Fashion Neurosis with Trinny Woodall

0:01Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea. When you find yourself in the afternoon slump, you need the right thing to make you bounce back. You need pure leaf iced tea. It's real brewed tea made in a variety of bold flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine. You're left feeling refreshed and revitalized so you can be ready to take on what's next. The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a pure leaf iced tea. Time for a tea break. Time for a pure leaf.

0:32Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door. Expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great.

1:10Hi, come in.

1:18Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Trini Woodall. Can I ask you, why did you choose what you're wearing today? it's not totally me what I'm wearing today because this is very classic and I hate to classic I had a few things to do today where I was doing something on camera earlier then I was in a meeting where I needed to be very present so colour is really important I knew I was coming to you I did think about the flow of something to be comfortable and not constrained as you talk and lying flat what would also be a nice shot of colour. I didn't know the colour of your setting. And in some filming, I would think about it too.

1:59So lots of thoughts went through my head. What were the first items of clothing you focused on and longed for as a child? The memories are very strong. I have no memories of childhood apart from memories of my clothes. It's quite mad, but it's true. A few things bring to mind. There was a time I was obsessed with this coat and I was about six and there is actually a picture of us in this place in Switzerland called Kitzbühel but it had this sort of little it was a line this would have been late 60s with um sort of sheepskin little collar and and in tears sheepskin as well and it was either I think it was red and the white and I was obsessed with I loved it I don't remember buying it or anything I mean I don't remember being with my mother in shop but I remember wearing it and my mother dressed all three of us identically I think tragically for my brother until we were about he was about seven of just these no it's just not like everyday use but there's many pictures of us where we're in the same sort of print for bikinis and boxer shorts he wasn't in a bikini but there was one where we all wore the same coat and it was this very classic tweed blue coat with a little um more sort of teal velvet collar and patent shoes so we all actually had the patent shoes his were just slightly different shape and little white socks and was he wearing a little tiered white and red no he wasn't in that that was i think what i loved about that it was that I got to wear it without it being what we all wore.

3:42Yeah. Did your mother buy you lots of things? Because we had very, very little. And I remember for some amazing reason, we had a thing each from me and my sister. We had something from Kids in Gear, which was this really trendy shop in the 60s for children. And I had these orangey-red bell-bottom trousers that was so tight that they acted as a sort of god um but uh you remember things when there's fewer yeah yeah you really do i would say we went through phases because we went through phases where there was sort of a slightly opulent lifestyle and we went through phases where there wasn't so there are occasions when there's this special item of clothing and but I never remember having opening up to a big wardrobe ever but I do remember these special things.

4:41When did you start to feel clothes could be a tool in your life? Do you remember the first time you found a piece of clothing that made you feel different? Yes I went to boarding school very early from six and a half. And when I was 10, I then went for a year to an American school where they didn't have school uniform. So the whole dynamic changed because when you grow up with school uniform, you don't think about clothing so much. Well, I didn't. And it was quite strict. There was a Sunday where you could wear a jumper of your choice, but otherwise it was really much school uniform location. So this American school threw me and I remember one outfit that I got and I felt special and different in it and then I ruined it and it was this paisley printed top in sort of turquoises with a round collar made of sort of cotton, long-sleeved and then it was these magical turquoise very wide leg bottom like your orange ones Bella um corduroy trousers and I wanted to wear them so desperately and it was a rainy day and I knew we were going for a walk in the woods as a school trip my mother said don't wear it because you'll ruin it and I had to wear it I just had to wear it because I was very very unhappy in the school I felt I had no friends and I just thought if I wear something really fabulous, life will be okay.

