Life in Charms with Lucinda Chambers

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 had an unconventional childhood, moving 18 times whilst always staying within the same page of the London A to Z. starting out with Perspex earrings and a tutu more on that later she embarked on an extraordinary career spending 36 years at Vogue. She began her journey under the legendary Beatrix Miller and later worked along Alex Shulman for 25 years as fashion director creating some of the most awesome and iconic shoots.

0:53She collaborated with Grace Coddington and the world's most celebrated models, leaving an indelible mark on the fashion world. After leaving Vogue, she launched her own clothing line and co-founded Collagery, a brilliant online platform that curates and showcases beautiful items and takes you on a journey that can either be inspiring or practical, but which doesn't have any anxiety attached to it. I'm thrilled to welcome the brilliant stylist and tastemaker, Lucinda Chambers, to my life in Seven Charm. Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here. Really lovely to see you. So, Lucinda, your first charm is a penguin, but I think he'll make a gorgeous charm.

1:36So I've designed the charm. Wherever I can, I kind of make something as beautifully in miniature as I can. So I see this as quite a fat, chubby little penguin. Good. And so he's three-dimensional. he's um he his black uh is represented by black diamonds black pavé diamond um set in white gold uh with black rhodium so you don't see any of the claws on the diamond so it's really kind of black but got some texture um and his tummy is polished white gold and then his little feet are yellow gold and um they'll be perfectly uh you know with all the detail of the kind of of his toes and everything um then um on the bottom of his feet i've just written mummy because i think this represents your mother um and he'll have a little black diamond eye and a gold yellow beak um and i think he'll be absolutely adorable actually well he sounds sensational but you've obviously got quite a lot of penguins haven't we've got we've got a lot of penguins and it's very funny because when I was thinking when you asked and I was thinking about my mother and I was thinking it's so it's slightly at odds with her because she was very practical but then it makes perfect sense because she had an incredible sense of the ridiculous and I think so do my children and we all have kind of a similar sense of humor and penguins I think somehow really tickled her because they're so crazy.

3:17I mean, they're not elegant and they're, I mean, I'm sure the charm will be incredibly elegant because the colouring is so beautiful, but they're not elegant and they're slightly bonkers and they made her laugh. And of course, it gave us a sort of focal point. So whenever we saw a penguin, and it was usually an old one knocking around in a marketplace or, you know, we'd buy it for her, whether it was sort of a bashed old wooden one and then it was something for the children to collect for her. I think she just thought they were really humorous and she had a terrific sense of humor. I love the idea.

3:49Have you still got all these penguins? I've got some of them. Have you? Yes, I've got some of them. Funnily enough, she was incredible, my mother, later on in life when I think it probably started in her mid-60s, so kind of where I am now, although I can't imagine doing this. She started to really understand how she was going to end up in life. and she's very like me she loved collecting things but she was very unmaterialistic also very like me right and her goal was to end up in a convent which she had identified in one room with a computer and a wardrobe full of her clothes she was mad about clothes and this convent was in South Kensington and that's exactly what she did do and so starting at sort of age sort of 60 sort of mid-60s she began to give away everything that she had collected paintings and clothes and stuff she didn't want to end up with any stuff and she didn't want you guys to end up with all yes yes and I think that was an incredibly she was predominantly a very practical woman always thinking ahead but also really enjoying the moment but she understood exactly how it was going to be but she also understood herself that that's what and she found the only convent that would allow her to have a fridge and a bottle of champagne and that's what she did in South Ken opposite the Blake's Hotel so you know so so she was you know our age when when she started thinking about all of this have you started thinking about all that yes it's because I'm clearing out a flat at the moment that's my son's and um and I'm a big collector but I've just started giving away pictures and yes so it has I think probably at the same time that it's a cad tower but also not because she's the same age as me when she started to do it but more because I'm clearing out this flat and there's so much stuff and it's stifling I mean I loved it you know when I have it but I also love giving it away and I've just started I gave a really beautiful painting to my partner in Colville it's a quakey age of sudden and I just thought yeah that's the first thing I'm going to just say you know what Molly this is this will look so much better on your wall so I'm going to start to do that yeah it's goodness I think things have their time yeah no I thought well yeah absolutely it's so interesting because actually my mother died when I was 23 and very very very suddenly so I being an only child I ended up with all this stuff I mean stuff and at a very young age at a very young age anyway it's just so interesting what you're saying because I've kind of been thinking about it myself thinking I don't want my daughter to have to have to deal with all this stuff that frankly they want less and less stuff yeah they do so what do you collect interestingly it was at this precise moment but you know we do a lot of collaborations and the things that i've collected really come in handy from when i need a textile or when i need a print or when i need colors together so actually the stuff that i collect or this is what i tell myself is that they do have another they can come into another life and be useful for something else it's that's how i justify it no no it's so interesting because i um i went by all this stuff from from my mother and a kind of jewelry box full of all sorts of stuff not necessarily precious adult wise have been market stuff etc etc and still i go to that jewelry box and to the you kept it all you kept it all and that kind of thing.

