Life in Charms with Nicola Clarke

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.

0:26The incredible Dolly Parton once said, the most important thing a woman can have next to her talent, of course, is her hairdresser. They're not just the ones who keep us coloured and coiffed. their great listeners, therapists and so much more. Today I'm delighted to turn the tables a bit and do the listening as I'm joined by no other than London's colour queen and the creative colour director behind many famous faces from Madonna, Kate Moss, Kate Blanchett to name but a few. Nicola Clarke, welcome to My Life in Seven Charms. Thank you. I'm excited to hear about all of these charms. Particularly, I thought the first one was so interesting.

1:05Because you said you wanted to rework a snake ring that your nan had left you. Yes. I mean, I've designed it as obviously as a charm or pendant that you could wear on and off a necklace or a bracelet. But I've taken it quite literally from the ring. Yeah. Which I believe is a 1950s American ring. Apparently so. Yeah. How interesting. So it's a snake. It's a coiled snake and it's got a green and blue enamel skin, I guess. And I've done it like that. And then I just put a little pearl in the middle of it because I really like the charms to have movement. Absolutely. And feel very feminine. But jewellery is all about memories.

1:54Absolutely. So I'm kind of... So tell me a little bit about your nan. I mean, I grew up in there and around both of my grandparents from both sides. And unfortunately, my nan died when I was six years old. So I was they were from London and we lived in Essex. And I think even from an early age, I was I always felt like I was from London because I was surrounded by my grandparents. and I spent a lot of time with her in her garden and she had they had a huge garden and it was all about the flowers and we also my granddad had an aviary so birds and grew around lots of animals and stuff so I just felt that um she had all these incredible pieces of jewelry that my granddad was a little bit of a collector and a bit of order so I think he whenever he got some money he bought my nan some nice pieces of jewelry I always remember it was she I mean she was a tiny little thing yeah quite sort of stout and you know a bit of a hard worker yeah but she always had like these incredible jewelry and I think even when I was younger I tried to put them on and they would never fit me because they were so much smaller in those days but she had this lovely bracelet that she used to wear like up on her arm.

3:16I don't know what you call that, whether it was like a... I think it was like an arm. Yeah, and so, and she had really lovely bits and pieces and I just, the snake, I was always really fascinated by animals and I think that she left me a snake ring but the enamel was quite apt really. So, and being in the garden and just been hanging around with her. so she was she was in London but home for you was Essex is that right they moved from London so they were from the east end and then they moved out into Essex into this I suppose like they lived in they lived in a much bigger house it was like I think it was the houses that they gave the doctors when you lived kind of like on a council estate or it was like this huge great big house which is my nan and granddad and their poodle rattling around oh and they had a parrot as well they had a parrot as well yeah so did you used to play with parrot yeah it bit me when I was probably about seven or eight and then when my granddad passed away when we were 13 we ended up with it so it probably lived until I was about 18 I read somewhere that you had a lot of there would just seem to be kind of eels and things well yeah I suppose being from the east end and stuff like jelly deals and things like that which was pretty frightening I think when I was that age so jelly deals I am I always live in Kent when I was little.

4:43We used to stop. We used to do a particular Jelly Deal, Bert's, I think it was called. Okay. And so I was kind of interested in the deal because I had such clear memories of going with my mother to Bert's to get Jelly Deals or Jennerga. And did you like it? I did like it then. Did you? I'm not so sure now. My dad used to make me go to the, there used to be a pub sort of near, probably about a mile away from where we lived and my dad used to make us, well, he used to ask us to go down and getting cockles and whelks and jelly dills. So it's a real kind of East End. Yeah, really. Yeah, it really is.