6:08And so this outfit had to deliver so much for me and I remember going to school and wearing it. I don't remember at all what people thought about it because it was too many years ago, but I remember we went in the woods and we were in mud and I remember I came home and there was this much of a mud stain and we could never fully get it out and I was so upset because these were things that it was just the most incredible combination of outfit and I remember even I wore it with this little chain belt whenever I bought them out again they were slightly spoiled it's so interesting I mean what you say about uniform is is I believe in that because our uniform was abolished and I longed for this conformity and how you describe clothes and how they were almost mood altering because they were about somehow some sort of conformity that made you also visible in a safe way and it's so ironic that that they didn't necessarily even notice what you were wearing but you had this magic thing and it delivers emotionally it's always about the emotional feeling yeah it's never really about the physical interpretation no it's about protection or it's about hiding or it's about being visible I think I just reinvented not having a school uniform in my in my fashion brand I just my suits are just permutations of a school uniform and and because we didn't have a tie which is what I particularly long for I just made my own one now and I wear it all the time I do see your suits in my wardrobe as my uniform like I've got to do this BBC thing where I talk about being a CEO as a businesswoman I'm three days of filming but I have to wear the same thing and I'm going to wear your blue suit I thought already because I just want a good colour it needs to be business like but I need to feel if it's a long day and I'm tired it won't show through and you know the colour will take me through the day all right you look so pretty in that pale blue I love that blue suit in fact where do you start with an outfit depends what mood i'm in i think if i wake up and i look in the mirror and i think i feel exhausted i'll start with my makeup no i'll start with my skin and then i'll do my makeup and then i'll think okay now i'm ready and i've got a room sort of the size of this room which is my study and my wardrobe so i'll then as i'm doing my makeup I sort of cast my eye around the room and think what am I being inspired to wear and I'll do it that way but if I wake up feeling great I'll go upstairs because my bedroom stand says I've got upstairs into this room and I'll think okay what do I want to bring on today I'll look at my diary I'll look at the weather now I'll look at the weather first very first thing I do weather um rain not rain and then there's this thing if it's there's certain things so if it's below nine degrees you know below 10 degrees it's a coat if it's below 15 degrees or 17 degrees it's a jacket and then it would be a top so weather is very important and color what color I feel I'm quite drawn by color and what I'm doing in my day so I might if I'm doing very sort of business day meeting after meeting it will probably be some form of a uniform some form of a suit it will be some form of shoulder shoulder is everything to me i love that we had such an interesting conversation in my shop about shoulder and you've got this special t-shirt that you wear with shoulder pads and i'm obsessed with the this triangle of shoulder yeah and the the kind of how you convey strength really where you go out a couple of millimeters even you're a slightly more a dangerous option I was dressing something yesterday I had to do some magazine shoot and there was a dress I was going to put on and I thought do I put shoulder pads in it because it's nearly an automatic reaction to me and then I thought no this is a image that needs to show vulnerability and shoulders show strength and there's moments when it's like if you're going on a date how soft is the texture of that fabric and how structured you want to be and I'm much more comfortable in structure I find it safer to be in structure so to be sexy and soft is far more of a challenge to me than to be structured and safe and I just so what do you what's your kind of default i know you don't really have them but you seem so sort of you're so analytical about how you wear things but in a way to go on a date is where you have to discard all your foils and your or do you this is the thing i have a friend of mine who is beautiful um unbelievably clever she's like the cleverest woman i know and she is a scientist but she has a big company so we were talking about concert dating and she said trini men don't like sequins platform boots big prints they can't understand and textures that aren't soft and she's very like this she'll literally do this and i'm like i get that but that's what i am so how much do you change what you are to fit in for a first date and there's a balance between feeling okay to feel a little sexy there's so many rules around dating so there's there's this thing of don't try too hard on a first date because then you can lean into how you want to feel in terms of what you want to reveal so I've I've been challenging myself to do some things differently recently so I went out last Friday and somebody had set me up and it was four of us and I had done this little closet confessions which is this filming I do with Chloe who's curvy shaped different from me and we did dressing for a date and I shared with her the challenge of I don't know how to dress for a date I'm recently single and I haven't done it for years and it was how you know it's about undoing that top button I hate to undo the top button yeah yeah we just we don't like to undo the top button means everything it means structure it means sharpness it means so much so to undo the top button and and then to wear a fitted dress really no um but I did then on Friday think I texted this woman I said what are you wearing she said I'm wearing a red fitted dress so I thought okay so I put on this leopard fitted dress um with leopard shoes a leopard bag and a leopard jacket I thought fuck it you know I just thought this is me I love to lean in if I lean into a print print it's leopard so I did and the dress was a 39 pound dress from Zara the jacket was a Stella McCartney five seasons ago or five years ago where I have a gilet from it and I love the type of size of print the shoes were a liar and sexy as fuck and the bag was I don't know what So I walk into this restaurant and I had felt already, you know, that moment where sometimes getting ready is the best part of it.