7:35And it might just be the top of something. A detail. A detail or something. Something that can spark something off. But we got completely off subject, but I'm really interested in this business of moving house 18 times. Yes. Well, necessity, because that's how we made some money. Right. Turning these houses. Yes, but the minute... So she and my father always found a reg. But we always lived in them, surrounded by... She was amazing with her hands. So she could build a dry stone wall herself. She could wallpaper herself. We were always painting. Was she English? Yes. Okay. But she was highly unusual.

8:18And she had an incredible sense of space, which I don't have, of that she could go into a wreck of a house or a flat and say, well, if I ripped out the stairs there, turn that wall back to front, to put the stairs in back to front, put a full ceiling in there, this could be good. And she would do it the minute it was done. My brother and I actually had a kind of semi-roof over our head. We'd be on the move again. So consequently, I think that's why my husband and I have lived in our house for 35 years, and the thought of moving is just sort of anathema to me. But what was incredible is that she loved change, and I love that too.

9:01and I think transformation you know that because everything that she did had didn't have a pattern so we could live in a kind of 70s modern flat and then go into a kind of flat and cheney walk that was totally rococo and gold and color and she would do all the upholstery herself and so very very patchful with her hands god how amazing that must have been subconsciously a huge influence on your on what you've gone on to do do you think i think it i think it probably did although i wasn't aware of it at the time and she always when people would say to her you're creative she said i'm not creative and she loved decoration which i think that is what i do fundamentally is decorate whether it's for the body or whether it's the home or whether it's for your mind but it's decoration yeah and transformation in that sense and I always throughout my career I loved you know particularly when I was on Vogue love creating sets and narratives and storytelling so I think that does come from her and I think she always made our clothes so she started out actually not very far from here in Pelham the her teaching sewing and flower arranging to kind of debutantes she worked for a woman called betty bailey and just to earn some money and she was fantastic at sewing so she did teach me how to sew so i can i can sew yeah i can't use it yeah pattern cutting do you all the all i can make a pair of trousers i never learned pattern cutting but i could make a pair of trousers and well the sewing was a bit of a disaster for me i mean i would make all my own clothes but they didn't last final that's so funny but that that brings me quite neatly onto your next charm actually which I um which I read I read somewhere that your first day at Vogue you you were decided to wear a tutu so your next charm is a is a tutu I love that I'm so great and um I read um I thought this is so funny he said um I look like a Morris dancer on acid you told me that it was um that it had leaves around it, around the waistband.

