Life in Charms with Clare Hornby

0:01I'm Anoushka Dukas and I've been designing jewell for 30 years and collecting charms for as long as I can remember. In this podcast, I will be asking a series of extraordinary women to tell me their life story in Seven Charms. Welcome to my podcast, My Life in Seven Charms. Today's guest on My Life in Seven Charms dresses everyone from royalty to film stars, celebrities and politicians. She has loved for creating clothes which evoke modern luxury and intelligent style, which are flattering, functional and last forever. In doing so, she's pretty much created a whole new space in the market between the high street and the designer brands.

0:46As she succinctly says, our job is to get you ready in the mornings without you having to think too hard. All the women who daily say a prayer to me in them trousers and capsule outfit building would agree. Happily married to a fellow entrepreneur, she's blended a family life of five children. She's an excellent tennis player and I think wins the prize of all the guests we've featured on My Life in Seven Charts for belonging to the most clubs. We're also going to be talking about a Dachshund called Alan, which I know well. I'm thrilled to welcome Claire Hornby, founder of Me and Em, to My Life in Seven Charts.

1:26Thank you so much for having me. that's exciting we've been looking forward to it's particularly as uh we know each other anyway and you were at the start of the journey well i know how to shape it come on to talk about that in a bit yeah so claire your first charm i love designing this charm because actually every part of it is going to work uh so you said a bicycle or an ant i mean so i like where they're It's been opposite ends of the spectrum. But I thought, why don't we just combine the two? Yeah. So I've designed an absolutely perfectly miniature bicycle with a basket at the front, kind of wicker basket, and all the texture will be in the wicker.

2:11It's completely three-dimensional. It's made of 18-karat gold. The wheels absolutely turn as fast as you can push them. And I don't know what you call that bit, but the bit in the middle where the spokes come out of, what do you call this bit? The centre of the wheel. That'll do. The centre of the wheel. As technical as you tell that. OK, we'll go with that. The centre of the wheel on both sides has got a little diamond, because I thought it would be really fun as it goes round. In the basket, crucially, is a little tiny black ant carrying a tiny little pearl. And the ant is made in white gold, but with black rhodium.

2:50and this tiny little seed pearl he's carrying. And I kind of suppose he's a worker ant. But that's the way I've combined this very weird charm, a bicycle or an ant. Okay, well, can you tell me? You think naturally. Would you like the story behind it? I'd like to know why on earth I've actually done this. Anyway, the way you describe the charms is just incredible. They actually come to life as you talk about them. It's quite amazing. So this is the story of my first holiday abroad with my parents, aged seven. And I came from a very loving family in the north of England. And my mother was a primary school teacher and my father was a joiner.

3:44So we were comfortable. We didn't have a lot of money. but a very loving childhood and I have a brother yeah a younger brother and we went on this holiday when we were seven and we ended up in Formentera and I joke that it wasn't because it was the coolest place on earth and was then sort of nuked on the block of coolness it was mainly because it was the cheapest place my father could find and I assure you when we discovered formentera all those years ago it was quite primitive it was dirt tracks and goats and we got the water out of a well and there was no transports and it was beautiful and bohemian but it was there wasn't an awful lot there in fact I think we stayed in an apartment without any running water oh god and so uh but it was so exciting I'd never been on a plane before um I'd never been on a hot beach before um so the the visual memories the smells and the sensory experience of that place has really stayed with me because it really was uh such a big moment for us as a family so we cycled everywhere where the ant comes in is there wasn't an awful lot to do, but you went to the beach and then you came home in the evenings and back to the apartment with no running water, so you couldn't even have a bath.

5:22So I sat on the side of the road and just became fascinated with the ants. Really? I just remember these ants, and I don't think I'd really ever seen ants before because it rained too much.

5:39So, I just remember them, which is why I like the fact that the ants got this little piece in his mouth, the pearl, because that for me symbolises the bread they carried. And this army of ants and the efficiency of ants and how they built their, you know, mounds and anthills and how they carried food and how they worked together. And it was, I was just fascinated by them. And I'm not sure kids do that anymore. Well, they don't. They're just looking at screens. yeah and it was just so anyway hence the bike and the ants that was complete well that's actually really interesting until it's quite rad do you think you learned anything from the ants in terms of teamwork maybe teamwork right maybe just efficiency and never giving up because you know if one dropped the bread the the you know the the breadcrumb a whole load more would come and help so yeah maybe a building a business came from watching the ants who knows what you'd take take forwards from your childhood it was such a random well you do ask happy holidays though yeah happy an amazing family memory yeah in fact um very tragically very tragically um three months ago both of my parents died within half an hour of each other on the same day so actually these memories are really big right now um and ian and i did a joint eulogy and we talked about Formentera and had I been thinking about this beforehand and have also, anyway, it's going to get too complicated.

