictures as he goes…We discuss jointly dressing the then Meghan Markle for her first Royal engagement when she attended the Commonwealth Service in 2018 with Prince Harry. He shares his insights on the process, the importance of the Royal Family to the world of millinery, and how people the world over use hats and headwear as style signifiers.    I ask him to explain his quote  “You wear clothes – and hats – to convince yourself and others that you’re a certain way. Fashion is still a fabulous, fabulous lie.”  …needless to say his answer was both insightful and amusing.   Fashion and appearance clearly run deep in Stephen’s veins and he talks with such knowledge, intuition and wisdom…and more than a little cheeky humour. I felt privileged, and entertained having this conversation with him.   Thank you Stephen for sharing your wit and wisdom.

I am launching Season 6 with someone who is known well to her 1.3 million followers as she lives her life so openly via her Instagram channel … she is warm and engaging, the sort of girl you feel is your friend even though you have never met her personally… I am talking about the lovely Lorna Luxe.   Lorna started her career as cabin crew for Virgin, back in the day when you had to do “X Factor-like day long auditions” for the 800 places that 800,000 applied for that year.  She loved her job flying around the world, proudly sporting her “empowering” Virgin uniform…that is, until her anorexia got the better of her. Unbelievably, Virgin HR used to measure each of their crew members in their annual reviews … clearly another era (not so long ago) and another story… Lorna had always loved her fashion and became an early adopter of Instagram back in 2014…she takes me on her Instagram journey and the secrets of her success but it is all underlined with a real passion for beautiful clothes, accessories and beauty. She is very considered …knows her fashion well, and talks with a wonderful Northern pragmatism. It wasn’t until she had 500,000 followers that she started to monetize her feed…she is rumoured to consistently take home in excess of 7 figures a year…yes, you heard that right.  Lorna is driven and always wanted to create her own brand, she talks about her journey starting up @LA Space with total transparency and honesty. We chat about her love of mood boarding, her style icons and being passionate about size inclusivity. It doesn’t surprise me that she has built the community she has, and the success alongside - she is one authentic, clever and intuitive woman… I loved our conversation. Thank you Lorna x

In this final episode of Season 5 of my Style DNA podcast I go on a style journey withPrince’s Trust Women for Women Ambassador and transgender fashion designer Serenity Mason. Serenity started her fashion business in 2018 - Vault of Serenity, a stall in Tunstall Market, Stoke, after completing The Prince’s Trust Enterprise programme. The programme had offered her practical advice about tax, business planning and pricing her items, as well as the support of a business mentor.   I met Serenity at a Prince’s Trust fund raising dinner and I was so struck by her and her story that I felt the best way for me to help shine a light on the incredible, life changing (and, at times) even life-saving work that the Prince’s Trust is doing was to use my Style DNA platform. It’s a fascinating and optimistic conversation and I have to thank Serenity for sharing her story so openly…to be so frank about her gender identity and her struggles.  I really hope that this is heard by many and reaches the ears of some who may find it helpful…

In this episode of Style DNA I go on a Style journey with the award winning BBC broadcaster, TV personality and DJ, bowel cancer survivor and Marathon record holder, the remarkable Adele Roberts.Adele is a wonderfully open and vulnerable guest talking about how she never felt feminine growing up ...gravitating towards the menswear section because she didn’t feel like she fit in and feeling like she would be judged...heartbreaking actually. She is trying to be more vocal about this now to help other kids who perhaps don’t feel like they fit in. Her life partner of 20 years, Kate Holderness, is clearly helping her to understand that clothing is a form of expression and self-love, gently navigating Adele's style journey with her... She says that it wasn’t until she had cancer, and then a stoma, that she learned to love her body ...we talk about dressing around the stoma (which she has affectionately called Audrey...there is a story behind that) and the joy she is now finding in fashion...even wearing a bikini on a recent holiday with her stoma showing with pride.She has written a book about her life and her cancer journey... Personal Best - From Rock Bottom to Top of the World which is a beacon of hope...she has clearly done a lot of soul searching especially when she was preparing for her record breaking Marathon run... in her opinion she was holding onto too much toxicity which was possibly the cause of her cancer...it is an inspiring read.I hope you enjoy this sincere and soulful episode...thank you @adeleroberts for being so beautifully honest and open... I loved our conversation x