11:13I mean, you describe your tutu and I'll describe the charm. I thought I was so over-excited about getting a job at Vogue and it had been quite a sort of circuitous route. And I had imagined, because I hadn't been there before, I didn't know anybody who worked at Vogue or Condé Nast. And so I imagined that everybody was kind of incredibly, amazingly dressed. Actually they all wore sweater dresses and cowboy boots. I remember thinking, oh God, I've got it so wrong. But I made this tutu the night before, not very well. And I remember it was quite see-through, so I cut out petals. So was it chew? Yes, it was net.

11:52And I stuck the petals in the waistband, and then I wore a pair of ballet shoes, and I decided to tie laces up the legs, ribbons. So I did look like a Morriston. And I don't know what I was wearing on top, Maybe nothing. What color? It was all sort of pink and green and, you know, fairy-like. And my hair was multicolored because I used to dye it lots of different colors and it was bleach blonde with all these multicolored tips. I mean, I looked like a carcass. And I was working in the petty cash department, so it required no stretch of the imagination clothes-wise or anything else, for that matter.

12:28And I was working for a very ferocious woman called Lily Davis, Miss Davis, we used to school her. and I turned up and I mean nobody's people saw me kind of from top up because I sat behind a desk you know typing out petty cash slips badly um but the head of personnel that got me this job and she said it's just an in you know you're gonna get in in the door yeah and uh and it wasn't it was a way in but the but the leaves all fell apart and I think somebody actually shouts down the corridor your bottom's like yeah because the leaf had to you know been somewhere left along probably in the loo so I've designed this uh I just it just made me really smile but I've actually designed it so so that it's a skirt it's a tutu I made it in um yellow gold but very kind of textured to get that kind of feeling of the of the tulle um and then I've put little leaves um in pink sapphires set in white gold.

13:28I saw it as very girly, this little tutu. Well, it's a totally elevated... I mean, I don't think a tutu has ever looked so incredible. And I kind of quite like the idea of these legs move dangling. Yeah, lodging for the bus. With the ballet shoes, so the legs in kind of rose gold and little ballet shoes, also in pink, kind of slightly darker pink sapphires. I didn't put the ribbon up the legs, but... A step too far. A step too far. And then from the waistband, just like a little belt of chain and two little pearls on the end of the chain. So it kind of feels like it's... Anyway, there's lots of movement.

14:11That's wonderful. Such a magical... So I thought it would be kind of... Yes, like a sort of musical box. I thought it would be quite amusing. but um so i mean my my my first question about vogue is everyone everyone always thinks that everybody in fashion is really scary really scary really devil wears prada you know everybody i think tell me how it really is because it can't be like that well i don't think it's like that and i think and i think my experience and i was very lucky to have it for so long was absolutely not like that. I think there were bits of it that could be or were like that.

14:54I don't think it was... I mean, listen, you know, if you talk to any young kid, I don't think a young kid would say I'm not interested in fashion. Right, for sure. So if that's a given, it's a very competitive business. Yeah. And with that, you know, can come sharp elbows, I guess. Like anything, if you're working in a film or music or... Yeah. But I think what was incredibly fortunate is that when Alex Shulman ran Vogue, she ran a really tight ship. And... What do you mean by that? In the sense that she employed women and men who were very, very serious about their job. Yeah. and worked very hard, but didn't take themselves seriously.

15:47And I think that's the crux. That's for Keeney. She employed intelligent, I think often very kind women. We were all, well, handsome men, but not very many men, it has to be said. Very female-based. Very female-based, but we were all juggling jobs, children, often the main breadwinner. Yeah. You know, quite a lot of my contemporaries were the main breadwinner. So we were, we took it seriously. We didn't take ourselves seriously. And she wouldn't countenance any kind of bitchery. It was really interesting. And so therefore nobody was. But yes, I mean, when I left British Vogue, I went on to work for American Vogue, and that was very different.