5:18Your next charm, interestingly, I thought this was really interesting because your next charm is also about your other nan. Yeah. Is that right? I don't know. I suppose, I think because I lost them at quite an early age and I don't know, I suppose you spend a lot of time, possibly you spend a lot of time with your grandparents when your parents are at work and stuff. so they were huge influence in my life and they were quite um I don't know like I feel like they were quite strong women so they kind of fascinated me and I just loved being around them I think I always liked being around older people my mum's mum she was really a strong woman she I think she lost her husband my net I think my mum was 12 when she lost her dad so she did remarry but not until quite later on in life and she was incredibly you know like if I'd fallen out with my dad or I'd had an argument and I say oh that's it I'm gonna go and live with nan and my man my nan would be like amazing she'd be like come and live with me it's fine but you can come and stay with me she lived down the road yeah it's interesting so this charm you obviously have memories of her because you said I'd really like to remember her uh with a kind of cocktail glass yeah I found that Because I suppose she was quite a strong woman and she was probably the only person around me that drank.

6:41And she drank gin and orange squash. Oh, my nanny used to drink that. Okay, so that... Not orange, grapefruit juice. Okay. So I kind of imagine that this charm was kind of very much a cocktail. Yeah. So I've drawn it as a cocktail, as a martini. I love a cocktail anyway. A very typical martini glass. And I've put it, so it's three-dimensional, so you could pour a tiny little drip of something into it. But it's in yellow gold, polished yellow gold, the stem and the base of that. And then the actual glass is kind of orange, orange and pink sapphires. And then on the side, we've used, I've just literally just put a slice of orange with enamel.

7:30yeah it was just um orange enamel in the middle with a tiny little pearl yeah i love that both of them pearls which kind of is a kind of like i always feel like that it's a bit of an age thing it's kind of like people will like my you always get kind of pearls with like older women i feel well i think if you're right yeah and so it's lovely that i feel like they're both both nans and that ties them together absolutely but i'm interested because we've you've talked a lot about your nan but you haven't really talked about your mum or your dad yeah so just tell me about just give me a little bit of a kind of feeling of what it was like growing up with your nan down the road yeah not one bit further away well my dad was a printer so he was um fired from right the um I'm not even going to say it from one of the newspapers oh mine was fired from it my dad was five more times oh right so we would have been the same group i'm not even going to mention them so but um yeah so that was a really sort of traumatic time in our life um and my mom had multiple jobs to compensate to compensate for my dad um being on strike so she was oh i don't know like an apple picker she did she worked for securico so she did like packing people's wages and stuff like that and she was a cleaner i mean she did she was yeah she she she just sort of held the family together when my dad um was on strike and yeah and they used to go up to whopping together um which was also really traumatic because that was a bit of a crazy time with the metropolitan police and they were like i think quite quite aggressive and yeah when it was like a bunch of families basically standing up for their rights so yeah my parents were very working class so I thought if I get into like hairdressing or makeup or something like that it could get me out of living in Essex which is you know it was it served me really well and I loved it for the for the for the for the greenery and the animals and all that but I just wanted to be part of something bigger I wanted to be part of more of a multicultural like environment.

9:47So interesting though that you had already thought about that. Oh I hounded the local hairdressing salon from the age of about 11 and I got a job in the local salon at about 13 and so my mum took me up to London when I was about 14 and we just did we did a lap of all the salons around London. Well, hang on. What do you mean you did a lap of the salons? So you'd been working at the salon locally. Yeah. And then did you know, had you heard of any of the salons? One of my mum's best friend's sister was a hairdresser and she gave a list of places where to go in London. And quite frankly, I probably wasn't that bothered as long as it was in London, central London.

10:31It's so interesting though, but was it people or was it celebs you were after? No, not at all. I don't even think we thought about celebs at that point. I mean, obviously, they were like movie stars then. No, I didn't even. I just wanted to be in a salon where every single person that came through the door was from a different environment, a different, you know. We ended up going to a few different places and I went into the Barkley Hotel and I was 14. and the guy that interviewed me was the manager of the salon and he was this incredible guy that I ended up working with and his name was Robert Wright.