7:18What would it have been? Well, it would have been a well because there was a well in Formentera and then when Ian and I were discussing the eulogy or content for the eulogy literally the day you you go into complete shock so you you actually start functioning and you don't actually know how you're functioning but we invited mum and dad's best friends around and to discuss content the service and the eulogy and my dad told terrible dad jokes and they first told this joke about how dad and a group of his friends had gone to see a national heritage property an English sorry English heritage property when they were visiting us in the countryside one weekend and there were three men standing around a well and my dad said to them well well well and they all looked at my dad like what are you talking about and he went well well well

8:34okay your next charm uh is a tennis racket in fact it's a head tennis racket it's very important it's a head yes i've got that as a head tennis racket so as you can see i've drawn a tennis racket quite generic um but absolutely miniature tennis racket but it's a yellow gold uh frame uh white gold uh strings um see you know where you can obviously the strings you can see straight through um it's got your name actually written on the handle claire and um and on the and on the end it's got the head logo which i'm not going to try and describe um and and then it has a little a little chain to which is attached a tiny yellow tennis ball with lots of texture exactly as it is but really so that you can you can kind of fiddle with it because i really like my chance to be playful and as playful as they can be so talking to the tennis racket the head tennis racket you're almost a very good tennis player so I used to play a lot as a child I'm not sure I'm as I'm not that I didn't play lots of school tennis which is when I think you become very good at doubles and sports are big parts of our lives we're a big Arsenal fans and we play tennis we ski a lot we we do lots of the girls ride a lot with their father so tennis was really the first sport that I um played outside of school and I played a lot with my father my father was very sporty so did he did he teach you tennis so he he taught me to play tennis and we originally played against the garage door which um was very unsatisfactory and then we joined the local tennis club um and actually we managed to get tickets to wimbledon every year on the ballot so mum and i used to go um to wimbledon every year and invariably get rained off because it was before that we scared down on the coach right um i mean it was it was awful uh and occasionally you'd see some tennis um you get tickets through the ballot from the tennis club yes because actually they want they do want people who are members of tennis clubs and of course if it's an unknown tennis club up in the north of england not many people yeah are going to go to london so you're the only person through that tennis club so we used to always get tickets so that tennis was in you know i played with my dad i went to wimbledon with my i watched every summer we used to have a local holiday called oldham wakes which was a holiday for the mill workers because of course lancashire was a big coffee mill um industry and uh there was a local holiday called old and wakes hence why we were in formentera at that moment in time because uh there was the and i used to watch wimbledon as a child in old and wakes yeah anyway i was uh learning to play tennis and then dad got me a tennis teacher and i started playing at the northern tennis club in manchester which Grace has now joined because Grace has gone to Manchester uni and I made her a member there as soon as she went up there so she's now plays there and I had a tennis coach who had played junior Wimbledon and I still had a wooden tennis racket which was okay because Borg had one and he was my idol but it was but then these new modern ones came out and I can't remember what they're made of now they're now made and and I longed and longed and longed for a modern tennis racket right and there when I woke up on Christmas morning was this head tennis racket and I was just that's the best present I think I've ever been I was just passionate about that sport you know how you dream as a child and you think you're going to become a professional and I really thought I was to make it now with this tennis racket and I'd be at Wimbledon.

12:50You are but I know you're a very good tennis player because I've seen you play tennis. John my husband's played tennis with you but you missed out you didn't play with Harry Styles in this last tournament. No. That was a bit of a down. The downside of being a working woman. Yeah that is a real down. That really is. That might be my biggest miss to date. Yeah I think that's right Tasha. I almost wanted to take up tennis actually in that point yes yeah exactly but um tell me about the tennis so did that i i mean you must be very competitive are you very competitive i mean i'm saying that now because obviously we'll talk about the business in a bit but do you think that that i think you are you just have to be don't you i mean you know you're competitive but did tennis did did this kind of I think sport makes you competitive, doesn't it?