13:44And when I got ready and I left, I thought, I'm feeling good. You know, when you have that moment, this is good, this is working. And I sat down and I didn't know this person who I was being set up with. So I focused my attentions on talking to the other two people a bit, but sort of politely including them in the conversation. but I noticed they couldn't stop looking and I thought this was a good one I don't know if I like them or not but I just thought that that was a good one that was actually a good decision because I showed a feminine side but I had a jacket leopard print is something that my friend might say men can't understand print so well but leopard print doesn't sit there it sits somewhere else so it was men you just never know you know and I think the more you kind of reduce anyone or then the less chance you have of making having some sort of connection but yes but then in a way it's that balance banner isn't it between this is me this is me hi so let's cut out the chaff at the get-go and if they can't deal with this element which I'm going to bring in at some stage of the conversation or have it at the beginning then they're not for me yeah I think I I don't undo the top button but I like to wear something that I could imagine someone touching and would feel great like this silk shirt exactly you you have that sensorial yeah tight but sensorial I mean fitted but it's just sort of hiding but if things go well it will feel nice yeah that's very good that's my secret strategy and even you see to me when I look at you now if you didn't have the pearl across the tie it would be severe but the pearl across the tie breaks up the severity of it and makes it feel there's something I want to undress aha yeah I'll go on a date with you then all right it is that these little it is those things it's just about sometimes it's just luminosity that you get into someone's head or even if you don't you sort of think oh maybe I'm vaguely some of that light has caught and there's something to think about even if nothing goes anywhere so how many silk shirts are you making well as many as possible because it took did you make this one yeah this is why did I not see this one because the color is everything on this one yeah is this a new one or an old one it's an old one but it's a repeated it's like part of the icons collection so it's always there but because people were slow to buy shirts because a lot of women won't wear a shirt because they for all the reasons that we like the top collar done up this container yeah but i i feel that a suit can look best with a good with the right shirt not a cotton but this kind of this silky slinky thing so it's not masculine it's just suggestive yeah and i think boyish is very feminine whereas masculine is just man i don't want to look like a man at all yeah but i look more feminine as a boy and i love to create that for other people boyish as opposed to mannish mannish is like no way yeah whereas i do I just do more mannish than boyish when I'm just wanting to, probably a part of me saying, please don't mess with me because I'm going to fuck with you.

17:18You know, just there's an element of, yeah, like going to investor meetings, I would definitely say I dress mannish, not boyish. Because I do the opposite. When I go to investor meetings, I think one of my strengths is to be sort of not testosterone, not head to head. They can do that. And if I can be a little more gentle but with good ideas, I feel I'll get listened to or noticed. My ideas will get heard. And now I believe that. It seems, anyway, they're all very polite. Can I analyze you now? Yeah. because I'd say from that that one still needs the wily way of a femininity of a woman to deal in a man's world I completely agree whereas I am I want to find the man who doesn't believe that still and the other ones I will discard so when they want to put me in this role of seeing me as a woman as opposed to a person I feel my most confrontative because I'm a person coming to you for investment.