16:31And I would say, you know, Anna runs American Vogue in a very different way. Well, that's the epitome of scary, from where I'm sitting. Yes, I mean, I just thought it was really interesting because it was very different. Right. But I loved it as well. Sharp elbows there? No, but much more serious, I think. Right. That we weren't sharp elbowed with each other, but we also wanted to deliver the best possible thing that we could. So I think in a funny way to go back to the sharp elbows thing, we were competitive. I know I certainly was with ourselves. and I think it was something I said to myself that if I was standing in front of or behind the camera and that could be in any other magazine apart from Vogue, then something was wrong with it.

17:20I'm not denigrating other magazines, but it had to look like a Vogue shoot and that was a code of excellence. That brings me very neatly onto your next charm, actually, because the next charm is the sun. it's it's 18 karat gold we've been like this 18 karat gold yes it's lovely uh it's got diamond eyes got a little face that's quite smiley yeah but without being too smiley um and each of the rays move and they've got diamonds set inside them um and actually on the on the back of yours I've just put a citrine stone you said that throughout your career you have been chasing the suns presumably that's about following the sun for the for the shoot yeah so on a really basic level because I think people who have never been in fashion or have never been involved in the kind of creative side of any of any business have no concept of what a shoot is because why should Well, why should they?

18:28But even when I do tiny little shoots for my jewellery business, I'm always absolutely amazed how many people seem to be involved, no matter how simple I try to keep it. But can you just tell me, what are you looking for? What's the kind of concept as you devise this shoot in your mind? What I love to do, and for me it was never about the clothes, the clothes helped me tell a story and they facilitated they would they were a part of the jigsaw puzzle that built up the narrative of this story so if Alex would say to me or I would say to Alex I think we need to do a winter coat story I'd go oh coats okay so they're going to be on this model and I think I'll ask Guinevere to do it because she's slightly older she's got a really interesting face and she's a woman who can't decide whether to leave her husband or not and I'm going to take her to this island in Sweden and she's a bit of a recluse because she had been famous and she's at this point in her life where it's a dilemma oh but she happens to be wearing a coat and she's got a few coats so the story for me was never about oh let's do a red coat, black coat, yellow coat, white coat.

19:47It was always about this woman. She feels safe in her coat. She feels cocooned. She wraps it around her. It's how she feels. The expression on her face. But she's really thinking about how she's going to leave her husband. But she's on an island. So it sounds convoluted and crazy. No, it sounds... But it was always, oh, if it's Kate Moss washed up on a desert island, we'd go to this crazy island where there was nothing there except driftwood and she was wearing driftwood-type rags. I asked Tom Binns to make jewellery that was pearls that fell out of a rope that was muddled in a seaweed situation because she was this castaway.

20:30She was this castaway where her skin was raw and red and she'd been on the beach for five years. you know so it was the clothes facilitated me telling a story I mean I love fashion shows and I love designers because they're also telling stories so for me it was always about storytelling and it was about what model what hair what makeup artist would you know I really respected everybody I worked with and they all were incredibly or are incredibly talented so that's so interesting But is the process, do you start at the beginning, do you start the mood board off kind of? Yes, it could be anything.

21:09It could be anything. I mean, I was thinking about a shoot once, and I think I mentioned this to you, and I was thinking about, I wanted these girls, I wanted the clothes to be black and white, because that's how I imagined it, but I wanted the photographs to be in colour, and I was shooting with Josh Olin, so I shot with a lot. And I was thinking, I don't know how to do it, I don't know how to do it. And it was in autumn, and there were these leaves, and I thought, that's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it like Village of the Damned. There are all these leaves and dead twigs and they're going to be in their hair and on the ground and they're going to be in these really simple black and white clothes and the girls are going to look as if they hadn't seen the sun for 20 years.

21:49Really pale. One was really pale, white blonde hair. One was really pale but dark. So they looked a bit like Susie Bick actually, one of the models. Yes, and then it came and then it comes to you and then you ring up Josh and you think, Josh, you know, you say to him, I want... And you take people on a journey, you know, and you hold their hand and you want them to come with you. But when you talk about it like that, it sounds so kind of magical.