13:39Because it also teaches you resilience. It teaches you to fail and it makes you want to win again. So it's those early ingredients of childhood that I think we don't really understand, but they're all woven into our adult life. But just going back to that, so when you'd lose a match, what would your reaction be? Would you throw your racket on the floor and do a mack and rote? Or would you, how would you deal with that? Because where I'm really going is, and how do you deal with that now when things go wrong? Well, I used to cry, actually. Did you? Because I remember, actually, I went to play on the...

14:23I was having tennis lessons at the Northern in Manchester. And it's a bit like our version. It's a bit like the London version of Queen's. So it's quite a similar style of tennis club. And I remember my tennis coach saying, I think you should go on the northern circuit so that's like the younger uh and then I really you know I realized that this Wimbledon dream was never going to happen and I you know I was nowhere near as good as I thought I was playing in the local club against my parents friends yeah um and I think that was I didn't cope well with losing that but in team sports I was much better and I used to rally the troops and really I hated losing and I used to, I remember I used to vie for who was captain with myself and another girl called Tracy Knight and the two of us always wanted to be captain of whichever team it was.

15:26So if I asked your team now at Me and Em, do you rally the troops? are you uh how do you how what's it how would you describe your yes you do don't you because it's all very similar isn't it you know you have you know that business is full of highs and lows it sort of picks you up and it drops you back down again doesn't it and you think you've cracked it and then you haven't it's like we all describe it as bringing up a child don't we you sort of the first few years are about it's you know getting nothing back and then eventually it starts to walk and eventually it starts to look after you a bit more but actually it's constantly throwing you curveballs yeah and when you're going through a difficult time and there are many and we've all been thrown different challenges through all the different things that come across our way in the last 10 years so you've got to constantly rally the troops because you and and we always talk about failure and what that means and then once you fail that's going to make you better on the other side so taking risks understanding you're going to fail how do you learn from those and how do you get better and embracing all of that and then as you get bigger in a business of course you have to put in lots of process so then you're constantly changing how you work in order to meet the growth of the business yeah so yeah rallying the troops is all the time all the time yeah yeah yeah i'm gonna come on to your next charm because actually it's clearly represents me and em and um and the start of that so the the me and em uh you said me and em trousers outfit building so actually that was quite tricky because because i i didn't want to full trouser suit so i've actually i've just done a a shirt um and i've and i've made it a locket and the shirt uh is it just got me and em on the on the back it's on a hanger um so i i mean it's a it's i see it as a white shirt foundation of your of the me and em wardrobe um i could be wrong about that but i'm kind of thinking no we're very big on white shirts because we have the layering shirts of course yeah which i have got which i'm not wearing um but i see it absolutely um as that with the real attention to detail on the cuff um and your lovely buttons put on the cuff and i've i've the the button was open and inside it just says founded by claire hornby i just i i want you to take me on the journey of how you identified this extraordinary gap that you have identified and what the insight just just give me a little bit of a well actually um you were very clever early on when you saw what we were doing on when we when when you identified that there was more in pajama room than pajama room yeah and the ethos hasn't changed since pajama room it was beautiful fabrics focus on attention to detail and focus on flattering silhouettes and that's what you saw and then you said and by the way you seem to uh have a have a knack for brand building because the packaging's beautiful the logo's all beautiful well you like the photography yeah and um the listeners of this podcast and nushka became my business mental through the Walpole luxury brands of tomorrow and you identified something that um was there but you were instrumental in pushing myself and Emma to change the name and I think Emma and I were having debates at the time because we'd seen there was more opportunity but by keeping it as pajama room we were going to narrow the growth massive we're going to restrict the growth yeah and we were going to narrow the appeal and actually we couldn't have sold direct to consumer if we're done pyjama room because you couldn't have had the repeat business that you needed off the back of that and you actually took the debate away from em and i i remember you saying and as a result we changed the name to me and em and it was when we put that into logo format that we realized it was a really cool logo and actually it was it was fine and names become names it doesn't really matter yes so interesting I remember why I remember why because at the time I'd just sold links of London if you remember yeah and actually what I'd seen is we started doing cuff links and there was a danger that we would we could have got stuck in that one particular rut yeah and actually so so it was just you know from from my own experience that's why I well that's why business mentorship was so important because you take one experience and help another yes and and you shortcutted it for us you know so um so that so so that was great so really the ethos has never changed uh and we then grew the business through jersey and knitwear and we had a but sorry to interrupt you but at the time it was very much about comfortable luxury at home it wasn't no no well once we changed the name we had a bit more scope for growth but you you we then our strap line was comfortable luxury as you say and we didn't really grow outside of beautiful loungewear travel wear knitwear comfortable dresses for quite a long time and it was only when a designer was helping me at the time and she said what about denim and I said I can't do denim it's not comfortable of course denim is really comfortable these days but I said and then I thought oh we're restricting this and that's when I changed the strategy to intelligent style now and forever uh because what we were doing was getting right into the minds of women but I know exactly what you mean by intelligent style because actually when I design jewellery I'm my approach is very very similar it's quite modular and really to work together etc etc but for the for the listener just just articulate a little bit what intelligent style means well intelligent styles built through this commitment to four f's right so and the first is flattering so the right fabrics and the right silhouettes and it's amazing how many designs start with the wrong fabric you know the foundation piece yeah uh functional which is very similar So what you do, which is must be multitasking.

