For my ultimate episode of the season I go on a style journey with British luxury accessories designer Sophia Webster who is known for her fun, playful and feminine touches, not to mention her iconic butterflies. She has built a global brand in just over a decade brilliantly harnessing the power of social media to assist her on the journey.. her joyful creations have graced everyone from Beyonce and Madonna to Grayson Perry...  There really is a transformative magic in shoes and bags that Sophia understands so well. 
 
The weekend before we met I did my research by immersing myself in her wonderful new book  “Oh My Gosh I Love Your Shoes!” … BTW how often have you said exactly that? The book is a beautiful, self-illustrated visual diary of her journey.
 
We discuss the sexiest heel height… her love of butterflies (actually hard-wired into her DNA)…buying her first pair of Buffalo boots (beloved by the Spice Girls at the time) and thinking that she “had made it now”… and hysterical stories of lost wedding dresses and then lost wedding shoes… not to mention unfortunate “Anthea Turner haircuts” …as she said, great on a grown woman but not quite as good on a child.
 
Like most women I know, I am a veritable shoe (and boot) lover so I hope you enjoy this conversation with one of the most talented young designers I have met…

Season 3 - Style DNA: Sophia Webster

Join Amanda Wakeley as she is joined by a different celebrity guest each week as she uncovers their very own Style DNA.Guests include Trinny Woodall, James Blunt, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, David Furnish, Yasmin Le Bon, talk about their best and worst fashion moments as well as answering the question, 'What Do They Wear In Bed?'.New podcasts every Thursday.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Documentary

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.

Season 5 - Style DNA: Jodie Kidd

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.

Season 5 - Style DNA: Patrick Grant

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!

Season 5 - Style DNA: Sophie Tea

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)

Season 5 - Style DNA: Dame Kelly Holmes

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.

Season 3 - Style DNA: Sophia Webster

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