11:14Stylish and well put together, very slim, you know, tie up to his chin. It was just incredible. It was quite ballsy. So did you have an appointment or you just went in? No, just went in. I mean... That's quite a thing. Did your mum come in with you? No, I made her way outside. and then he he was like why are you on your own in london at 14 and i was like not my mom's outside and he made her come out come upstairs and he probably didn't believe me well i think he just was like a bit shocked that i was wandering around london on my own at 14 trying to look for a job um he said to me when are you what's the last day of your school and i said um it's the 20th of june and he was like right you can start on the 21st so he gave me the weekend end and I started like the Monday so you commuted from from Essex to yeah it's the yeah two and a half hours you when you said that London and you know I really had your focus on London so I was like well okay well what really represents London I'm thinking so I've done a your third charm as Big Ben because to me that's kind of you know everybody thinks Big Ben is London yeah but so he Big Ben is three-dimensional it's yellow gold um and around this around the each side of the clock there's some little diamonds which um yeah which really emulate the kind of decoration yeah um and it's actually a locket so I was thinking oh you could put something in there but on the other side you can see I've got engraved eye and then a heart in Little Ruby's London.

12:55Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I was working in the Barclay and it was quite an incredible time because I started there in 87. And you would stand in the corner of like just coming out of the hotel and there would be like Telly Savalas standing next to you and people like that. Elaine Stritch used to live in the hotel for a bit. I think she lived at the Savoy as well and she was incredible. Did you get to do her? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to do her nails. That's why you've got the... My next job. Yeah. So the next charm, because I was like, this is, I love this. Bit random. Yeah. But it was a bit random because you said it's a bottle of nail varnish.

13:31Ideally Chanel Rouge Noir. Yeah, that was the thing in 1987. Bright red, gorgeous nails. Yeah, that dark, dark red. I was like, well, hold on a minute. I thought you were a colourist. So I've done this charm because I like the idea of getting as much of the color as we can. So it's actually flat, this charm. It's like a frame and it's got a gorgeous piece of garnet, road-like garnet in it, which is kind of that color of rouge noir. and it and it because it's a slice it's good it'll be very polished and very and very shiny and I think it'll look it'll look as close to that as we'll get and then a black black rhodium over over white gold black top to represent the top yeah and you can see it's absolutely the the shape of the bottle yeah absolutely and on the other side on the gold um I've just written uh number 18 I think that's probably all the number was um rouge noir and then you can open it um and then inside where the um brush is yeah I've used a tiny garnet brilette uh which is moves which is the current group of nail varnish so that um yes i rather enjoy doing this one yeah that's really fun i love the rhodium the black on the on the lid yeah it's um it should be really beautiful yeah uh nicola i thought i was interviewing a hair colorist but actually can you just tell me about this rouge noir nail varnish yes so determined as i was to be a hairdresser washing hair didn't agree with my skin at all so the I suppose the shampoos and stuff might I had really bad reaction to shampooing so it's like technical hitch it's like technical technical hitch so um yeah my my skin just did not like the detergents um so a lot of people give up when that happens because it's is that quite a common thing I think it is a quite common thing I mean, yeah, probably a lot of kids now probably wear gloves.

15:47I don't know why. It's just it was just, yeah, just was a bit of a blip in that. And I just thought there's no way I'm that's not going to stop me. So my boss, who was incredible, he sent me on a manicure course. And I think just from sort of my mom being quite good with that kind of like nails and stuff like that. I just had a bit of a talent for it. So, yeah, so I used to, much to the disgust of the other assistants, I was their manicurist. But they must have wanted to kill you. Yeah. Well, they did anyway, because I loved my boss. So that also didn't go down too well. He was like, you know, my hero.

