S23 Ep3: ⁠Kate Halfpenny — Founder of Halfpenny London: Celebrating individuality & empowering brides

0:00Listen deeply, really listen. The gift of listening is quiet magic. And when you use it, you'll learn more than you ever thought possible. You know, if there's one designer who really gets the soul of a bride, it's Kate Halfpenny. She's the founder of Halfpenny London. And honestly, what she's created is just it's so much more than just beautiful dresses. it's about making women feel amazing in their own skin confident empowered completely themselves on what is classed as one of the most important days of her life and it was talking to her and I just kept on thinking god this woman must just love women you can feel it in everything she does her care attention it's not just the look so we chatted a lot about her journey from working with Vivian Westwood to building a brand rooted in self-love and individuality.

0:58And it reminded me of the power when someone stays true to their purpose. There are wobbles for sure and we cover those. There's the roller coaster and the dips that make you feel sick to your stomach. But I suppose Kate's story shows that when you lead with heart, you can create something that goes well beyond what you've imagined. Enjoy. Let your eyelids close on down Where we're going, you won't need to bring your frown Hi, I'm Holly Tucker and welcome to my podcast, Conversations of Inspiration. I've reached out to founders and those who simply inspire me to share their hard-earned wisdom with you.

1:42My hope is that collectively, these remarkable realizations will help you on your own journey. I like to think of it as inspiration for life. So let's begin this week's Conversation of Inspiration. Kate, it is lovely to be talking to you. Welcome to Conversations of Inspiration. Thank you for having me. It is so exciting. And we're both sitting here in our thick rimmed glasses. We've already had our chat about, we're going to talk about this because we have a couple of things that are in common. But the last time we spoke was COVID time. And I'm going to refer back to this in this podcast because it was SME SOS, which I'd launched, I think it was, 24 hours after lockdown.

2:29And I'm really excited to talk to you about your whole world. So, as I said, we've got a couple of things in common. We love a good evil eye. I know that we've got eyes. Yeah, it never leaves me. Yeah, there it is around your neck. Gorgeous bling. Funny enough, around your neck. We both have an addiction to jewellery as well, I know. I call myself yeah look at your yes there's her wrists covered in bling and I'm actually building up I've decided to go back to my old days where I used to have I don't know 20 bangles on each wrist yeah and I used to have a you used to know that I'm coming like a sort of cowbell a cowbell exactly that I was just literally going to say what's those cows in Switzerland The cowbell, I'm going back there, right?

3:18So I'm going to send you off to this because I found some great bangles. And the other thing is we love our interiors as well. We do. I describe, because my son just came home. He didn't just come home. Came home quite early this morning with a couple of friends. And that was good because, you know, we love a good wake up at two o 'clock in the morning. And they sort of were looking around the house. and you know it's like yours a little out there it's it's confident and um they sort of said what do you do and I was like well I sort of I'm not going to bore you this morning with my small business love but I just sort of do this sort of thing you know creativity this is sort of my yoga yeah I don't know how you describe it I don't sort of do anything except Holly and Co and Holly and is it's a love of interiors, colour, creativity, less ordinary.

4:11Yeah, 100%. That is exactly my, yeah, my definition too of relaxing is pouring through magazines, interior magazines, not fashion really, ironically, being in the fashion world. And also home tours. I'm obsessed with home tours. Like that is just somewhere I can... What do you mean home tours? Oh my God, are we going to find another common denominator? Yeah, literally. Go on, tell me. Like Architect's Digest, Home Tools. Oh my gosh, I think we're going to become best friends. It's that scene I always refer to in Notting Hill, you know, when she follows Julia Roberts up to the toilet, you know, and says, maybe I should leave you now.

4:47I'm having one of those moments with you. One of my favourite things in the world to do is go to Wix or B &Q or anywhere like that, or a good manual of stuff. Do you remember in the Sunday Times when we were younger, maybe there was like that innovation little magazine yes and used to go through it and used to be like gadgets to put your socks on yeah it is that is just heaven my childhood was getting the argos catalog out and just looking through that at my grandparents like they'd always have it under the telephone table so the telephone directory fascinating beasts they were yes but the argos catalog was just do you remember the next catalog i do oh Oh my gosh.

