Life in Charms with Willow Crossley

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 charms. Welcome to my life in charms. She grew up in Wales, hay bales, rain, rosy cheeks and turned that wildness into a life built around beauty. From fashion school in London to floristry in the Cotswolds, her story is one of creativity, hard graft and finding beauty even when life isn't. It's easy to imagine her world as effortlessly charmed, but behind the flowers and the books is the juggle we all know.

0:42Running a business, raising three boys and wondering how it's all happening at once. Often called the UK's Queen of Flowers, though she might not thank me for it. She's done it all with warmth and honesty and inspired a devoted Instagram following along the way. Welcome Willow to my life in charge. Thank you, so happy to be here. So we're going to start with your first shot. OK, this really made me laugh, actually. I'm like, OK, I never thought I'd design a baked potato. I'm so happy. I never, ever thought I was going to do that. So, OK, I'm going to describe this potato, but you're going to have to believe me that it would be beautiful.

1:24OK. OK. So it's in Aetting Her, yellow gold. Yeah. And it's kind of dimpled a bit like a not a perfect potato. it's split like it's been baked and and cooked yeah okay uh and along the split are little diamonds little brown diamonds the way it's got a little bit burnt on the agar um and then in the kind of split it's a locket this charm by the way okay well so opens so it opens yeah looks like the potatoes and inside the kind of in between where the edges kind of wood meat there's a little citrine stone and that's to represent the butter that you put in the baked potato and then inside if I've got room which I'd really like to have room is the little Welsh dragon oh sweet anyway that is so cool okay so will it talk me through this potato because it's not what I was expecting all the things I wasn't expecting that okay so when I was speaking to Charlie and my husband about we were kind of talking about how coming up with charms for the stages of my life and I was trying to do my early stages and obviously I grew up in Wales and it was very rural so I think maybe I should do like I don't know mushrooms or you know that kind of and he's like well obviously you do a potato because I said it's all I all I did eat and all I now eat and it's just that's what I grew up on so it's very synonymous with my childhood uh Is it synonymous with your boy's childhood adaptability?

2:59Is that what they... I try. They're not quite as into them as I am, but they kind of go through stages where if it's enough, they're like, oh, no more. It's pesto, pesto, pesto, pesto, or a baked potato. Yeah, I love that. It's one of my favourite things, actually. Get real comfort food. It is real. It's so easy. Like working from home now, just chuck one in the oven and adapt it. So it's laziness and love in one. Charlie like them? No. No, no, no. He's OD'd on them too. So just tell me a bit about your childhood. So it sounds idyllic. Yeah, it was. It was growing up in Wales. I've got two brothers who are two years younger.

3:35So it was me, Ned, Tom, and my parents. And it was very outdoorsy, very happy. I just remember lots of kind of begging my mum to stop weeding and a lot of walks, playing in the rivers. She's really artistic, your mum, isn't she? Yeah, she's a writer. She's written seven books. So she used to be in fashion. Seven books? Yeah. You're also trying to keep up with her. Chasing her. Yeah, so she was a writer. She was at Vogue for a while in beauty, and then she met my dad, moved to Wales, and she's now a painter. So she's a gardener painter, and she does that now. Oh, gosh. You're still really close to her.

4:16Very, yeah. We talk every day, and she's amazing. So one of the things I was thinking about with your three boys, I mean, life is very different now growing up. You know, in terms of kind of being able to try and capture that childhood that you had in a world of digital, how do you manage that? Because how old are they now, the boys? Wolf is going to be 16, Raf is 13 and Kit is 10. Yeah. It's really hard. It's my kind of that constant niggle and worry that because you're obviously comparing to what we grew up with. We weren't even allowed to watch telly. yeah like we weren't allowed to watch neighbors or home away and i have still scarred so trying to recreate that for them i mean when i get them outside and i get them to play tennis or something my middle arm will come walking with me to the dog every day but it's a panic i i think about all the time like they they if they had their choice they'd be welded to those screens well the big ones would yeah so it's yeah boys are particularly hard are you even boys but i've got four and the boys were the ones where I really struggled on big rows about yeah get off the screen yeah yeah um it's a real challenge yeah um but yeah any advice please no no no they grow out of it though yeah I think they grow out of it I know no I think they do grow out of it but it's really yeah it's really really hard yeah um and exhausting trying because you have to kind of be there if you're going to get them off them you then yeah and who has to do that you or Charlie I feel me.