22:16And it's not what I expected you to say at all. I expected you to be driven by the commercial or the fact that you wanted, you know, Alex wanted Kate or somebody, you know, a particular... Well that would happen if Alex would maybe, we would talk about it and say that was a celebrity thing. And that was different, but there still had to be a story. I mean, there's still, I remember when we shot Taylor Swift for the first time and she was so clean and gorgeous. But I said, I want you to be really mean looking, like really, so we slicked back her hair and dusted it all in kind of mew mew. I want you to be a bad girl, because that's not how...

22:59I think particularly with Vogue, when we first grabbed Victoria Beckham for the first time, she had always done very sexy things. And I said, I want these pictures to be something that your children will plow for a draw and go, Mum, you're just so beautiful. I want you to look like a queen. So I did her like Princess Margaret, very like an old royal. I mean, not old in age, obviously, but like a young royal. Yes, yes. But with hair curly. and you know with celebrities it's slightly different because they're nervous and they don't particularly want to be transformed. Does anyone ever say no to Vogue?

23:35Out of interest. Whether you're a celebrity model does anybody ever say no? It it didn't happen. Okay that's kind of what I imagine. Yeah that's interesting I've got a thought about that. Yeah no I'm just like I wonder the other way that ever happened. But you never took it for granted that they'd say yes, put it that way.

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24:55Coming back a bit, your next term is Star, and you've said, follow your dreams. I always look up everywhere, everywhere I go. And I was always told to follow your dreams and look up and out, and you're never too old or young not to do so. and I thought that's really I love the whole concept of that because it is so important to keep your eyes open and keep focused on whatever the I've drawn it as a north star because I'm thinking what your north star is so I have a whole collection of charms that old pendants that spin so I've done this in a gold frame and the star itself is actually three-dimensional and it's on a kind of rod so that it turns.

25:51I think it's really important to turn. So, again, I love yellow gold, so I've done it in yellow gold with a diamond in the centre of the star. So, Lizzie, tell me about this star. Yes, looking up again or looking down to the leaf, looking up to the star. Well, I think it's interesting what you say, Anushka, because I really feel for young people, particularly when it's really easy for me to say, follow your dreams. When for me, I think I've had an amazingly fortunate career. So it felt as if I was following my dream. But I didn't have a dream to start with. And I think it's really hard for young kids to identify what that dream is.

26:40I think some do and some don't, but I think it's really easy for older people to assume that young people should or could have a dream. Yeah. Because it's not often the case. And also, what do they know what jobs are out there? What do they know what the possibilities are? I mean, I think it's easier now. Maybe with social media, you can kind of track, you know, there's more information out there. But certainly for me, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had no idea. I never performed well at school and I wasn't particularly good at anything. So, you know, it's easy to say follow your dream. I had no idea what that dream was.

27:15So the dream is kind of looking back and it's almost that you're looking back. And actually I did follow, you did follow your dream, but it kind of unfolded. I think there was a light bulb moment that definitely set me on a course. Right. So it wasn't on a it wasn't a dream, but it was on a it was a curiosity thread Right, so when I was when I left school I Went to art college my mother and I both went to art college at the same time Did you? Yes, and she was 58 59 well It wasn't really it was because we had to make some money right and we had run out of money and and we only had a five-year lease on our flat.