22:11You must be able to wear it this season and next season. You've got to be able to re-spin it. So if you're investing in a trouser, we want to be able to re-spin that trouser or the trouser suit seven ways so that you can wear it all week. Like the idea that you can pack one suit and take, you know, one dress and several tops and you can re-spin. Flattering, functional fashion. Yeah. because we believe that women want to look modern so it's not that we're a victim to fashion but we want to be on the right side of the curve right the trend curve yeah and then fair is the overarching is the gap between luxury and high street so what do designers charge a fortune for and what do high street designers cut corners on weight of silk quality of trims you know just durability of products uh and and then you see you get what we aim for is luxury quality for a really fair price that's our sustainability as well so intelligent style is a combination of the four f's and i absolutely know if we miss an f i can look back retrospectively and understand which f we um missed and that equals failure so actually if you miss an f you get failure so there's actually five f because you got the equation of the four to stop failure so it's actually quite a business yeah very neat that is absolutely advertising coming in isn't it yeah because i'm writing am i not writing thinking that you did a lot of needle work and pattern cutting with your mum yes yeah so i made my own clothes with my mum uh and stood for hours and come to the mirror and I think that's where my eye for where a pocket should go, a seam should go, the shape of a silhouette.

23:59She loved making clothes and we found it very difficult to find clothes that fit me. From about the age of, say, 10 to about 16, 17, we couldn't really find clothes to fit. So we started making our own. And in fact, when I went round to mum and dad's house the day after they died, I went into her drawer and there was the needlework drawer and the little needlework wallet that I'd made at school for my nana so it must have been like seven she'd kept and as I found that the doorbell rang and it was a me and em delivery oh my god you're joking no So it's very emotional that. And then I worked on a shoe stall and sold secondhand shoes and I worked in denim factories.

25:01Hang on, hang on. You worked till secondhand shoe stall, but you were buying the shoes? Yeah. You were just selling them? So I, no, I had my own stall. So dad took me down to the market, older market at six o 'clock on a Saturday morning and we queued for a stall. We got the stall, we set the shoes up. But you'd bought the shoes from where? I'd borrowed them from his mate. You kept brushing over the shoes. I want to know where the shoes are coming from. My dad met a bloke at the Saddleworth Golf Club. Yeah. And he had a shoe business, but he had all these seconds. Ah. And so dad said, would you like to sell these seconds on the market and you can split the revenue with him?

25:46Okay, so this is early on. This is early on. Dad was very keen I earned my own money because remember, dad didn't like spending money. So if we were going to go on nice holidays, Ian and I had, that's my brother, had to earn our own money, our spending money. so we went and queued for a stall got the stall displayed the shoes uh and then i learned to track what shoes i needed next so then i go back to the warehouse get get more sizes of the ones that were selling well so early entrepreneurship i guess early entrepreneur 100 for god's sake so all of this was so actually it's no coincidence we're sitting here talking about the success of me and em because if you look back really there there was a very clear you you conscious or right or subconscious yes and don't you do this with your what you do with your children you're going now i wonder if that's going to create a business idea or i wonder if that like what how's this little chain reaction of what you do with your life and where you end up