5:50And who's more effective? Him obviously. Oh is he? Yes, that doesn't mean to me at all.

5:58But so growing up did you always know what you wanted? What did you think you wanted to do as a little girl? Either be a policeman or have a sweet shot. A policeman? Yeah. A policeman. Or a sweet shot or a fashion designer. So all my like proper early memories are I have I I love stationery so I have notebooks everywhere and I'd be drawing I mean terrible I'm terrible at drawing you do I know you're not me too you are not um but drawing fashion design so I was at all my pocket money would go on magazines and kind of Vogue and Elle and like obsessed with the catwalk you do you remember those magazines when they had all the catwalk shows yeah that was like my bible so I do a lot of that um and that and then I went to fashion school and kind of not as a design though but that was my earliest desire but that's so but but prior to that sweet shop yeah police man yeah more hilarious did you go to boarding school yeah very young very young yeah oh how old young seven eight oh me too could you yeah i went at eight i was yeah youngest in school why yeah were you it was quite normal that was kind of like the age all my year kind of started but now looking at mine the idea of sending them at eight was is horrifying yeah then it felt it's quite normal didn't it not completely no completely normal yeah so moving on to your next job it's a it's a bobbin but not a bobbin like a like a in a sewing machine yeah a big cotton bobbin yeah i'm obviously very knowledgeable about the bobbin situation with that so so well um but um i actually i actually love the idea of this um so it's um yellow gold um top and bottom exactly as you'd imagine a bobbing um and you're quite particular i think about wanting it to be green um green green cotton cotton i'm assuming that or we'll We'll talk about buzzer.

8:02I'm assuming that because that relates very much to flowers and what you're doing. Yeah, I just love green, I think. Green and blue, my favourite. Well, green is all about kind of growth, isn't it? Yeah. It's absolutely, you know. And freshness and air. Freshness and, yeah, growth and renewal and all of that. So anyway, it's got green, well, it's gold wire, but it's got green rhodium all around it so that it's absolutely as it should be. and then on the bottom of the piece of thread that's just hanging off it is a tiny little flower which which is I mean I see it as a little daisy with a little daisy or something with a little pink sapphire in the middle just because that feels really girly yeah and you know and it and it's hanging so it's lot there's lots of movement um but Willow tell me about this charm yeah I went to so I left school at 18 and all my friends kind of went to I call them proper universities but you know like universities all around the country yeah um and I went to learn school fashion and I live by myself at 18 it's funny writing all this down for you yeah realizing like if like the idea of me doing it now by myself feels just quite shocking almost well not shocking but quite brave I guess but at the time I was just so excited to I guess have independence and be able to make my path and do what I wanted to do I had I had no kind of dead not not like a major plan or a goal I just I loved being able to have that freedom that creativity I guess so I went to London School of Fashion and did fashion promotion which wasn't designed like I always wanted to do it was writing I wanted my magazine fashion promotion okay yeah so design and styling okay which is bang on um and it was three years and it was just amazing I loved it I love it was quite minimal time in the classroom which I loved yeah lots of kind of going doing out by your on your own time and very free free but does that mean lots of internships and lots of things I mean Because going back, I'm thinking, yeah.

10:14Yeah. It was so competitive that time. So obviously everyone just wanted to work at Vogue and that was super competitive, which I did for a while, and Harper's, and I did Tatler Beauty for a while, which I loved, and I thought maybe I'll swoosh over to beauty. From fashion to beauty. Yeah. They're quite interlinked. Yes. But out of interest, did you – so you said that you were interested in the catwalk and fashion. So when you say creative side, the promotional side of it, were you wanting to write about fashion or were you wanting to be a fashion designer when you started all of this? I don't think I knew.