In this episode of Style DNA I go on a Style journey with Actress, TV presenter, Philanthropist and Entrepreneur  … the gorgeous Geordie girl Donna Air.    Donna rose to early fame aged 10 as an actress in the children’s television series Byker Grove, a popular show set in the Newcastle area. She went on to form the pop duo Crush which found some success in the late 1990’s. Her career has spanned presenting MTV, to the Big Breakfast as well as appearing in numerous films and TV dramas.   Donna is currently performing in the award winning ghost story 2:22 at the Gielgud Theatre alongside James Buckley, Stacey Dooley and Joe McFadden…The play, written by Danny Robins is a supernatural thriller that has received critical acclaim for its intense and gripping narrative with the story revolving around a couple who hear strange noises in the new house and begin to suspect it might be haunted… I for one, can’t wait to see Donna’s performance.   Success came early in life for Donna and we chat about her teenage years in Newcastle “geared around her Saturday night outfits”…in time this passion transferred to her pop video or performing clothes. She reminisces about her youthful inability to control her clothing spending, particularly whilst touring in America.   We discuss her love of strong female characters and how inspiring they are…not to mention the fact that slowly there are more female roles for women post their 30’s…finally!   Donna clearly loves beautiful clothes, whilst not being remotely materialistic, but she laughs about how in the past these beautiful things have slipped through her fingers …how she would give away her clothes and accessories to friends and how her daughter Freya, now 19, keeps asking her where pieces are that she is wearing in old photographs that she would love to wear now…all since long gone!   Thank you @donnaair for sharing your stories and your insights so generously.

In this episode of Style DNA I go on a style journey with the English singer, songwriter and TV personality Wes Nelson… His most recent claim to fame being his incredibly catchy and hugely successful collaboration with Craig David and the hit Abracadabra but during our conversation I saw Wes in a whole new light and I found his self-deprecating sense of humour, his honesty (and his chuckle) both infectious and charming…   He trained as a nuclear systems design engineer thinking he would follow his father into the motor industry but it seems that this self-proclaimed “Bloke from Stoke” has a different destiny. Passionate about music and performing from a young age, he was discovered partly through social media, and then a spell on Love Island led to his viral collaboration with Craig David (his childhood idol)… the rest is rapidly becoming history as he evolves his songwriting and music, as well as his personal style.   We laugh about how he spent WAY too much in his early days …dressing in the “expected” Rapper style for his rap performances replete with the diamond encrusted gold watch and strongly logo’ d designer pieces like his Nigo X Vuitton double denim. He clearly loves his fashion and is on a journey with it, evolving his style as his music evolves… I for one cannot wait to see what this next chapter holds stylistically and musically.   We discuss the symbolism behind his different tattoos including a can of Sunny D to remind him of his grandfather… and his love of Rimowa luggage…why? Because apparently he rides it through the airport…probably not how or why it was designed, but I couldn’t help laughing at the image of him riding his Rimowa down a ramp in Gatwick airport.   I hope you enjoy this episode… I found Wes a breath of fresh air and came away from our conversation with a light-hearted feeling and a knowing smile on my face… clothes, after all, should bring us joy… they certainly do Wes.   Thank you @wesnelson for bringing such a great conversation to the table…will you come back next year and update me on the style evolution that you are planning?