16:31So whose nails did you do? I did Elaine Stritch. She was incredible. I did Faye Ray. I did Kurt Douglas, who used to come and stay at the hotel with his wife. Oh, what? Presumably not Rouge Noir. Not Rouge Noir, though. That was just a simple manicure with a bit of a buffing. But yeah, it was... The men tended to go to the men's hair salon in the Barclay, but for some reason, maybe the girl wasn't there and I got called. So I was like, I'll do it, I'll do it. Being a sort of a Spartacus fan, I was like, yeah.

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18:01As far as I know, people have this extraordinary ability to talk to their hairdresser about all sorts of things. they'd never talk to anyone else about it. Yeah, they do. So, I mean, whether that's hair or nails, I'm kind of fascinated. Why is that, do you think? I think it's like you sit down and someone's touching your head, which is a really sort of intimate thing without, you know. Yeah. And you get to know someone and they, like they'll rush in and they'll, they've either had an argument with their husband or their wife or their lover or whatever. and when they sit in the chair I think when it's a familiar face and there's no connection like there's no connection to going back to the husband or you know like so I think it's just one of those things so you obviously got all these unbelievable stars do they sometimes come and tell you something and then think they shouldn't have said that I'm sort of not a very good liar and I'm sort of quite honest a lot of the time.

19:01And so when I opened the salon, my salon with John, someone was asking me, does Madonna come to the salon? And I was like, no. And the next time I did her, I was telling her and she was like, why did you say that? And I said, well, because you don't come to the salon or you've done your hair at your house. And she's like, yeah, I know, but you have to tell them. Like, if you're going to speak to the press, you have to tell them that I come to the salon as well. And I was like, oh, yeah. Because I think she was trying to help me and be like, well, don't say that. You know, like, yeah, I do come to the salon.

19:36I was like, OK. But do they tell you, you know, if you sit down with Madonna, does she kind of spill her heart out saying she's had a terrible whatever or something that's really irritating her or whatever? I mean, every time, I mean, I've worked with Madonna. I think the first time I worked with Madonna was when she was getting married. She was marrying Guy Ritchie and she was christening Rocco. And so it was just really professional. Like with Madonna, she's really professional, but also really supportive. So didn't you? What happened there? Did you did you did she ask you to do her eyebrows?

20:16So the first time I met her, meet her anyway. Well, I was working with Gwyneth Paltrow and I think I'd recommended Gwyneth, this girl in New York to colour Gwyneth's hair when she was in New York and I think this girl then recommended me Madonna and also Madonna was friends with um Gwyneth so it sort of came through that and then I when I walked in she was like hi I'm Madonna I was like hi I'm Nicola I kind of know who you are and um she she was like have you got my formula and I said no I haven't got your formula because she was like well why not and I said well because I don't like I'm sort of professional and I think like it's maybe if the girl wanted me to give me your um formula she would have done and I was a bit too embarrassed to ask for it I thought I should figure it out myself and so she was like fine and I said to her well you know I um normally go off into a room and trying to figure out what I'm doing so I'm just gonna have to do that in front of you and she it's like fine don't you worry I know you're a professional just get on with it and then after I'd colored her hair she was like I want you to color my eyebrows and I mean I think it was a big thing in America that when you had your hair colored you did do that but it wasn't such a big thing in London to match to match the eyebrows and I was like well I don't do eyebrows and she was like well I want them done and I was like well I'm not a beauty therapist and she was like well you need to do them so I was like so we kind of had this like tussle backwards and forwards for about like a minute and she's um I was like I'm not gonna do it if I don't know what I'm doing and you you know and I don't think at that time I knew that she was getting married so I didn't really sort of but I was still like I'm not gonna do it and she was like yeah you are so I was like fine so she convinced me and I did it and I was a bit sort of I was like I'm gonna be really cautious so I did in the end do it but um cool um quite ball and you're obviously quite ballsy because to say uh to have a little discussion with Madonna I don't imagine many people have well yeah I think also as well I suppose that comes from the working class background yeah and you know you just say it the way it is yeah and she's you know I'm I love what I do and she loves what she does and I'm you know if I feel like I'm not going to do a good job then I need to sort of make that yeah you know apparent so so how long were you at the Barclay for I was at the Barclay for four years so I left the Barclay when I was 19 and then what happened and then I went to a salon in Fitzrovia which was all basically ex-assume people I met this guy called Nigel Barnes who was a hairdresser that was doing all this kind of timetay all this sort of really commercial work for like shoots and yeah adverts and stuff he was doing he was doing the fashion show for London Fashion Week he was it was like a sort of opening right event for London Fashion Week and they were doing an ab fab fashion show catwalk and um so we were doing Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders and with my friend Nigel Barnes who was this amazing hairdresser that I worked with and that's when Sam McKnight sort of rushed in with Naomi Campbell who was walking the catwalk for Ab Fab at this fashion show and that's where I met Sam who was kind of like my hero in hairdressing and so it was just like a chance meeting and he didn't have the pins for his rollers or something like that and I was like I have them I've got them I'll help you and I just hounded him and just was like I you know want to be your assistant I want to help you and he was like we'll you know call my agent which is what they did in the day and I just basically like hounded them every week so then you ended up working for them so then I think I drove them so crazy that they were like oh just you know she can when you say they Sam was he had an agent and I I think I rang the agency so much that they were like, oh, God, just give her a job, you know, just put her on one of the teams at Fashion Week.