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27:43so your your next charm is you said a book or book club I couldn't do a whole book club so I've just done a book so I've just done a book um and this is a locket um and it's I've drawn it like an old-fashioned book with kind of ribbed spine I see it as kind of a leather lovely old-fashioned leather book um it's uh on the front it's got a border and the border little diamonds and it's just got engraved book club um and it's hinged and you can open it and inside i thought you could put whatever your favorite we could engrave whatever your favorite book is or it could be a photograph it may be a photograph of your mum there could be many different um iterations but it's um it's just a perfectly miniature um old-fashioned book so book club or book one of the many one of the many clubs we said i think really the importance of book club is i mean my book club's made up of a friendship group who all work pretty much and I think it's our excuse to get together so um book club has been now running for 15 years wow um and it's grown and grown and grown um and we like any book club it becomes it you know it's it's a it gets planned in 12 months ahead we all plan our meetings around it it happens every month uh sometimes we read the book and sometimes we don't read the book book club aside so this is really about kind of relationships but and i guess a support network because as we know when you're working very hard you quite often miss those friendships at the school gates yes at the thing to those you know sacrifices yes so i'm kind of guessing that this is a bit of a replacement for that yes where you can rely on each other because yeah the lunch thing's really hard isn't it it's like actually as much as I'd love to come for lunch I can't really no you just I don't think I've ever I don't think I've ever stopped for lunch but um it's interesting though because because those are the sacrifices that you you you make as a as a working mom because I think a lot of people think it's all really glamorous and it's all you know lovely but actually when you get home you're kind of thinking god I should have come home hours ago but when in the office you think I really shouldn't be going home once you've become a mum you will never get it right you know if you're a full-time mum you wish you were working and if you're working you wish you're a full-time mum and there's guilt on all sides I don't think you'll ever get it right but you're right if you choose to go down the working mother route you miss out on a lot of friendships you know you're never on the dog walk you're never at the crossing one and you're never at lunch you're never at the you know you just that's the bit you sacrifice until you have your time back again when your children get a bit older and suddenly you can which is why I think I'm addicted to the club because I can keep putting what I'm almost making up for lost time in a way so this one this child really makes me laugh so this is skis skis or skiing there's a bit of a story behind this so I've I've drawn the skis um literally as two separate skis joined on on one bale so that they move uh freely um they're quite old-fashioned looking fat skis so they used to be I used to have some skis BBRs and they were quite fat at the front but on the back of the skis one says Johnny which is your husband your lovely husband and the other says Tautin which is a very famous run in Verbier which I'm sure you're going to tell me about and then I've also put the ski sticks on the other side again they they move freely I've done them I've done them in in yellow 18 karat gold and they've got diamond handles and just for fun on a chain I've got a little a little kind of garnet cabochon heart because I know the story but tell me a little bit about these skis so I'd learned to ski um later in life so I really I went on one school ski trip um in my teens with the with my school but the I actually had a friend who I met at uni who had her parents had a ski chalet and actually picked up learning to ski from about the age of 18 and then continued skiing all through my 20s and into late 20s and then early 30s and Johnny and I had only just got together and I had been out skiing for about four days with some friends in Verbier and we'd been going down Tautan which as you describe for anyone who doesn't know is off-piste it's really steep it's full of ice and moguls and once you go down the Kulwa to get there there's a point of no return and it clearly marks if you're going to fall don't come down here but it's a little bit irrelevant because you're there and it says do not fall because if you do you it's a disaster so we'd all got our ski legs johnny had been working back in london and um he joined us four days in and i didn't know that he hadn't skied for 15 years and he said he was a good skier well he would wouldn't he really good because he was a bloke and he said i'm gonna everything so he um so we all set off and um he didn't let on at all that he had any worries about going down this incredibly dangerous vertical incredibly long run full of deep dangerous life-threatening locals and he He literally crossed his skis at the top and he went head over heels, over heels, over head, over heels.