In this episode I go on a style journey with the Creative Director Lucinda Chambers. Lucinda has worked in the fashion industry for more than three decades…as Fashion Director of British Vogue for 25 years she certainly shaped the face of fashion and inspired the wardrobes of millions of women. She has worked as a creative consultant and stylist across both high street and luxury brands from Prada and Marni to H&M, River Island and Warehouse. We reminisce about her early days as a fantastically creative stylist at Vogue, in the pre-internet days she used National Geographic for her location inspiration…taking her to Ladakh in northern India on her very first location shoot…with Cindy Crawford and the photographer Patrick Demarchelier…sleeping in tents and drawing sticks to get the last few seats on the plane out…so naively brave… She talks eloquently about creating the story which has inspired the images…how for her image making was all about the narrative and I use the opportunity to ask about one of my favourite images of Linda Evangelista wearing Wakeley… Her journey in fashion has been a long and fabulous one …starting at Vogue as the secretary to the petty cash lady but her talent and creative vision took her the whole way…she is a phenomenally optimistic creative, making the most of every situation stating that it’s never a crisis it’s an opportunity...whether that was all the clothes for a cover shoot with Emma Watson being stolen from the luggage compartment of the Eurostar, to arriving to shoot in Miami as a hurricane had just flattened it… but always improvising and coming back with the shots. Since her well-publicised departure from Vogue when the then new editor Edward Enninful ushered in a new era and a new team… she has flourished creating her revolutionary shopping platform Collagerie with her ex-Vogue colleague Serena Hood. Expertly curating the best in fashion, interiors, beauty and lifestyle, the brand celebrates shopping at every price point, bringing you an innovative way to discover inspiring, and at times unexpected, designs. Thank you @lucindachambers for being such an open and generous guest …it was lovely to reconnect x

This week's Style DNA podcast episode is with the Irish chef, TV presenter, cookbook author and resident chef on This Morning - the wonderful Clodagh McKenna.It was such a treat to open the door to a joyful Clodagh who arrived carrying a freshly baked carrot cake which she proceeded to ice herself before we started our recording ... I can honestly say her carrot cake is the best I have ever eaten and it took serious will power on my part not to dig in during our conversation!Clodagh grew up in Cork and she paints a beautiful picture of her childhood family rituals including baking bread and prepping food at the weekend for the week ahead. Eating home cooked food around a lovingly laid table with fresh linen clearly influenced her appreciation of the importance of mealtime. Her mother would always tidy herself and apply lipstick before her husband came home from work which is a charming custom that Clodagh has adopted herself.Her passion for baking was ignited when a young Clodagh went on a French exchange, and she returned to Ireland able to make a cracking Tarte Tartin but also with a flavour for Gallic style which still influences her dress sense to this day.Clodagh is one of those individuals whose passion for everything she turns her hand to is infectious - she trained at the legendary Ballymalloe Cookery School. When she felt she had learned everything she could in Ireland she moved herself to Turin, Italy to immerse herself in Italian food and culture... before finally moving to London in her early 40s when she started opening up her kitchen to do dinners for guests ... a charming custom that she still does to this day. We talk about discovering her style DNA, which she feels didn't really happen until coming to London. Her formula, which clearly gives her confidence,  involves a lot of denim, white shirts and tailoring.  We laugh about last minute wardrobe changes on the set of This Morning when the all-male crew realised her top was just a little bit too revealing (let's just say totally see-through) for the viewers...and how being led by an overly enthusiastic stylist for a book launch shoot left her feeling totally lost...all good lessons learned and all stories told in a way that inimitable Irish way... 

This week’s Style DNA guest is the 90s British supermodel, turned entrepreneur, TV personality, author AND pub landlady … the awesome Jodie Kidd.   We first met in the 90s, it was Jodie’s first London show season at the tender age of 15. She had been encouraged to give modelling a go as a way to pay for the new horsebox she wanted as she was a competitive show jumper at the time. I remember my casting director being so excited to get Jodie in my show…but I also have a vague recollection of Jodie having to cram her feet into the shoes that I had designed for the show …at 6’2” with size 42.5 feet my show samples were a full size and a half too small… but she just did it, and as you will hear…she just carried on doing it with an incredible career trajectory walking for all the great houses doing the shows from New York to London to Milan to Paris and then on to the couture shows in between …until the pace of it all left her completely burned out, very underweight and crippled by anxiety. At which point she dramatically quit the modelling world…literally walking off a catwalk in Milan mid show.   Being a country girl at heart she found solace in nature and home grown food, and then returned to her first passion, horses. However, Jodie never does anything by halves, within no time at all she was playing polo for the country, and her need for speed then saw her set a track record on Top Gear which in turn got her noticed by Maserati, who she then went on to drive for professionally in Italy…   Jodie’s career has twisted and turned …she is a true force of nature…whatever she turns her attention to she throws herself into 150%. Perhaps, because of her varied careers she is wise beyond her years but she shares her experiences and insights very openly. Her views on the mad world of fashion are initially through the lens of a very young country girl who came into the industry almost accidentally. She has warmth and charisma in spades.  I hope you enjoy this episode.