18:34I'm not a woman coming to you for investment. So I probably maybe would have had more success. Because I went to, you know, I wrote 250 people, I went to 50 investors, and I got one investment. But I got the right investor. And I got somebody who knew what I was. And the thing is, you are what you dress like in that regard so they're going to get what you are and I will get what I am yeah I I know exactly what you're saying and in a way the person who invested in me he likes he's quite aesthetic he likes product he likes a look yeah and I felt like your language He gets me, even if we don't, we're so different.

19:24And so that was a kind of communal language. And yeah, I feel like when I go into those rooms full of men, that they possibly think, I've not, I don't really understand her, but she's on to something. Yeah. I hope they do anyway. But that's what I hope because I can't do their thing, but I know I can do mine. So I try to do the best version of my communication. Yeah. Which is about illuminating ideas and showing that I'm willing to make compromises. Whereas I don't want to compromise. Well, nor do I, but. I don't think anyone does but I want to get ahead I want to move forward to make it happen yeah and sometimes one has to do you have any obsessions at the moment with what kind of things well I mean you seem like someone who potentially you you have you have loads and you're so noticing but is there anything uppermost at the moment have you got like a particular pet I mean one of my obsessions at the moment is actually your your tinted moisturizer the bff because it's so effective I I put it on and it's like retouch I mean as much as good as I can get at this point but it's just fantastic I've got obsessions on I got obsessions on I can be obsessed with clothes I can be obsessed with the concept of something I want to have in my wardrobe that I feel is missing and then I can think okay let me go on a quest of what that is I can be very obsessed in my Wednesday MPD meetings of what I'm developing next and be really obsessed about because for me skincare is always about doing something truly innovative like makeup isn't because everyone's done nearly everything in makeup so you might bring out something where it's just a different texture slightly but you're still not reinventing a lipstick you know so maybe it's that it's just a beautiful color and the texture is actually just using some more ingredients and then you've got a beautiful thing it comes in if I were to ever do a lipstick you know which I don't do right now but skincare it starts with an idea and then I become obsessed to find the solution for that idea so usually I so I either find an incredible ingredient and I think what is that going to really work in so I found this I was researching stress a few years ago and the effect of stress on our skin and I became obsessed with looking at what ingredients can destroy cortisol because cortisol is what shows on your face because you release it and its effect on your face can be dehydration and you can look whistened and tired lots of things so I then found this plant and then I found someone in Switzerland who'd made the plant into a compound which then became an ingredient so then I got the clinical trials from the lab and then I thought okay it does a 20 % reduction in cortisol at 2 % so then I brought it to our lab and I then started testing if I do more will I get better results so I then put in 10 % it's quite an expensive ingredient 10 % of this thing neoproly and started testing it it was during COVID and it was very challenging to test because there weren't people they usually be tested on like 50 people so we had to send it all to them and took them forever so i was testing on myself and i was obsessed i was obsessed that i should get a result because i thought this is like this is innovation because this is like you think it's a product to just make some coverage but it's going to do so much more and i'd started with just it being a serum and then when i got these results i then thought actually i'll put pigment in and it was a very obsessive project and is that and this is something bff de-stress de-stress which is another one but it does reduce stress you put it on after about an hour the neophraline starts to work on cortisol that you're producing and you literally look in the mirror two hours later let's you woke up and you're stressed you hadn't slept well and you just were releasing too much cortisol you put it on and then because how i knew it the day i knew it was working right i was woke up it was during covid time but there was somebody who could come to the door because i remember this woman came to the door to do something and she was always this effusive person she's Colombian always complimentary and I always find it irritating and um so I'd woken up knowing I look like shit I put this stuff on I was still testing it and then about two hours later she arrived at the door and she went Trini you look so amazing what are you doing and I was like please I know I look shit don't just see it she said no no no no no so I went to look in the mirror and it was like I wasn't that person I looked at the morning I thought fuck it works it was so like and that's obsession to me so I'm most obsessed probably I'm most obsessed in my work that's my top obsession my secondary obsession would be something that I'm craving like food an ingredient to eat or clothing and then obsessions that come and they go very quickly you know like somebody you meet and then they text you and then you're obsessing about it and then you actually take a step back and think do I actually like them or not no actually and then the obsession's gone yeah in a flash in two days in an hour yeah it is it's what is your biggest obsession well I think my biggest obsession is how to feel good really in what way well in multi any way i can that makes me feel grounded centered and energetic and at the moment i'm really stressed and i and i feel very like you know i need some of that de-stress pff too much cortisol so what's stressing you the most oh i've got sort of in every area maybe apart from romantically i'm stressed and um but i know i know that i want to go forward and i want to be kind of excited and connected and to do the next thing so So I then think, what can I do?