24:31So I ended up, yeah, helping out at Fashion Week. And I was just like, you know, dog with a bone. I just wouldn't leave him alone. I could see that took me. I got a phone call from John Frieda's PA who was like, will you come and meet with John? And so I was like, oh, God, like quite grown up. hair salon travels yeah yeah and so I'd kind of felt like I'd sort of done all my grown-up hairdressing and um working at the Barclay and I went and met John so you went there and and as a colorist I went there as a colorist yeah and so it was a really it's it's John Frieda is one of those salons where most of the people had worked there for 20 years already so I was like the new girl yeah and I feel even up until I opened my salon with him I felt like I still was the new new girl because then about that point they still they'd been there for like 30 35 years and then this opportunity came where John was gonna close the salon and he was like right you can help me find a salon and we just I just my husband who's always been like you know the biggest person that pushes me into doing things that sometimes I don't want to do but he's always right about everything that he pushes me into was like what do you want to do stand behind a chair just working for someone for the rest of your life so we went and looked at properties yeah and just wanted it to be really practical but really sort of um I wanted it to be really a place where people could come and feel really comfortable I didn't want it to be because I think some hairdressing salon can be quite intimidating and a bit stuffy or I have exactly when I first opened a shop and jewellery being jewellery is bloody scary yeah actually because it's under glass and you can't touch it yeah so I was all about that yeah how do you make this feel relaxed and you know I thought I do find it really intimidating to go into jewellery places but yours definitely you because I feel like you had one on Southmorton Street I do yeah and it had a really gorgeous chair in there it was almost like a sort of a bit of a living room yeah and I definitely and I went in there 100 % and that would have been one and that a jewelry shop would have been one of the places that would have I'd have been a bit scared to go terrifying yeah just um you said something made me think what can you remember what's just been the most challenging someone's come in sat in the chair and said I want x and you're like Jesus how am I gonna do that funny enough I just did Sophie Turner's hair for a TV series that she did about a jury thing Joan just watched it is absolutely so fantastic was a blonde and so she needed to be blonde and Sophie has the most incredible hair and it's super thick and it was dark red and she needed to be blonde so that was a challenge that was literally after the 18th hour where I was like we need to like you need to come in on a different day so we did that over I think we did that over three days and then also another big challenge always red to blonde Ellie Bamba who's a gorgeous little actress is playing Kate Moss right and I've coloured Ellie's hair for I think for about I want to say maybe 10 years over the years and Kate's as well so you know what's going to be so um so she was she her hair was copper and they needed her hair to be like kate's which is always with with sophie's it wasn't so bad because she needed to be blonde so we just needed to get it to a good blonde but with so with with ellie's she had to look like kate so that was um a challenge have you ever had absolute disaster um there was one girl but this was a really long time ago and I don't even think we even I don't think she even knew it happened but I it was a really simple simple job she just wanted to go from um a darker brown to a lighter brown which is just a really simple sort of bit of a bleach bath at the back wash and she I don't know what she'd been putting treatments on her hair and her hair went navy blue and I was like what the hell and I rang my friend and I was like I've never this has never happened to me before what's going on this must have been about 18 years ago and she was like oh just put red over it'll be fine so and it's just one of those things it's like it's just like a complete color wheel i don't know whether that comes into your world but the opposite of red is blue yeah and um yeah you just have to put bright red over it it's the most scary thing and it just went completely neutral did she go completely silent she didn't know i was she had a head in the backwash oh my god so that's the only thing but that was like literally a scary a scary like five minutes but i'm going to go on to your your your next charm actually um which you which where you described two things you described this pencil case see-through pencil case where did that come i don't know i think it's just my love of like i don't know anime and chintz and So have you had it for years?