5:31And literally they were hardback. Hardback. And they were just like, if you had the next catalogue, you'd kind of made it. And if you had the latest next catalogue, you'd made it even more. I remember going to my friend Emma Islips at school and I'm sure it was her mum that always just had the latest. That was a thing. That was a thing. Now, for everyone who doesn't know you, and I'm sure everyone does, you're the most celebrated bridal designer. and nothing brings you more happiness apart from the little things that we just spoke about than your brides but I wanted to ask you tell me about sort of this creativity we're going to get into your story and we're going to start from the beginning but just before that you've just renovated this old vicarage and it is a labour of love for sure and I follow you on Instagram it's full of colour and art and it's a dream tell me about this haven that you've created we have bought a beautiful five and a half thousand square foot vicarage that was initially built in around the 1300s the original bit and then it's been added on and added on and it is we specifically come to Fabersham to look at another house that we've seen online that had this giant gymnasium attached to the back of it that had been turned into like a community center a georgian house with a community center attached it was just fascinating and we were like we could have our artist studio in there we could have all of these things anyway we went to look at that and we were like there's no garden it's not right we're not leaving london for a house without a garden so we at the same time my husband said oh i've seen this kind of rambling old vicarage in the same town so we booked both of them to view and we pulled in the drive of this i remember pushing sylvester into putting it into the pusher and pushing him into the front door and just kind of just looking up at this house it had a turning circle and it had cars just parked everywhere all over the grass because it had got some kind of you know those guardian tenants in to stop people breaking in and um the last people that had owned it were the church and it was just it kind of took our breath away but it was a kind of a gray day and we were just like oh my gosh what a massive project i'm not sure we can do this and we both went no it's just too much just too much and then about two hours later we were going but it is quite amazing anyway I then flew off to Morocco with some girlfriends and for a long weekend and by the time I'd got off the plane I was phoning the estate agent to put an offer in and then I called my husband and I said I phoned the estate agent and put an offer in on my vicarage she went I knew you would have done that I knew you would have done that I just knew it I just knew it and he was like I love your relationship yeah you don't have to ask him no well I just thought if he doesn't agree then we can pull out but i just thought we need we just so then yeah it then took months and months and months to buy it because the church had only just put it on the market and then they had to market it for a period of time and then it went to seal bids and there were eight people it sealed bids and literally i'd become best friends with the estate agent and i would call every single day to say is there any news is there any news they're all meeting next week they're all meeting this day so in the end i've become such good friends with this woman i know exactly when she worked Like what three days she was in.

8:43Like by this point, it was ridiculous. And afterwards, I phoned to say thank you that we've got the house and everything. And they said, oh, she doesn't work here anymore. I was like, because I wanted to send her flowers. I wanted to say, you literally held my hand through what was the biggest move of our life, to move out of London to this. It was almost like she never existed. It was kind of, I didn't know where she'd gone. I couldn't send flowers. It was almost just like this kind of crazy guardian angel that had been put there. How beautiful. How beautiful. Do you approach, I was thinking about this love of interiors, do you approach your sort of designing your home in the same way that you, I don't know, might think about designing your dresses?

9:26Because the style shines through, right? And you're the creator, so to speak. But does it transfer? It does, but it's really difficult with interiors because they're so much more physical and it's not like taking a sleeve off a dress and saying, actually, I think I prefer it with a shorter sleeve. Or when you've committed to tiles and you've committed to building a wall or putting something there, it's far more brutal to go, actually, that's wrong. So that's why sometimes making decisions like the bathrooms, we've recently finished those over the last year or so. And I just spend so much time in the prep of it.

10:03So even though I do take the same kind of approach, I go through it's almost like cutting the sleeve off changing the hemline I have to do all of that before we can finally get there first so yeah I love that yeah because it's quite an expensive mistake to make if you need to take the tiles off and what I try to do with the interiors that are more permanent as in tiles and walls is to do something that will stand the test of time I was going to turn the big double wet room I was going to do it with terracotta tiles floors ceilings everything and i'm i'm just kind of so glad i didn't because now i just see so many terracotta tiles and that kind of deep red bathroom that i would have yeah so i instead i went with a mixture of marble and and i did weatherboard on the walls i i everyone was like what do you mean you put wood on on the wet room walls and i i found a wood called tricoil which is like an mdf that's waterproof and then i had them sprayed in a car garage so i have i'll send you pictures after so it's shuttering like on the outside of a house but the wet room walls are that Oh, my gosh.