26:32What of all the things that I've learned to do that make me feel sort of centered and grounded? And I have actually learned to do loads of things. So at the moment, I'm obsessed with that. Doing things that make you feel centered and grounded. Yeah. And then if I can get back to that space, then I can do, I feel I can do anything. I have huge drive, but I started to notice that drive isn't everything because you can drive and then suddenly you've got nothing. It's empty. And so there are all sorts of different things. But even knowing that instead of I must climb to Mount Olympus and when I get there, I'll feel better, which is actually, you know, it doesn't necessarily, it's not necessarily the answer.

27:20So this is a kind of new phase of, you know, using willpower in a slightly different way. Yeah, drive without fulfillment is interesting because we can be automatically driven because it's in our nature to be driven. Yeah. But it's like you don't it's like you're really hungry and you don't get to have a fulfilling meal and you need to eat well at the end of it for that drive to not feel empty. empty and then it's like if we don't get enough rem sleep because i'm obsessed with sleep at the moment so there's a guy called matthew walker and he wrote this book called why we sleep and he does a five-part pod podcast with andrew hoobman who's does the hoobman lab it's a science podcast but in it i'm learning the difference and i started wearing this ring oh yeah i hate those I know I'm actually fucking loving it um but what it's interesting to do is you know when we wake up and we feel anxious and worrying and sometimes we worry and then we remember less things and we think god I didn't remember that didn't remember and it's there is a little bit of that which is about the stress and where you where stress sits inside your brain and your short-term versus long-term memories there's a bit of that but then if you don't have enough REM sleep then then it's like your brain processor so at the end of the evening your brain would decide what shall I remember and what can I discard so if you don't back up the hard disk drive the next day you will compound that feeling of stress I know that makes complete sense but I also find if I disregard that entirely I've slept badly and I think I've slept badly but I don't necessarily have to be tired or I can have some of the day where I've got that fake energy.

29:09So that's the bit that I'm going to riff off. Yeah. And then I'm a bit more sort of compassionate to self about being slightly gaga the rest of the time. And I try out various tricks like my I have this analyst I've seen for about 14 years. And sometimes he says, why don't you try not being tired? and I thought, okay, I'll try. You know, why not? Instead of I can't, you know, because I spent a lot of time being tired and everything and I'm trying out all these. It's a bit like sort of ice skating going all over the place. And so that's why I don't like, I know I obviously haven't got the ring that my friends have got too, but I don't want to get too preoccupied.

29:59I think I'm not preoccupied with it. The difference for me is it will make me remember if I go to sleep an hour earlier and I don't stay up scrolling or whatever I do, I'll feel better the next day. So it prepares me to try it differently the next night. So I find it's more that I will feel propelled to know what to do the next night. but also I do believe 100 % in what you're saying when your therapist says just say to yourself I'm not tired because I can get up feel exhausted think I know I can take NNM I'm going to go to Lou I'll have a cold shower and I'll feel fine and I think that psychological training of your brain to say switch that mindset reset it's incredibly powerful i met two weeks ago about deepak chopra all right and i listened to him about 25 years ago the royal geographical society and he said this story which always stayed with me and i remember when i met him for the first time ever at this conference and i said i remember you telling the story and he'd remember the story that five or six men get down a mine in south africa and they're stuck and they're in this mine and only one of them is wearing a watch and that person decides that when an hour has passed he will only tell them half an hour has passed so in the 10 days they were down there the other five thought they'd been down there five days and he was the only one who died because he knew and his body knew how long they've been there but the others had a reset from this guy and it just always stuck with me the ability for our brain to tell our body something different which is what you're saying or what your therapist is saying it's like some sort of optimism within that yeah isn't it yeah on another note can i ask you if you fancy someone and you don't like what they're wearing does it kill your attraction or how do you handle it i generally fancy people's brains so it sort of doesn't matter it's like do they have a sexy brain and I've been out with so many mixtures of people some who have an unbelievable sense of humor but weren't classic good looking an Italian or two who maybe was classically good looking but other bits you know they were going to dress well too but didn't have substance um you've been down that road too I think um so So, but it is that brain thing.

