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.

Georgie Coleridge

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…