29:53I think I, yeah, I don't even know how long I've had it. You've still got it? Yeah. Have you? Yeah. So you described a pencil case that you've had for years. Yeah. And obviously the tools of your trade, the brushes, which are absolutely fundamental. So I decided I thought it'd be easiest to put them together. Yes. So difficult to do a kind of pencil case that's see-through. Absolutely. In made of jewellery. So I've made it in 18 carat yellow gold. I always use yellow because I love yellow gold, but it could be white. And it's got lots of little engravings of the various emojis on them. And on the side, I've kind of made it in white gold to look like a zipper, but actually it's a locket.

30:43So when you open it, your three little brushes are attached inside, but they'll jingle around. Yeah, amazing. And you can see those, I've done those in black and the, what do you call it, the soft bit, the brush bit, also in black. But they'll just be attached so that they'll kind of jingle around. And then on the back, a bit like a school pencil case. Yeah, it is. so I've just degrade your name, Nicola, on the back. And anyway, I just thought that was the best way to... I mean, I've turned up on jobs without that pencil case, without my tools, and it's been... How does that work? What do you do when you've got your no tools?

31:27It's really horrendous, but it's like makeup brushes come out then. What, the clients? All mine, yeah. So it has happened. It's happened to me twice. So it's probably one of the first things that I look for in my bag. I was going to ask you have you ever felt any kind of imposter syndrome like most women do at some point yeah I suppose so it sounds like you might not have the thing is because I think I worked so hard and I loved it so much maybe when I come and do things like this then I feel like you know when I look at your guests and stuff then I feel like imposter syndrome but when I'm doing my thing and yeah.

32:13And is it easy to spot, so when you've got juniors now, is it easy to spot a really talented one for hair or for colour or for X? I mean, I like to be, because I knew what I wanted to do but I felt like, you know, like I didn't know whether I was going to be good at doing it. So I do try and give people the benefit of the doubt and think that it could take them a little bit longer than it would do some. But yeah, I mean, it's in a world where you see people and people want things really quickly and really easy. It's you definitely can see people. There's some people that touch hair and you can just see they have a skill.

33:05Yeah. And then there's some people that are slightly cack-handed, but I'd just still like to give them a chance as well because I think it's something that you can learn. There's people that I've qualified that I've not taken on, and that's a really hard decision to make. But it's also about whether you like one another's style. Yeah. Yes. Do you ever say, this isn't going to work for you?

33:31I'm trying to think if I've ever said that.