32:33And so I'll notice what they wear, but I won't judge them for what they wear. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was with somebody who wore the same thing every day for 10 years. But I think that's fine. It's much, it's more confronting when it's sort of fancy stuff or, you know, like a fashion-y look. And then it's so embarrassing. It depends what turns you on. Yeah, it's true. What turns you on? Aesthetics turn you on a little bit. Well, it depends. I mean, I think most people are sort of brain lovers and sapiosexual, I think they call it. And it's so exciting that sometimes people can be just revoltingly dressed.

33:18And then because they're clever and funny, it's like an asset being so badly dressed. It is. so I think it's I don't know how relevant it is if somebody's too well dressed that makes me suspicious you know if everything's just so perfect I'm like there's not going to be much substance here substance or do you think there'll be over critical or kind of exactingness about their outfit that might spill over onto your outfit that's what I'd be worried about no I'd just be more I mean I suppose I'm not then allowing a man to have the same obsessive way that I might put an outfit together maybe that's where I'm separating out what I give myself permission to do but I find challenging for somebody else if they're just too everything's so perfect I don't know I don't know the answer to that and how do you feel about being naked can you be naked or do you have to wear something that makes you feel safe as it were naked because you've still got something on yeah I had a an episode when I was much younger that made me nervous to be naked and so it was actually a school moment not a kind of pervy one but one where it did have an impact and it was one where I was really quite young probably seven and we were at a um sort of boarding school and we were in it was the summer it was really hot and we had a water fight and we were all naked you know young girls naked and the woman below us at the school was a called Miss Dunk never forget her name and she came upstairs and she said you have to all go and stand by the gong and the gong was at the bottom staircase and we start to get dressed she said no as you are so we all stood naked it was about sort of 6 a.m until 8 a.m when everyone had come down for breakfast 300 girls wow yeah so i think i do think i can actually pinpoint i wouldn't think anyone would have to do therapy on this that it made me very uncomfortable to be looked at naked and it continued for years and years and years until i was married for many years to my partner and then

35:46uncomfortable a little bit again no then probably until I was married to Johnny yeah until I was married Johnny and he made me very very comfortable in my own skin and he loved me so much so I felt you know the freedom to then be comfortable with each aspect of myself yeah gosh that's really quite something that yeah that's like a terrifying french film being lined up it seems then always when you put things into decades because it was probably still maybe it was 1971 you know this is like a how many years ago so many years ago this is 53 years ago it sounds like wow when i say 53 years ago but it's a different life a different time a different way to punish children yeah you know it's very very humiliating and shaming and yeah in fact i was going to ask you if you remember feeling shame about anything you wore oh that's a good one shame no because shame is about there's guilt and shame and just I remember learning you know we both learned the difference between those two shame shame is a very specific word to use around clothing yeah you know so I don't know I'm gonna ask you that question I think part of why I'm so interested in clothes is maybe as a sort of protecting device from shame and I think it was to do with when we were growing up and we we grew up with no money my mother had no money my father didn't give her anything much and so and she was a hippie and we didn't have many clothes and then she was wearing a velvet caftan in the 60s and so people focused on us but in a very negative way and so clothes I wanted to wear I just wanted to be like a boy really and that was part of my my my shield and I remember when I was eight and we come back from living in Marrakesh and it was very hand-to-mouth and I was living with a friend of my my both my parents even though they weren't together and we were traveling around Gloucestershire I think in gypsy caravans and they were upper class hippies and remember going to the post office and the people in the post office said oh she's one of those hippies and I thought I was like a gypsy like a cool person and I was so mortified and I had I remember what I was wearing I was wearing navy blue jumper like scruffy, scratch some old cords.