In this episode, I go on a sartorial journey with designer, businessman, author, and TV presenter Patrick Grant. Perhaps best known for his role in the TV show “The Great British Sewing Bee,” Grant is a man who has a lot to say about clothes: how many we buy, how we value them, what they’re made from, and importantly, who made them and where. Patrick Grant has an engineering background and he has applied this knowledge to his fashion journey. I find myself going down a rabbit hole with Grant on the provenance of our clothes… on elastane and polymers and microplastics. We travel on with his journey of rebuilding the Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons and then on to 2015 when he bought the ailing Blackburn clothing manufacturer Cookson & Clegg, saving the factory from closure and the potential loss of all the skills of the team, not to mention their jobs. Grant has a passion for skilled British craftsmanship and in 2016 he created his campaigning clothes brand Community Clothing, which supports local clothing and textile manufacturers across the UK… just brilliant. As you can probably tell by now, Grant is a man on a mission. His recently launched book “Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish: How Having Fewer, Better Things Can Make Us Happier” makes for pretty sobering reading. As he says, “We used to care a lot about our clothes. We didn’t have many but those we had were important to us. We’d cherish them, repair them, and pass them on. And making them provided fulfilling work for millions of skilled people locally.” This is something we have totally lost sight of in our quest for more and cheaper… a fast fashion dopamine hit. He goes on to say, “Today the average person has nearly five times as many clothes as they did just 50 years ago. Last year, 100 billion garments were produced worldwide, most made from oil, 30% of which were not even sold, and the equivalent of one bin lorry full of clothing is dumped in landfill or burned every single second. Our wardrobes are full to bursting with clothes we never wear so why do we keep buying more?” On a lighter note, we touch on some of his worst fashion moments… probably in the 80s, living in San Francisco… but, he was wearing a sarong before David Beckham famously did! Patrick is a fabulously knowledgeable guest, and he really gets you thinking about the beauty and importance of just having LESS. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

In this episode I go on a style journey with British born international visual artist Sophie Tea. Sophie has recently come onto my radar…her work is defined by her vibrant use of colour, energetic drips and signature splats – it champions inclusivity, self-acceptance, accessibility and strives to make women feel just a little bit nicer about themselves… a resounding YES to that!   Sophie’s subject of choice is women…naked women. She is fresh off the back of her Send Nudes Live show at The London Palladium in which 50 naked women are painted for a live catwalk show, her 6th to date. She had a staggering 10,000 applications from women to walk in the show so she is clearly onto something. We talk about how when she was growing up she had never felt comfortable with her body shape, how the role models of her childhood were very stereotypical and how as a result of this she wants to celebrate the female form in all it’s wonderful variations.   Sophie’s mission is to make art more accessible… she is open about her commercial approach to this, using social media to reach her customers and offering payment instalments to her young audience who may be too intimidated to go into a gallery… she is brilliantly entrepreneurial and certainly breaking the traditional gallerist mould.   We discuss how as human beings we bond through our clothes, we sometimes connect with people simply by what we are wearing and being in a similar style tribe. We talk about how our clothes can often tell stories…Sophie undoubtedly has a passion for fashion, it’s definitely a hobby for her… be it thrifting (in “posh areas”), to buying full-on designer pieces, to the joy of choosing yet more cowboy boots at the mecca of cowboy boots that is Allens in Texas… not to mention something we are both guilty of… “milestone” shopping.   I hope you enjoy this episode…thank you @sophieteaart for being such a great guest …let’s go thrifting!