10:55I think I just love that world. I found it so glossy and glamorous and I've always been obsessed with clothes and shopping and that kind of work. Everything it involved, I guess. yeah and it's funny when I was when I did my course I I don't think I loved it the course no I I think I I loved being in that world that made me want to work in magazines but I did not like the competitive side of it at all it's not it's so interesting it makes me really uncomfortable and fashion particularly I think fashion in the worlds that I knew that was the most competitive yeah I mean even compared to beauty beauty was a breeze yeah but it's the same but you think it's still like that now a hundred percent yeah but I didn't I just didn't have that in me to kind of to follow through with it and keep pushing and I found for me I'm very sensitive and I find it kind of soul destroying it's so interesting actually because I had a bit like you I had no idea it didn't go to any type of university by the way but um yeah I did no idea what I wanted to do but I thought I wanted to be a kind of buyer or something And I put my toe in the water by having an internship.

12:05And I very quickly realised that this world is not for me. This is terrifying. The buying world or the fashion world? Just fashion. Just generally felt really frightening. I'm completely with you. So alluring though, isn't it? When you're younger or maybe when you're older. I mean, I still love it now, but I have no desire to go in and do it. No. Just going back. I think it's really interesting. If you think that you were 18, you moved to London. I'm just thinking about the situation with our children age now. So nobody's doing that now. They're not moving out of home and going to London. Do you think they're not?

12:44No, I don't think they're. I mean, I think they're going to university and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, the idea of Wolf now. Total independence at 18. I'm like, I don't think. I went travelling around the world with like. Yeah. With no phone. No phone. Yeah. We would sit in internet cafes all the time. But yeah, the idea of them doing that now, that's why I said it feels so shocking thinking about the idea of them doing it now. Whereas then it was just what we did. I think my parents were incredible to let me do that. Yes, but I do think it's a whole different mentality. Do you? We don't, we were no, my mother was not like that either.

13:17You know, I was in Australia by the time I was 18. Yeah, me too. It's so, it's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. That it's not. So at some point during this kind of time in London, the fashion thing wore off. I don't think it wore off then. I think it wore off later. I think that feeling of, I don't think I'm good enough for this. I think that crept in and my tutors were quite punchy and I never felt that I was quite good enough to get to the top, if that makes sense. I didn't have that to fight in me. Yeah. Just fight life a bit easier. no no I'm totally with you so what did you meet Charlie at some point yeah this early stage very I was 19 you were 90 yeah you met him yeah wow so I was still at Lund School of Fashion when I met him and he was um he was running a pub and I spent a lot of time in the pub and we got together then uh been together ever since oh my goodness that is extraordinary over half my life over half your life yeah actually one of the things I wanted to ask you is that if you look back at that time in London is there anything you'd do differently or yeah what would you do I I think I'd like to go to a university campus where you've got that university life and you kind of make all those amazing friendships and I I have moments I've never really I thought about it recently it's not a kind of deep regret by any means but I think I would encourage my children to do that if they want to do yeah that's so interesting my niece um she was brought up in Cornwall and gone to London and I'm like there's no there's no campus life lonely really lonely I was working in nightclubs and pubs and all that and you don't have that great I mean I met amazing people in London and and it was wonderful but it's not that core it's very different yeah that time when you're just kind of all doing the same thing and living crazy student life i i guess i had to grow up really really quickly yeah yeah so that i'd change up so you're working in nightclubs that sounds i'm assuming don't tell us about that it wasn't very glamorous or exciting i was literally just taking names on the door Just checking.

15:43A cage. OK, we're going to move on to charm three at this point.

15:51Actually, I really have enjoyed these charms. I've really enjoyed doing these charms. So this charm, you said it's a pot of copy decks. Between the potato. Copy decks. I'm so chic. You are so chic. So anyway, I'm quite excited about it because I mean, it's it's a bit of a challenge. I'm like, how am I going to do it? I've made it three dimensional, but each side is exactly as the copy decks would be. And it's all in Mother of Pearl. So four sides of Mother of Pearl held in a gold frame. and then where the label says copydex I just see that little tiny little rubies in exactly the rectangle and the lid also in rubies with the kind of cut out that the copydex has yeah it's got that you'll know very well very well and it unscrews uh and it unscrews and it's got and the little briolette moonstone there is moves and that's that's like behaving like your brush That's my favourite so far.