38:49And I had a thing, a kerchief around my throat to try and be as much like sort of Heathcliff or someone, you know, I'm not part of anything. I wanted to be with them. And I felt so outside. And so when I'm getting dressed, I, I start with this feeling of like, how can I unify my my thoughts and my best look and I usually start with a if I'm wearing a train I usually start with a sock for some reason socks make me feel really good my daughter feels identical about socks I think it's interesting though because for you it's the that jumper for you is the naked at the end of the stairs for me that it is the basis for how you think about certain things and it's been systemically stamped on you know so there's that feeling you get from it at my school they i went to a steiner school and the teachers all wear wore birkenstocks and i thought they were the most repulsive things and i hated them and i still don't wear them i've got some that look a bit more trendy like platforms but they i somehow i started to realize that clothes could give you power they could set you apart from being sort of blanded out from these awful dull dreary teachers telling you how everything you couldn't do no one bothered to say what you could but yeah so if somebody appreciated clothes it was it was a real it was so much more than that really it was like a vote of of you I know you've talked openly I mean on I've looked at some of your interviews where you've talked openly about addiction in your past and you've been sober for decades and addiction is all so associated with self-doubt yet But I've known you actually since the 80s.

40:54I think I met you briefly then. I've known you slightly for a long time and you seem so confident. And now more than ever, you seem kind of liberated and so cool. And it's such a joy to watch you just doing these things. And when you describe, you know, all those letters that you had to write and people not taking you up and then someone did. But it's really you. And how do you how do you get this? I mean, it is quite remarkable. You are a phenomenon. I didn't feel it, though, like in the 80s when you would have known me and I was copiously using drugs like, you know, a few of us. um and I remember my sense of self versus people's perception of me was very different um and I remember feeling less than and different and not different in a good way of celebrating myself because I didn't quite know myself but in a way of feeling I'm a fraud you know I had that feeling so much of feeling I'm a fraud and never looking at did other people feel the same because we didn't think that at the time.

42:14We only thought about ourselves. But what do you think kept you going forward? Because I remember meeting you and you saying that you had an accessories business with hair accessories. And at the time I was working for Vivian Westwood and I thought, how does she know that she can influence people to buy these things? I was really struck because I was working for Vivian, who was sort of super cool, but I definitely didn't have the confidence to delineate that somebody should buy something that I'd made. Yeah. Not till many years later. And where do you, where did that come from? Did your. I think it came from.

43:07Feeling different from the people I went to school with. So at boarding school from like 11 to 16, I was the one living abroad and everyone else lived in England. And I would sort of bring things from abroad. So I like to be the purveyor of having something different. And that gave me myself worse. So if I could, you know, there was no Benetton in London, you know, and I sort of brought Benetton bright color, you know, things like that. and people like oh and I just thought this gave me a I was terrible at school I was never good at games I was quite good at theatricals and always played the male leads and Shakespeare plays but that was the only thing I was good at and also I left my boarding school at 16 because I've been at boarding schools at six and a half I was so fucking fed up in boarding school and then I went to Queensgate in London and my parents were still in Germany and that's when I started to and all the girls who were at Queensgate a lot of them were English and they all then 17 18 they were sort of being a debutante and we were sort of doing all this stuff together but I never felt a part of any of these people but I know some of them thought I was cool but I didn't I just felt I wasn't part of them but I did have a sense probably I was more curated in my fashion so I would go to Annabelle's and wear my dad's Turnbull and Assa pajamas with his cover coat you know so I would I would just wear these things because I didn't have the pretty dress from that shop that used to be antiquarius that everyone went to.