33:36maybe um it depends what they want in there if they want you know like one guy say to me how do you get to do celebrities and I said well never really went out to do celebrities so I don't know how you get to do celebrities um if that's your goal then I'm not really sure how that happens but you know um maybe work with someone that does celebrities I don't know and if that person wants you then fair enough but I mean I think at the end of the day you just want to be the best at what you do I worked in a lot of you know amazing companies like the Bark Hotel, John Frieda you know it the bar yeah it's just you know you've got to be the best at what you yeah completely you know and sometimes that that is that takes longer than the nine to five well that brings me very neatly off to Chum 6.

34:30How did you meet your husband? So he had a stall in Hyper Hyper so that's where we met. So when I was 19 in Kensington High Street he had a women's clothing stall and I worked in the hairdressing salon and we were just like a huge group of people that hung out together and it was super cool it was super cool it was the cool yeah yeah i mean i probably would have been intimidated to go in there if i was definitely i remember thinking i'll go buy some jeans at this yeah it is but um yeah so that was um that's where we met and he at that moment because he's got so many different elements in his life that he'd dabbled in and um so that's where we met and he I think we just we didn't I don't think we hit it off immediately but um just our sort of passion for fashion and film and movies and yeah so that's why you've asked me to design a camera I think you said so I've designed this camera like an old-fashioned almost like a Leica camera yeah um and you're going to love this actually because it's um again I've done it I've done it in in yellow gold I put brown diamonds uh graduated different uh brown diamonds to emulate the kind of leather that a Leica camera has so it has a lot of texture to it but the lens um which has got a little savourite green savourite in it just because I thought it would it reflects what's being taken, but the lens actually turns, so you can actually physically turn it round.

36:18And then it's got a little ruby, which is for the flash. And then when you turn it round, it's got a map of Cyprus on the back. And I'm sure you're gonna tell me why Cyprus in a minute, but you can open the camera exactly the way you'd open a camera. Wow. So you could actually put a little photograph inside it. but tell me about cyprus i met my husband and he's he was brought up in london his family lived in london and um they moved they're cypriot my husband's dad and mom dad was he sadly passed away but they're cypriot so they live in cyprus and they they were living in cyprus at the time when I met him I just loved like like I said I I loved living in Essex and living in um in the country and just then having this sort of Cypriot connection and being another part of like part part of my growing up was you know to be part of other cultures and and so it was just a complete fascination for me and I absolutely loved going there and I'd really really close um bond and connection with my husband dad he was like a huge um influence in my life he was a tailor and um also working class grafter yeah has an incredible I mean his story is another story he was um he worked on films and stuff which I suppose gave them gave my husband his fascination in films he sort of um as um he's a writer and he's um directed his own film so we've got this really i think with our families both being working class and grafters even though being um from different parts of the world even though my husband grew up in london yeah um we're really similar like family background same attitude yeah same same yeah yeah online so i think um it was really important for me to um to get married in cyprus so we um got married in this tiny little village where chris's mum grew up as a child called lefkar and it's where they do all the silver jewelry and the lace cyprus but yeah and the lace and the lace yeah so it's a really sort of um it's a really sort of old-fashioned and that was even though I'm not religious like and I wasn't that bothered about um you know it being sort of religious ceremony it was really important you said something earlier um did you say your husband your manager or your agent yeah he so I mean he um because he worked in films and he did commercials and and stuff like that when i was at my agency that i were the same agency as sam it was all based on sort of photography and fashion right and so with my husband having an understanding of film and commercials he added the extra i'd say burden for him of looking after my um my interest yeah yeah and so he then so then eventually i was just ended up with him looking after me and he also and helps run the salon as well and so you've got you've got two children i've got two children yeah one's in new york and one's here in london so uh what do they call in fact i think i know what they're called sunny and stevie lee stevie lee yeah so we wanted well I wanted Stevie and my husband was like we can't call her Stevie after we've called Sonny Sonny because of the e you know yeah and um it was funny we kind of argued about it for quite a bit and then we had a conversation with Kate Moss actually and she was like why don't you call her Stevie Lee because Chris wanted Lee and I wanted Stevie and she was like just put them together So I thought, well, yeah.