11:06And it's so low maintenance because it's car spray. So just literally give it a wipe over. Just wipe over. And practical. Not that I think about anything practical. I don't know about you. That's that sort of thing. You know, I'm like, Frank, I'm going to do this and this. And his first thing he says is, how would you dust that? And I'm like, do you think dusting had any place in the mindset of my creating this masterpiece of a wall or something? Are you practical and design? No, I'm not that practical, to be honest, I think. Yeah. I mean, I did a house up many, many years ago in my 20s in Ladbroke Grove.

11:45And I did the kitchen tops in sandstone, which was stunning, beautiful, this kind of amazing brown sandstone. but every time if you were going to get a mug away in the drawer and you knocked the edge it would chip and it was just like what i think is that i did that house that with an ex who said that you know he never wanted to have a house party in there because it would just be yeah it'd just be carnage so when him and i split up and we were selling that house i got pipe lagging you know that you put down your pipes and i pipe lagged all of the counter and then i had a party for about 300 people in that house before i sold it and everyone was like what was all of this around the beautiful beautiful kitchen and pipe lagging gaffer tape they were like Kate she doesn't necessarily have it does she tell me I want to go back to little Kate in Derbyshire I read when researching you for the podcast that you had a creative household so you were sucking this up your grandmother was a machinist at a denim factory and your mother Josephine was a knitwear designer so you had literally fabric in your dna in your blood it ran deep it did my grandmother taught me to sew on a manual machine to start with and then she had it electrified oh god i'm sounding ancient actually the denim factory it was interesting because it was the denim factory that would um repair all the overalls for rolls royce oh wow so instead of you just getting a new pair of overalls you would your your damaged ones would go and get repaired by my grandma and all of her her amazing friends and and they were really proud of what they did it was such as such a an incredible job I just wish people valued so much that craft these days yeah it was just wonderful she'd get on her bike cycle off there it was just gorgeous she just yeah and she taught me to sew she taught me to repair and re-wear she taught me to cut things up and remake things.

13:41And she genuinely instilled that level of craft, creativity. And my grandfather, actually, I remember something. I love handwriting. I'm obsessed with it. I would copy my mum's handwriting. She had the most gorgeous, cursive, beautiful writing. And just copy. There's a teacher, Mr. Turner, that I'll never forget from St. Benedict's, from my school, that just used to have the most beautiful. He'd write everything in caps. And I'd sit and copy in the lesson. I'd probably be in such a trance, not doing my work, just copying his handwriting. So my granddad, it stuck with me that there is no such thing as messy handwriting.

14:14So that creativity, grandma's machining. And then mum, she always was, she'd take things like curtain poles, the slightly scalloped curtain poles. And then she'd put them on a bandsaw that she had in the garage, cut these little discs and then hand paint flowers and scenes and then gloss them and put brooches on, bats on them and do craft fairs and sell them. And she always kind of worked as a receptionist or different things for mainly for Celestian Textiles, which is the factory that used to make all of M &S's underwear. And she set the knitwear business up as a little side hustle. So I think the creativity was always there in many ways with mum, whether the knitwear business was her full time joy for life.

14:59She was never that lucky to have that for her whole career. What a wonderful way to sort of come into the world with that surrounding you. How did it manifest itself as a child? You know, when you sat there with your mum and was she always encouraging you to express yourself or carve out your identity when you were little? And I read that when they were available, you would cut out photos from fashion magazines and mix and match the outfits. Again, like the next catalogue, Forgetting Vogue magazine was an utter treasure because there was no imagery online. That just didn't even exist. It was just we didn't even have computers at that very young age.

15:42And any opportunity to get pictures and fashion and record covers and smash hits and all of those amazing magazines. It just, yeah, I loved it. And mum would always say that there wouldn't be a piece of paper in the house near anything that I hadn't doodled all over. Or, you know, even if it was just, I often would sit and just write, Kate, Kate, Kate. Like, just, it sounds insane, but I'd just be practicing. Now we're at our age, it doesn't sound insane anymore, does it? No. I mean, if our kid was doing that, I think, I don't know, maybe I'm in a bubble, I don't know. But are we more aware that that means that that's the diamond within them?