34:10And I remember standing at the top, absolutely stunned. You thought he was dead. Oh my God. He might have broken his neck. It was so dramatic. It was so terrifying. And he just didn't stop. Hence the sign, do not come down here if you're going to fall. Because you do not stop. anyway after a few he did eventually stop he got caught between two moguls and um we all breathed a sigh of relief as we sort of as he stood up and then my next moment because I hadn't known him very long was oh am I gonna get the ick

34:52because I quite like people being really good at things I once I once I once mess up from a boyfriend because they didn't think he was a very good driver oh my god i was thinking oh i hope i don't go off him now anyway i guess um well i guess i guess i guess he was the one and uh 30 years later here we are and uh grace is uh now 18 and she's doing her and and we've never gone back to verbia we're like it's a no-no we need wider we need wider runs you know we need safer safer places but grace ends up on her gap year doing a ski season and she's in verbio so um we take a really small apartment in the village for a for for the eight weeks that she's there doing her um ski training or 12 weeks that she's doing her ski training and um we find ourselves back on Tautan and cut to however many years later 25 years later or something I fall at the top of Tautan and I don't get off so lightly and I have a very scary fall and in fact I am saved by my daughter who's done her mountain rescue training the day before and she actually prevents me from colliding with a mogul field head first but the reason I fell was I think my ACL in my knee the supporting ligament in your knee broke at the top that caused the fall and then as I hit the snow many times on the way down with my skis still on because it wasn't a bad fall it broke my knee in a horrendous way and I had major surgery and it was very dramatic and I was helicopters off the mountain and everyone was in tears so we don't like to like that and luckily he hasn't got the ick particularly when you ended up on crutches in a wheelchair having to move flat because you couldn't get around and I saw you then so my god yeah but um outside of the skiing um i mean johnny is a is a titan in itself in himself in his world of advertising how um how because you don't work together but i can only assume that he is an enormous support in your business yeah how does that kind of work because having come from advertising having met i think through advertising didn't you um how do you talk about your your various businesses do you how do how does it work well he's an investor in my business yeah um so we do talk about it but i try not to talk about it we talk about it a lot in the beginning but now i would rather not talk about it because um we only end up rowing if we talk about business yeah uh but he is um he's very i what i love about johnny is he provides unbelievable clarity to a complex situation so if I can't navigate something he will, even though I don't like the answer what I've learned to do is go I don't like that answer but actually do you know what let's give it the overnight test and normally the next day I go damn it, he's right I have the same with John it's something so annoying but unbelievably refreshing they take the emotion out of it I think and the complexity out of it unless it's around design yes yes go on because I think it's well I think it's like every author needs an editor so when you're in in your when you are in the middle of something or you have been trying to fight a complex issue yeah for a few days at sometimes it's just good to have someone come sweep in from the outside and go I think it's that yeah and it's and he's a he's a very he's very strategic he's a very clear thinker and in my darkest days of me and em uh particularly after emma left i just wanted to i mean i was it was too hard it was way too hard and i just couldn't hack it and he used to keep me going he was he was a big rock um and and he took a financial risk in help you know being the sort of main angel investor in the early years yeah so let's just talk about that a bit because obviously um well just just briefly describe that emma left when you when you decided yeah it became from pajama room to me and em yeah emma obviously wasn't going to leave at that point because it was no but a couple of years after that yeah so then so because that was a dark moment so so tell me a bit about that what the challenges of those really tough well i think we were we I mean Emma's in my book club we're still great friends there's there's there's no animosity whatsoever it was it was an amicable passing but um we just there were just I think Emma um had other priorities um and it was hard it was really really really hard to be left on your own to be to just the business was really hard yeah and at that stage it didn't really show any signs of breaking through so at the time you know I think she made the right decision but but um you know not because it wasn't a great idea and not because we went on to something just you know working capital in the early days is really hard to is really hard to manage what were you all kind of what was the most difficult part in in the kind of journey the me and em road where's where what are the the examples of some of the most difficult time outside of funding getting to profits obviously really hard because you you've got your minimums and then beat up enough customers for your minimums yeah so each factory makes you make x amount and then pm got enough customers across enough choice so then so so getting to profit is it's just that it's just that grinding journey of you know every everyone who joins has to put a tiny bit money and once you get to profit you feel real and that and that's amazing and obviously then we've all been thrown curveballs from you know whatever anyone's political views are Brexit hasn't been great for businesses like ours you know it's you can't just sell into Europe anymore your margin's been eroded so you have to look further afield um and um then you've and then you had the pandemic obviously it's the most boring answer but the pandemic was but the pandemic was a massive sea change for you wasn't it well it was only it we were lucky we had the weather and we had a lot of summer dresses had we not had that heat wave it wouldn't have been and we were good at pivoting we were very good at pivoting so quick to pivot we were quick to pivot um and the team were incredible but you know we were at our desks at seven and we were finishing at nine and it there was nothing in between and it was constant uh reimagining on how to run the business and adapting the supply chain around it and adapting the marketing and but you became very very very very very key to your marketing didn't you you and the girls I seem to remember yeah not photographing yourself yeah it was needs must wasn't it I didn't want to put myself towards that you know in the end you sort of it was just all bets were off you just did you just you use pure instinct it's all you had and you fought and actually I think that that was really good for the girls you know the girls were in the middle of exams uh so they were working hard but they could also see what it took for both Johnny and I to save our businesses and we really and in fact we really bonded over we really bonded over kicking and sports in that in that moment in time we were really lucky we had space I always say that you know if you were in the pandemic and you had space you were really lucky yeah you know it none of if you had space you've no idea what it was like without space yeah and of course you're trying to bring a company on with with with a lot of younger people who don't necessarily have that space um so your next charms these are rather beautiful these charms so two trees which stand side by side um so you sent me a photograph of the trees um and i i they're apart from being utterly beautiful trees uh it's very difficult to know how to recreate this as well as i possibly can because i know I know how important they are for you but the way I've done it is actually I've have done it in a in a frame um and the middle part is is like a kind of solid uh coin but it's like it's it's um it's a flattened flattened circle like it's really like a coin but very soft um and there these two trees are carved if you imagine when you start you carve it in wax first so that you can get the absolute texture and the needs of the trees um so the trunks it's in yellow gold but very very textured a little bit gnarled where where i think trees um will have stood the test of time and then the they've got green uh peridots in the leaves um and we might try clever of you my first engagement ring was a peridot i think would use different shades of peridot so you get that kind of feeling of the slightly different colored leaves um um so that's very much and then on the back um of this coin are um just some little some little stones so one is a moonstone.