28:02In those days, you could get a grant for art colleges, but you didn't have to pay it back, unlike these days. So my mother said, we're going to make a portfolio at the kitchen table. We're going to get into an art college. She definitely decided that she had to learn a skill where she could make money, so she decided bookminding because it was something she could do alone. It didn't need a lot of room. She could afford to do it. you know she had a thought to buy the tools yeah and it was something practical so she definitely decided to do bookbinding so she went to london college of printing i went to hornsey did a foundation absolutely hated it because i saw all these talented kids around me and i knew i wasn't one of them okay so is it and i felt afford yeah i felt yeah and i felt i was being given a grant where i just shouldn't be there yeah and wasn't going to get anywhere with it my mother her course was two or three years was learning something practical but then I think somebody showed me the perspex room at hornsey and it had all these colors and the colors spoke to me of all these colors of plastic and I started to learn how to work the machinery and I started to make earrings and then I used to wear them and then I thought I could sell them a couple of friends that I really like them so I started to make them well they're big giant yeah they're good because they're on it so light yeah real yeah fluorescent yeah pinks and super big super big yeah zigzaggy flashes of lightning very kind of ziggy sardust a friend of mine said they're in a magazine they're on a free magazine called miss london which was given out on the tube i remember yeah to remember yeah really good i saw a pair of my earrings on this really tall girl model and it was just we weren't magazine buyers or anything like that in our family i mean we used to make our players and we used to be really interested in, like we'd go to Howard's and my mother would always carry a tape measure.

29:56We'd like copy the clothes. That's hilarious. Yeah. What, surreptitiously with the tape measure? Yes, we'd be in the changing room and we would measure up. I always have a tape measure in my bag. Always, even now. You never know. And she'd whip it out, we'd measure up and we would go and choose the fabric and she'd make the clothes, make the cape or make the zeppi-uppy 60s dress. I love it. No, it was really good. I remember all my outfits. It was so brilliant. And they were quite, you know, they were painting leather. but they were quite out there. My mother was, you know. Out there. Yeah, and she was an amazing dresser.

30:25So I made these things, but when I saw this in a magazine, I was like, I was blown away because I had held those earrings in my hand and made them and sanded them. And so I thought, what is this journey between in my bedroom to on this stupendous model? Yeah. What's that journey? So that did set me on the course. And I thought, okay, from now on, I'm going to leave art college. I'm not going to go on and I'm going to find out what that journey is. Right. And I need to know. Yes. And so everything I do now, whether it was working in Topshop or whether it was making costumes for a theatre company, everything I did had to be a little, a bit like one of your little diamonds, had to be a grain of sand towards knowing more about fashion and this journey towards this magazine, this mythical magazine.

31:19so so okay that's so interesting gave me a focus it gave me a star yeah like I'm going to follow this I'm going to follow this and yes that's it on this journey um your next charm is a tea um so I've I've done it as our kind of signature initial tea um in a open um open oval frame with a diamond, just exactly a T with diamonds set inside them. So very, very, very, very simple. But all your children's names begin with T. Well, they don't really, but they do. I mean, there's Tobias was my first son, Toby. And then there's Theodore. And then there's Gabriel, the last son. But Gabriel's always called Twiz.

32:09Right. Theodore's always called Teddy. Yeah. But Tobes is always called Tobes. Why is Gabriel called Twizz? Oh, because when I was pregnant, he absolutely rotated a bit like your star and your teeth. It was completely rotation. And we had a wonderful nanny who was with us for years, a boy nanny called Bren, who's actually Twizzie's godfather. And he was like, well, he's such a Twizzler. And so he was always known as Twizz and still is. I wasn't sure what you were going to say, because I've got two boys called, one's called Oscar, one's called Ollie. And the reason they got that was because I thought on their school labels, it meant I wouldn't have to change them.

32:50But it kind of occurred to me they went to different schools. It was absolutely hopeless. Yes, a small lot saving. But three children and a very, very full on job. How did you manage all of that? Because I mean, I guess in fashion, it's not a nine to five job, is it? No, it certainly is. And actually, very few people ask me that. It's really interesting. But I often ask myself that. I'm like, wow. Because it was challenging. And I felt I was always away. And I said actually to Toby recently, I was always away. He said, you're never away. I said, I was always on a plane. And I do think that when I was with my children, when I was with the boys or with Simon, I was 100 % with them.