16:22You know, and that actually that's the thing that they're going to do. I mean, when you were just talking there, I think back to when I was, I've got to think I was 13, 14 and my birthday present was World of Interiors for a year. No, we couldn't afford it. Six months. Yeah. Like that's a serious magazine getting, you know, and I would cut out every single page that I loved and created a binder for it. Yeah. And like I'm literally sitting in my room before my GCSEs, you know, with these Moroccan re-ads and these sort of things. And I would redo my bedroom all the time. You know, mum would come up and I'm like, I'm redoing my bedroom, cutting up her sheets.

17:07putting them on my ceiling as clouds and then having this whole, I mean, what? She let me and we weren't a creative household, so to speak. But it is amazing now, I think we're much more aware, I don't know about your son, but thinking about what we're seeing and allowing maybe that seed to be the seed of their life rather than potentially what we were in, which is actually you also need to be cookie cutter. Yeah. Sylvester is immersed in interiors. He is obsessed. He's nine, 10 in August. He is like, he got home from school last night. We went straight up to the second floor where we're just renovating the loft.

17:48And he was just like, so what's happening here? And I said, I just want to talk you through some lights that I bought. And I don't know what you think. And he said, I think they should go this way. And I said, I'm not quite sure. And I'd bought those kind of architectural tubes to put up there. And I bought long ones and some shorter ones and we got them out and we were playing it's like i think like he was doing so radical with them i was like oh don't want to do that but he i'll never forget i was on the um in working from home in the in lockdown i was on a zoom call with the whole netter porter team talking about the new collection we were doing with them and i said sylvester you know he was kind of sat next to me and i said you know you mustn't speak throughout this it's you know i'm doing a meeting but i'd said to the team you know sylvester's here next to me yeah and um he he disappeared off and i was on this call and then he came back and he's going I really need to speak to you I really need to speak to you and I'm like you were having one of those moments yes not now like and I said I'm so sorry I think something's wrong with him I really need to talk to him he's kind of gesticulating across the table so I said what's wrong and he said they're painting this kitchen ceiling the wrong color and I was like what and it must have been after them it must have been when we could work from i can't remember we were back at school or something yeah yeah yeah because we got builders in and he the decorators had put a primer on the ceiling to seal the beautiful old ceiling and he thought the primer was the paint color we'd chosen and he knew what paint color we'd chosen he said they're doing it all wrong they're doing it so sorry he's nine going on 10 now that's five years ago yeah so he we've always been doing the house yeah wow he's fascinating he's amazing so for Christmas he asked for 200 plants of wood to build a house and he wants to build a house he wants to capture the water from the humidity and the rain to create the water he doesn't want to plummet he's got all of these ideas and James and I the dream after this house when we finish this and when we no longer want to live in this giant big cavernous dusty place alone we want to build a house and And we talk about Sylvester because the Minecraft houses that he builds for us.

19:51Yes. Incredible. Unbelievable. That's where Minecraft is incredible. Absolutely. Not the movie necessarily, which I haven't had to go through because Harry's now 20. But he was a Minecraft head massively. And what they were building and the crazy conversations. But a few girlfriends with your age kid literally said they wished that there was wine on tap. as they had to go through that film. I'm going to get back to you. You spoke of your influence of your wonderful mother that she's had on you. And I'm so sorry that you lost her. And I can only imagine, I've still got my mum, the immense pain that you felt.

20:34She's a huge part of that golden thread that goes through your life. And do you feel like her legacy lives on through what you do? Yeah, 100%. We, every single day, she's there in something, you know, that she, yeah. Oh, I didn't mean to tell us that. Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. No, don't be silly. I mean, it's three and a half years ago, but sometimes it just feels like yesterday. She was, I bounced so many ideas. It was like, it was her and I for sure. Yeah, I read that she used to use the offcuts to make flowers. And so she was really part of your world, not just as an observer and a cheerleader, but she was part of it.