45:11So one's a moonstone because I think your dad's birth stone was a moonstone and we're going to put a little date somewhere on here. And then your mummy's birth stone is a citrine so we've put that here and in fact around the bezel we can engrave their dates or their names and then these are just little little tiny diamond stars because they'll be looking down on you and looking to see you and it's because that is on um i think the most important thing is that it turns so the mid the section within the frame spins because i think it's something that's really playful and is kind of will always make you think about them and so so that's what it is now tell me about these lovely trees i mean it is an extraordinary thing to do as your two parents on one day within half an hour yeah i mean dad was he'd been ill for a long time but mum was you know fighting for it and you know it was a total shock and i was in fact was on the phone to her as it happened so um but um my dad uh loves trees i used to um plant trees on Saddleworth golf course with my dad he had hundreds of books on trees he was obsessed with trees and at our house in the Cotswolds there are three sets of trees one by the river and I've now noticed there are two one standing together one near the pool and there are two standing together But my favourites are these trees, which are visible and lit up at night.

47:06And they are, you look at them through the dining room window. And they are the oldest and highest trees in the valley. So when you go on the walks above, these are the trees that you see. Mum and Dad loved these trees. and on Christmas Day or any day that they were in our dining room these were the trees that we lit up and they looked out at and we always made a sort of, they became the sort of centrepiece for Christmas and family gatherings. So now I work, when I'm working from home, I look at these two trees and they are mum and dad. And I just keep seeing it's just this pairing and they symbolise, I guess, them being together for a very, very long time.

47:56But they're looking out for you. They will always be. I lost my mother when I was 23 and I know that she sits here and she comments. She's always got a view. But it's very clear that she's there and always with me, always, always there. They will always be there. I'm sure you're kind of here. and I think time gives you a bit more perspective because this is only three months ago. On a rather sunnier note, because I happen to know Alan.

48:34I love Alan the Dachshund. Yeah. Anyway, I've made him in yellow gold with kind of textured fur in the gold. he's got a he's got a a diamond collar and for some reason I put a Paddington hat on him because

48:57that's why I put a Paddington bear hat on it because it's a bit hard to do the stare but the Paddington bear hat is kind of little pavé rubies just perfectly tilted on him and he's sitting on this on this carved cushion blue agate on the top with little tassels at the bottom which move and on the bottom of the cushion we've just engraved Alan so the reason I know about Alan but the reason I know about Alan for the listeners is because last time I came to stay with you we were going to rather smart party we were changing in our room and Alan wanders in and does a big shit just running to my bed whilst I'm watching him literally and he looked at me and he thought actually you've done that now and off he went and John just said right that's yours to deal with anyway can you just tell me about what Alan is all about uh we we went through a tricky time with Maddie, who's now 20, she started vomiting a lot at school, but it was awful.