33:34Which I think is harder for women and men to do these days now. you're always on. And I think I was, I used to, if I could afford it, and I did, you know, the money that I saved, I did spend, I would take my boys with me traveling. And they're great travelers. You know, they all live out of London. I mean, one lives in Barcelona, one lives in Marrakesh. You know, they, so I would take them on trips wherever I could. So they, what was great about that, they absolutely understood what my work was and were quite involved with it they loved seeing it yes and in those days it wasn't rushed you could go on a trip for a week you know you you prepped and you worked very hard maybe i'll tag a you know a day at the end of it yeah um and so they could see that i loved it and i i think what was very i never apologized i never sort of said i'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, I have to go away.

34:33I'd say, guess what, guys? I'm doing this incredible shoot with Patrick de Rochelle. I'm going to Peru with Mario. We're going to be up a mountain. Might not be able to speak to you for two days. They could see I loved it. And it was very fulfilling. Yeah. And did you ever, I mean, you know, it's an obvious question. Still felt guilty. I mean, I think that's just par for the course. It's a knack that goes on your back. Yes. Did you ever kind of, you know, think, oh god I'm never at the school gates I'm never doing the lunches yeah did you did you mind or yeah I did feel guilty yeah I think we all feel good I'm just interested whether you much or little you do yeah I remember once doing the school run and scrambling with their lunch boxes and I'm one of my children was probably Theo saying Mimi step aside you don't know what goes in them it's fine we'll do it and I remember feeling ashamed yeah you know that I didn't but on the other hand I felt that they loved schools and they knew that I paid for the school fees.

35:38I mean I'm not saying that's a quid pro quo but I think they knew why I was in it and they never made me feel that way. I remember one mother saying to me once, you're never at the school gates and I felt terrible and I thought no. I mean I am sometimes. and at certain times when I felt they needed me more I would try and do it more but I was very lucky in the nannies that we had that they stayed with us and was Simon, was he? Very much around, very much around he's a wonderful cook and he's really into cooking but that really helps that you were both on that trajectory he was a diplomat when I first met him and then he worked for the BBC and now he coaches New York Devast children.

36:30But yes, he had a job that was always very much. He could be at home. And did you kind of create a space somewhere which was all about family that was never... Oh, for sure. I mean, I left this morning and there was one person staying and there's another person tonight. And then I think one of my children, my married name is Crow, and I think they put a notice on one of the doors saying this is the hotel where strange people come and go but yeah we don't always there's always somebody saying yeah and it's very back and forth and there's a lot of movement in it yeah there was a lot of movement yeah so your next charm I love the idea of this charm you said for the love of decoration it's I think it's what I've done all my life decorate the bead symbolizes for me just adding another beautiful bead whether it's home or fashion me or a model decoration defines me um I love the idea of the kind of analogy of a bead being the kind of decorative you know particularly for jewelry which is you know because because jewelry is about it's not about sorry just about the piece of jewelry it's about the moment the memory the everything it means to you and and you know why so I've done it very very simply uh literally I I imagine it as a lapis uh lapis lazuli bead because because lapis has got all different colors it's got bits of gold in it and um and I I literally see it as a kind of worry bead set within a frame so that it it can spin and you can play with it all the time touch it and touch it and feel it like a kind of worry beat so it's set in a yellow gold frame um and it is just really really simple and um and a few little diamonds on the frame just to kind of bring out the the gold and the the sparkle in the lapis but um it's really interesting you talk about that as kind of whether it's a whether it's decorating or or a model um i just love that analogy because i mean my first thing is do you see yourself as fashion as a fashion director or do you so see yourself as a decorator because in its kind of at its most basic level so if you if somebody says to you listen what do you do now because it's because collagery is so you know it's about fashion it's about option yeah all those ones yeah and it brings all of those worlds together so i'm kind of interested now if somebody asked uh me now what do you do i would say oh i you know we have a website called collagery right and i have a fashion does homes as well called colville um but that's how i would describe what i'm doing yes and then they would say what is collagery yeah and then i would describe it okay okay that's interesting so so let's well tell me So describe Palajri for me.