21:21Yes. So we used to make this amazing skirt that used to take circles and circles of silk or ganser. So we, we'd, if you imagine cutting circles out of a square, you're going to have triangles on the outside, large triangles. And then we'd have to cut a circle out the middle of this skirt. Now this skirt I'd originally made for Rihanna for a music video, and it became one of our best selling skirts. And it, it was a labor of love and it was beautiful. And it still is, we still have this amazing skirt. but mum and I would be like look at these stacks of beautiful circles that we've cut out from the middle and the triangles from around the edge and mum said give me those I'm going to make something with them so she took them home and she hand cut all of these amazing organza flowers and then french knotted them together and so these just these delicious and these dandelions and all of these flowers and um something made from waste it was all about repurposing offcuts and just not you know I design with a conscience I would never say I'm sustainable I think that word is way overused but to try and repurpose things and to find the beauty in the smallest piece of cloth is what I strive to do yeah and so she turned up with this Tupperware box full of these beautiful flowers and I was just like oh my god they're like heavenly it was just like we could just drop them onto silk and we could just drop them onto tulle and they'd make veils and those flowers we never quantified mum would just make them and towards the end of her life she had a like a trigger finger happen so she couldn't french knot anymore so my friend abby would then do all the french knotting so mum would cut them all out she would pin them into the clusters and then she would take stacks of boxes of all of these flowers pre-prepped to my friend abby that lives in fiversham who's an incredible embroiderer and abby would french knot all of these hundreds of flowers so still never quantified or really ever paid mum for doing it she just did it she just loved it it was you know she just spent hours cutting these things out so when she passed we got all of these orders for dresses with these flowers on we got all of these orders for these veils and we were like gosh how many flowers do we need and it was like abby do you think you want to take on the cutting so literally abby has only just stopped making the flowers because she's just so busy and we need thousands of these things but they're still handmade by the team how unbelievable is that that your brides were wearing your mum's work.

23:39Yeah. I mean, just so beautiful, however big you were getting, that your mum was doing that. I just thank you for sharing that. And I'm sorry that that hit you there. But it's, I don't know, it's so beautiful. It says a lot about you and your relationship.

23:59What is it about handmade items that just feel so soulful? Is it the fact that they're made to last? I wonder. And better for the planet? Or that you know someone has poured all they've got into creating them? Or maybe it's that you know they are one of a kind and not mass produced? Because that's our passion at Holly & Co. Our marketplace is an emporium of over 20 ,000 unique finds, all touched by hand. and I've brought together a whole community of artists and makers who champion quality, sustainability and purpose. These founders, or as we call them at Holly & Co., our co's, each have the special touch of magic that brings something unique so that you can shop with pride, knowing you're supporting UK craftspeople and celebrating originality.

24:54It also means that the incredible gifts or homeware you buy has a story behind each piece. Every item is made with care and meaning. And what could be lovelier than that? Find us at holly.co. But now, back to our conversation of inspiration.

25:19I'm wondering can I take you on to school and creativity there many of my guests on this podcast found that it was a difficult time unless that one particular teacher did see the talent as we said you know others would force him into the cookie cutter system and they were wanting to write cake many, many, many times, which wasn't going down well, maybe in a math lesson. How was school for you? I don't think anyone saw the potential in me at all at school, sadly. And I did go back to school to do a lesson quite early on in my career, just to go do something with the art department. And then, no, it wasn't for me.

26:02I was seriously dyslexic and I had no idea. I was quite good at math. I wasn't discalculated. I didn't even say that. Don't worry. I'm with you. I'm a fellow dyslexic. Don't even try and say the words either. Exactly. And so I just remember feeling so beaten down, especially in English. I was just like, I just don't understand it. I just stick commas in everywhere. And I had that creative, I had that narrative. I had that story and I see it the same with Sylvester and my husband's really dyslexic too sylvester has all the ideas and his teachers recognize that and it is so magical the primary school that he's in they're just like he's got such a high iq he's super intelligent but he you know there's maybe a bit of adhd there as well i was like i think that was me too and the dyslexia it's just like let's just by the time he's going to exams he'll just be voice noting it or recording it like yeah it's not stifling him whereas it stifled me i couldn't get out what I wanted to and yeah and the way that I work and I create is all intuitively and instinctually and creative comes just naturally like that and school expected you to have done your research a certain way to have done the prep work and the sketches for this and your textile design and it just wasn't me and nothing kind of fitted in and it was a great school but I yeah I did yeah you ran didn't you you said that when you as soon as your GCSEs finished you ran as fast as you could to art college and then to university before you headed to central St Martin's I think I'm right in saying that it was during your time at uni that you specialized in bridal wear for your final collection but it was bridal wear of course because it's you with a difference you did something no one else had done and you created separated separates, which I love that.