50:16I mean, literally, she couldn't keep a morsel of food in it, but it didn't even go into her stomach. It just came out of her esophagus. And it was awful. And it was mentally challenging and physically challenging. And it went on for a long time before we could get it properly diagnosed. It was partially diagnosed, but it wasn't fully diagnosed for about 18 months. And what was it? It's a condition called eosinophilic esophagitis. Sure. And it's an exaggerated version of acid reflux, but it's much worse than that. And it's actually linked to eczema. and it's the reason it's called, it's the esophagus bit.

51:05It's like you get eczema in your esophagus, but it creates this reaction. It's like a volcanic reaction. Then we managed to get it diagnosed, this incredible consultant at the Portland Hospital. He became my god. Yeah, sure. He interestingly had worked in a hospital in Cincinnati in 1996 1997 when EOE was first recognized as a problem and that specific form of gastro issue was identified he knew immediately um what it was I've never heard of it no no very very rare right uh and of course then the medication the diet that she put on and and it it kind of solved it and she got better, but she had, she'd lost her confidence a bit.

51:59Yeah. And we're out one day. And I said, is there anything? Well, what do you think? You know, we need to start getting you out and about. And like, what can we, you know, because she was a bit low. And she said, you know, I just want a wide head. She did that accent. That was it? Yeah, that was it. because I think a puppy represents you know a return to puppies help conversations and you know everyone break down barriers a lot and she was obsessed with them obsessed with them and I was like oh I didn't understand the attraction of these tiny strange looking creepy yeah johnny and maddie both end is that one it's definitely that one um so we went and then we came back the following week and johnny said um and johnny said on the way home he said right i'm over the line on this they were cute i'll give you that thing they said we're only having it if we call it alan how random but hang on he must have had a reason he'd seen the stare he'd seen how little and cute and kind of everything about this sort of funny little fella was and he just thought it needs a proper name he needs a he needs a good broatsnake there might make when you go this isn't you know this isn't salt this isn't pepper or whatever you might call it this is alan this is strong alan does make people it does uh and alan has become this i mean alan is a character as you know he's a he's a real character and lots of people now have widehead dachshunds um as a result of us having alan and uh we have a friend who has kevin uh and uh there's also there's many there's many um dachshunds come into our lives as a result of Alan in fact I bought my mother a Dachshund oh my god who lived with them and brought I mean she said the day a few days before I last saw her you know this is the best thing they ever did for us was bring and and her mother who died when she was 21 was called Dora she called Dachshund Dora so you've got Dora and Alan you've got Dora and Alan I love that and this was Alan is so important because he became the first rung on the ladder to really healing he really did start to heal and then the pandemic came and then of course Alan was with Alan non-stop 24-7 Yeah, and I owe a lot to Alan.

54:51Well, I think on that very happy note, I thank you, Claire. Thank you for sharing all of that. It's absolutely... The charms are just incredible. Your imagination knows no bounds. You are a true creative. Very inspiring. Oh, thank you. But most importantly, so I'm going to make you one to say thank you for coming and spending some time with me. I think I probably know which one it is, but which one would you like me to make? It has to be this, doesn't it? Is that the one you least want to do? No, I want to do the one that's going to mean the most to you. Because I think what charms and jewellery is all about, it is about memory.

55:37it is about what it means to you what it represents the time the all of those things are the most important things about jewelry because looking nice is one thing but if it doesn't look nice you're never going to wear it but I really want you to choose one that you it means lots to you and and most importantly is that the that's your that's the tree to represent your parents okay well I shall really look forward to that and we can just talk about whether we put any any engraving on it or we put their birthdays or perhaps their initials or um because I think we do think about for you now but also for the children or your grandchildren in the future um I think that's really part of what charms are about you know charms are all about that they're all about the memories um so we you you can you can have a think about how to do that because it'll take a few weeks to uh to make it thank you for joining us on my life in charms if today's conversation has inspired you to reflect on your own story a memory a milestone a moment worth cherishing we invite you to begin your own life in charms journey and visit anushka.com to learn more or get in touch with us at bespoke at anushka.com to start crafting your very own 18-karat gold autobiography.

57:04Until next time, thank you for listening and don't forget to follow or subscribe to hear more extraordinary stories told in jewels.