I’m thrilled to announce that Season 5 of my Style DNA podcast is launching with double Olympic champion, global inspirational and motivational speaker, TV presenter and Author …the simply AWESOME Honorary Colonel Dame Kelly Holmes MBE.   I loved our conversation in which we discussed the fact that Kelly spent the best part of the first 30 years of her life in one uniform or another (school, track and military)  and how she didn’t even really think about her personal style before then… Emerging from a life lived in a uniform she chose to wear clothes to fit in and be less visible until… she came out. She credits the turning point for her being her authentic self started on the morning of her mother’s funeral. She sat in her hairdresser’s chair and had the side of her head shaved …citing that she had a choice that her mother didn’t have any longer and knowing that her mother really wanted her to live her true life… this was clearly a catalytic moment for her.  Since coming out she has discovered her passion for style, colour and simply joyful dressing.   We talk about Imposter Syndrome …yes even someone with all of Kelly’s achievements can experience Imposter Syndrome (a lesson there?) …and how surprisingly, a run in panto helped her overcome this…   Kelly radiates health and happiness… her face is as warm and open as her heart is …she is a true beauty inside and out and I really appreciate her transparency and openness in sharing her lessons that have been learned (like the most important ones often are)…the hard way. Thank you @damekellyholmes for sharing your feelings, your stories and your insights so generously …you certainly are UNIQUE (and huge, well deserved congratulations on the success of your memoir…Unique)

In the final episode of Season 4 Style DNA I go on a Style journey with the inimitable, iconic, Dame Prue Leith, currently best known for being a judge on The Great British Bake Off as well as her Saturday morning ITVX show, Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen. Prue is now in her 9th decade and appears to be speeding up rather than slowing down... she says she is still discovering her style with the help of her 2nd husband John who used to be in the fashion industry and loves nothing more than shopping for her. She credits him with suggesting her more youthful haircut which now sees her hair swept off her "lined forehead that was being hidden by her fringe" into a wonderful choppy crop that has honestly taken 20 years off her look...We discuss the lasting impact of the vibrant colours that she grew up surrounded by in South Africa  - and how she loves the fact that "many women write to me and say that they never wore colour until I saw you did it" ... and with 323K followers on Instagram alone, she is a veritable Influencer... We talk about her love of wearing trainers and how our choice of footwear can be so transformative...either making us look older or cooler...not to mention, the power of good posture.She talks about the joy of a super organised kitchen which translates into a super organised wardrobe...all colour coded for ease...  We talk about the challenges of dressing for the Red Carpet ...and, in fact, her love of all things red...the red Lanvin dress she chose to wear to her pre-wedding dinner to John, her favourite red coat and a colourist once telling her never to wear red as it is an aggressive colour ...(I must admit I think fashion "colourists" have a lot to answer for) ... And we giggle about her dislike of Botox ... at which point I try to move my forehead...(ahem, with difficulty)... and the fact that she has never worn sexy lingerie but thinks she may still give it a go...I so enjoyed this conversation with Prue Leith... thank you for sharing your thoughts with such warmth and humour.

In the penultimate episode of Season 4 Style DNA, I go on a style journey with the Broadcaster, Journalist and Radio Presenter …the gorgeous Kirsty Gallacher. Kirsty spent her childhood in Surrey watching her golfing legend father, Bernard Gallacher, wear “a lot of Lyle & Scott”…. She is a keen sportswoman herself and I asked her whether her fit, athletic body affects her style choices... We talk about her using clothes to help her navigate her role as a young female sports presenter for Sky, and working with a stylist especially for the thoroughly intimidating experience of dressing for the Red Carpet…and the counter to that…not having to “dress up” for her presenting role on Smooth Radio… we both agree that if you feel good in what you are wearing you will do your best job. Kirsty has always been passionate about fashion, an early job meant that she learned from the master himself, Joseph Ettedgui in Joseph on Sloane Street, but she is now a self-proclaimed capsule wardrobe fan …and how at 48 she finally feels more at ease in her skin as well as her style choices … I hope you enjoy this episode.