27:53When I was researching, I was just like, oh my gosh, that didn't exist. So you wanted to do bridal wear differently because it challenged you? What was that? What made you do that? I didn't understand why you had to wear a wedding dress. I didn't understand why it had to just be step in, step up, why you wouldn't have a choice to create the elements of the dress. So I also identified that brides these days wanted to be able to dance and enjoy their dress this was the late 90s as well yeah so I did mini cocktail dresses with giant tulle overskirts and on the catwalk the models just unbuckled the skirt and dropped it to the floor and then stepped out and they were just wearing these amazing little mini dresses for the party so it was that kind of whole everything about my brand now still to this day it's like you have a base dress you can put your beautiful over shrug or an over skirt or you have sleeves or you can wear trousers with a beautiful overskirt and take off the overskirt and you're in your trousers like that for me just made sense and that's what I've always done and I had a huge vintage collection as well when I started and took elements of that and trims of that and were inspired by that and added a big overskirt to these little lace dresses and it just made sense and I just couldn't understand why it just wasn't the norm.

29:12Isn't that funny? Because that's what the most creative people say. I just don't understand how that didn't exist. What is that? I mean, the fact that that's not a thing. Well, of course, it should be a thing. I'm wondering if there was a moment early on when you realised that your way, I suppose, so to speak, or your instinct to do things was actually the superpower. That's the seed. That's the thing that makes you, you. and how you navigated getting people on board. I mean, did you have to get people on board? Yes. I mean, was that a thing? It was on board as in to support me. Yeah, like, so you know it.

29:50Like, why hasn't this happened before? I'm doing it. It's as clear as day. You can see it. You can see it. Did you have to persuade others to see it? To some degree, it's only been the last few years, especially to our American stockists. I mean, you know, we're stocked in Kleinfeld in New York. even the famous say yes to the dress store and they will can and will only sell our dresses they don't sell the separates they they can't do that in that kind of machine that that department store is right um and still some of our stock is buy heavily into separates into dresses versus the separates because particularly the the mums in america they they don't understand why their daughter would be wearing a top and skirt like it doesn't feel special enough so there is still some you know resistance to it and I've been wholesaling now for 10 years but in my boutique I just think that's why they come to me that is the wonder of half penny and the the the potential for you to really influence what you're going to wear than having to just put a dress on and think actually I don't like the sleeves of this or the neckline so let's change those elements and and you really keep going until that inner light bulb goes and you're the one gosh i think part of the reason your designs potentially are so beloved is you tap into a respect that women are unique and that you allow them to be themselves so that uniqueness that's one in 400 trillion chances of them being born and this is their day.

31:26So we're going to get it exactly right for you. And I was wondering, do you think that actually, I heard you say that there's no such thing as a typical bride. Do you think that bridal wear possibly more than anything else, I don't know, because we potentially all have a dream or I don't know if that's going or coming and if that's the right thing to say or not right thing to say, that gives women an opportunity to really express who they are on that day. That's their moment. That's their, Rihanna might have it all the time, but this is our Rihanna moment. And this is their time to tell people who they are.

32:04That is true. What I love about dressing brides is it is exactly what you've just said there. And I say it a lot. Rihanna and Kate Moss and all those incredible women that have the privilege of dressing would have that experience all the time. And when the brides come to me, for me, it's their celebrity moment their moment to to really empower themselves and you know they're spending an awful lot of money on this wedding dress they're having this this creation made for them to absolutely shine and I always say it isn't a moment test new styles it's about being the very best version of yourself and try things that will surprise you try you know you think I don't want a strapless dress but try one because you never know how incredible it might make you feel so it's just magic it's just gorgeous and it's my team in the boutique just are wonderful with the brides the reviews and the reports that they're you know I know you know I didn't know I could feel this good I'm my favorite brides are the ones that come they've never tried a wedding dress on before they're petrified of the whole experience and it's like let's just show you how fantastic yeah feel yeah Yeah, let's cocoon you.