40:32Yeah. So I've done it as a charm with S in blue sapphires, because that's Sonny's birthstone. Yeah. And S on the other side in garnets, because that's Stevie Lee's birthstone. And it's got a diamond surround. around and the circle in the middle spins so actually it can spin so they'll be the S's all the way around and again yellow gold and just really tactile and I have a whole spinning series of charms actually so I have a bit of obsession with this but I thought for this that would just be such a lovely thing and I'd both be of one so have any of them ever come back with a kind of disaster hair situation do they ask you?

41:27Do they come back and you know? No but they do Stevie's very interested in, she gets up super early and she does not need my help unless it's maybe a blow dry but she's pretty capable of her own, doing her own hair she always questions my ability whether I'm qualified enough to do a thing that she wants. Sorry. Yeah. That is hilarious. Only your daughters say that. Yeah. So she's like, you know, can you cut my hair? Can you do it? Do you think you can do it? And I'll be like, well, Simon's probably coming over later so he can always check it if it's not right. But no, Sonny has always, he's brought friends to me that have had disasters.

42:14Yeah. So he says, oh, mum will do it. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry. But no. So what's your advice for your kids? I think my advice is, well, especially I suppose with Sonny as well, the advice that I've given him is, you know, it doesn't matter who is around you and, you know, what connections you have, because that is irrelevant unless you have your own passion. so unless you're passionate and unless you you you are the person that's going to make those things happen so everything that I've done in my life is because of something that I've wanted I've had a lot of luck but I've also worked really hard and I've surrounded myself with people that um inspire me whether that even be a client or whether that be another stylist people yeah um and just think that you may have these connections but you are the person that's going to make it happen and if you haven't got the passion for it it's not going to happen what's the future hold I mean so many you know people in your world are doing product John Frieda obviously is that is that a kind of I mean it's definitely there's always I would never say never I mean that's the one thing i think i've learned never say never but um it's another it's that would be definitely a a venture that i would get into that would be out of my comfort zone also and i've watched friends that have got products and i know how hard it is and what effort you need to put into that and it's whether i want to do that in this stage of my life but never say never yeah Just making the salon the best, salon training as many people to be the best at what they can do, giving them the opportunities.

44:06That's sort of the future, I suppose. I'm going to come. So in the meantime, what are you going to do with my hair? Your hair looks lovely. No, I'm like, no, no, I'm definitely going to ask you. Yeah, come. Shall I change the colour? Well, I don't think you need to change it. But it's like drawing a picture, isn't it? Everybody has, you know, if I give you a piece of paper and a pen, everyone's going to draw a different picture. so it'll be a slightly different version of probably what you've already got but I don't think you shouldn't you should you should be blonde I should be blonde 100 % kind of blonde yeah you should definitely it's been such a joy talking to you oh it's so much now finally I um as I thank you so much for your time um I'd like to make you one of those charms to say um to say thank you and um i'm just wondering which one oh my god i don't know which one you'd like that's so hard isn't it because i feel like i feel the connection with the snake and obviously the the drink the the camera is incredible just because i love gadgets yeah but it does all those things and it does yeah i mean that is and it's kind of but then nice oh god don't know i suppose they're so incredible each one of them is i mean all the detail well i'm absolutely fanatical about the detail yeah the detail even just with the nail varnish and the little droplet yeah that'll that'll move yeah they're sweet i think i'll go with the s no i'm gonna go with the camera okay go with the camera yeah oh i'm excited i i i just think yeah it's so unique it's like I don't know all of them are really amazing no you'll love the camera honestly you can open it and you can turn the lens and you know you'll love it thank you oh look well thank you thank you so much it's such an honor absolutely thrilled 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.

46:28Until next time, thank you for listening and don't forget to follow or subscribe to hear more extraordinary stories told in jewels.