44:41Fielding, something, David Fielding, or, you know, these kind of debutante or the ones with all the frill from Beach and Place, that woman, you know. Belleville Sassoon. Belleville Sassoon. And they would all have these very sort of pretty dresses that their mothers when they were Debs would have gone to. You know, it was that kind of historical repetition of dressing. And I didn't have that reference. My mother was not a peacock in our family. My father was, interestingly. And so he had far more beautiful clothes than my mother. My mother had had lovely clothes, but she didn't care about clothes at all.

45:12She was Scottish and didn't care so much about fashion. My father would buy her clothes for her. And then when he stopped doing that, she just bought, okay, boring, sweet things, but nothing like, you know, grabby. But my dad would, you know, always brush his suits at night and polish his shoes. And he had this real sense of color and proportion and everything. So that's probably why I borrowed his clothes and not my mother's. So that was very different. They were all in Bavasa soon. I was in my dad's pajamas. And so if I look back now, I could say, actually, then I was being different and doing this different.

45:52So with this hair bow thing, I just thought, you know, everyone wanted these hair bows. they were boring so I thought I'd go to Portobello Market and Bermansy Market and I'll get these little beautiful De Monti brooches which you've got for one pound that'd be like 35 pounds a day and I did it with a very creative girl Katie Brain and um so she ended up going to art school and being a potter but at the time between the two of us we just did these and then I just I went to Scott Crowler and he's sold them for me wow because I'd done some fashion show for Ruth Ducan and Thomas Storjeski and all these people and they were doing things and Tracy Boyd you remember that sort of group and I met Scott I think he was going out with Ruth and so got in there and then I just walked into Harvey Nichols and just said come on take these and Princess Diana was really like trending then and she was just doing I don't know how she could have done these hair posts because she had short bloody hair all her life but somehow she instigated this wow and so then I did but I was a great starter not a finisher Bella so I would start it and then Katie wanted to go to art school I left Queensgate and it sort of petered out well now you founded Trini London and um I mean it's notorious it's unheard of to break in a single person to break into this world of behemoths and and it's incredibly successful and you know everyone is obsessed with it and obsessed with you as well you when you do these things on Instagram and on YouTube and there's just so much charm and so much enthusiasm and you seem I don't know it's like you've done all these things in your life you're such a an achiever even though you may not feel like it but you seem like you've just found your way you seem like you're just getting in your stride and it's it's thrilling it's so kind of inspiring and it's so much fun and um I wondered how how do you you know you've got this huge thing that you've built in a really short time and you're making these discoveries and how do you kind of keep that going you know what do you bring to yourself so you you're the one you're the kind of maker of this i think you keep going so you're never done i think if you're an entrepreneur you never like when you say what you just said i'm lying here i think please can she stop giving compliments because it's beginning to i'm finding it tricky i find it very uncomfortable actually if i'm really candid with i just find it it's very nice but it's like can we just get rid of that and then just get to the question so I can answer the question that's how I fucking feel um but I think you never feel I've succeeded let me sit back and let's look at what's happened like all I look at is what I haven't done yet and what we haven't done yet as a business and not in a way of punishing myself but just you I never look back and go oh look at all that I look forward and think I want to do that and then I do question sometimes if there's never this sense I think when you choose to be a full entrepreneur and you're never going to feel fully fulfilled that's a part of the journey of an entrepreneur is you're never going to be the I don't think you go into being an entrepreneur for that oh one day I'll wake up and feel fulfilled moment but you will be permanently pursuing your dream and that in itself that journey is what is exciting so that's just how I see it well thank Thank you so much, Trini, for being on the couch and for being in fashion neurosis.

49:36It's been wonderful. I've loved it. It's been incredibly relaxing and a great way to finish a day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.