33:14Yeah. And I can imagine it's also that sort of, I don't know, when you just said that, I would feel so safe. You give me such a feeling of safety that I would come in and it would be such a safe place for me to tell you maybe how I would want to feel. And, you know, maybe, you know, it is actually all about me and I'm so not used to it being all about me. And I hate my arms and I've never liked this. Yeah, I hear that. And you're putting me into it. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine you have the arm conversation a lot. A lot. I'm in that same arm category. Yeah, I'm in that arm thing as well. And the knees, actually.

33:50Oh, the knees, yes. Knees and arms. And I mean, gosh, tell me, I just love hearing that after leaving Central St. Martins, you just went and did a slight internship at the one and only Vivian Westwood. And that must have just been, you're a young designer. Did you know how iconic this was, this moment? Oh my gosh, I'll never forget when I spoke to them and they said, yes, you can come and do a year's placement and we pay you£50 a week to watch your travel. I mean, she was just my hero. She's from the area that I grew up, not far. She was a maverick, a rule breaker, a disruptor, a genius. And yeah, hugely has influenced me.

34:36it was there though that I quickly realized that I didn't want to work for another designer I didn't I didn't fit in with being a choir part of the choir and it wasn't that I thought I was better than that it's just it just didn't it just didn't work it just didn't work for me and I I wanted to be so hands-on and there you know I was just the intern I got to sweep the floor and I got to sew buttons onto Andreas's trousers that had come off or iron things or you know I didn't get any juicy bits i think the interns but you were lapping it up just like when you were a kid i was laughing oh my god just like when you were a kid you had you know if you think you know before you've even started your own brand you had been brought up the way you'd been brought up and then you got to have a once in a lifetime how many people got to intern for vivian westwood i mean and you were lapping it up again filling your boots with this because i also could imagine as a female, let's get into that, a woman seeing another woman, which we have so few of, answering to nobody, doing it her way, you know, sticking her fingers up to the, you know, the man.

35:49And you were absorbing that as well. I mean, that's quite an amazing thing anyway for us women to have, to be, to witness that courageousness. Yeah, she was, she was brave. And she was uncensored and part of my letter to my younger self that I've written is is kind of it's that constant you know validation from other people or you know be courageous speak your truth and I think she is is the ultimate role model for somebody that has stood up for everything that she's believed in and and really marched forward and and didn't care what other people thought which is something that is something that does plague me.

36:32I know. I slightly wish you could take a pill and just have that. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, like truly not, you know, not to say it, but truly not, not care. You realise you just mentioned there that you quickly knew you needed to work for yourself. And in your own words, you said you fell into costume and styling. Yeah. And you were working as a costume designer for commercials and videos and became a celebrity stylist. and we've mentioned old Rihanna, not old, but, you know, Rihanna, because now she's sort of like, through you, is now a friend of mine. And you work with these most amazing women, Kate Moss, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, just to name a few.

37:10And what was that time like working with these iconic women? And how did that influence your creativity? Because I ask, because I can imagine styling women like that required such a deep understanding of who they were. I mean, was that sort of, were you working, so the muscle you have today in understanding your brides almost was worked out with maybe these women because you have to obviously speak to them, you know, they had to be them on the outside and you were sort of the conduit. Yeah. Everything that I learned through dressing all of those incredible women and the incredible men that I worked with too like all of the the personalities and the body shapes and the expectations and the the demands of what the the clothes needed to do for these people really set the foundation for my brand for sure they my brand is built on the fact that you not everyone is the same for sure and you know from one moment you know I could be dressing Erin that's super tall and willowy and has this incredible body to, you know, to Kate, who is a completely different body shape, like they're, I would never, ever put them in the same dress.

38:26Right. So it's, it wasn't that you could just like wheel your rail of dresses and go from here to there to next. Every single client would have their own exceptional rail of garments or the product that we were using for a particular job or, you know, and that was something that I celebrated. And that is exactly what we do in the boutique. There's something for everybody that we don't say that we are, you know, our bride is this. She works there. She's this age. She's this job. This is where she looks. This is what she listens to. There is none of that within my brand. She is everybody. We welcome everybody through the doors and we want to literally see you glow.