17:02So chic. And then I think it could have, on the other side, I think it could have a little engraved tag on the back, which probably would be one of the books that you've, many books that you've written and you're going to have to tell me. I'm assuming it might be the Wild Journal, but we'll. Yeah, that's the thing. It could be on there. Anyway, it'll be divine, this. It'll be absolutely divine. But can we just talk about this rather unusual time? Yeah. and tell me what's that about okay so when i was i'm really bad at numbers but probably a 20 i followed charlie he was then my boyfriend to live on a vineyard in south france that was quite punchy too i know 19 again didn't even think about it yeah uh and he went he's like i'm going come with me i said i waited for six months and i couldn't live without him so i followed him and we literally lived in the middle of nowhere and it was saint-trapet was our nearest it sounds very glamorous and glossy but it was literally the middle of mountains and um and I'd so I left everything all my work I was doing behind in England and I had to come up with work there so I I've always loved making things and I think I get this from my granny she was always she was incredibly crafty and making fabulous things and I started covering notebooks so there are brocants everywhere down there and so i used to go to them all the time and i'd just buy things like a magpie that i just couldn't have without wrong call for those that don't know sorry it's a flea markety type sunday market and i would cover all these i started with diaries so people give them to christmas so i'd cover them all with pots of copy copy decks that was the best glue that worked i said every time i came home or people came out i'd go can you get me some copy next from Smith's in the airport and so that's where the coffee dates comes from so and I'd be like making you know that lovely French baskets and like sewing pom-poms I was sticking pom-poms onto them and um Panama hats I'd change all the bands and and so my first working title of my first book was pom-poms and panamas but I wasn't allowed that I was gonna say that's not what I thought I wasn't allowed it no pom-poms and panamas that's a lovely uh I thought so they like nope don't like it um so yeah so that's where that all the copy decks comes from well hang on let's just reverse because we've gone to a book but i mean where do you go from copy decks covering a few panamas and things to suddenly a book so i was making all these things and there were and then my dream was to then obviously i was like i need a shop because remember i always wanted a sweet shop there's always been a shop and so i started going to all the shops on the beaches and seeing if they would buy my stuff yeah and so they start I went to um my dream my goal was club sync on sync obviously yeah which is the most the most beautiful shop and the lady there Corinne who ran it was just so chic anyway so I went there she's my first I was I'm gonna aim high and she bought all of it and she put in huge orders but what was she buying She was buying the Panamas, the baskets.

20:12I had this brilliant linen bag template. Yeah. So I buy old grain sacks and make them into all linen bags, beach bags, essentially, that they would then sell for 500 euros. Oh, my God. Insane. Insane. Yeah. Except for you weren't selling them for 500 euros. No, obviously not. And their markup was pretty good. I think they're buying them for 75 or something. Yeah, I think. Pretty good. But I was just so thrilled. Yeah. They had them all. Yeah. So that got me starting and I started making more and more. And then at the same time, I started writing about my life down there because I've always loved writing.

20:45Yeah. And then that got seen. My cousin is a literary agent. She was like, I can see a book out of this. So I then put a proposal together called The Art of Handmade Living. So everything was handmade, everything I made. And yeah, I got my first book deal. Oh, my God. So hang on. You're what? Twenty? Two? Two? Three? four is what i say when i said oh god i mean that makes me feel like a massive underachiever i'm like that's absolutely crazy um so then what happened so charlie's still working on this um he's making wine right i'm playing the fabric and then so were you happy in france yeah you were When it was just us, it was when it was just me and Charlie and no baby.

21:35Yeah. Obviously, he's amazing. But it was we had the best time. We can go and do whatever we wanted. And we're just so happy being us. It was amazing then kind of off season when there was no one there. And it was so romantic. And we just had the best time. And then I got pregnant with Wolf and it then felt quite lonely. Yeah. Because people would come out a lot and it would be holiday mode. In summer. Yeah, exactly. And winter sometime. Yeah. But when he arrived, it was really lonely. I struggled. I had no... We had one couple who were friends, but she was French, and I was struggling. I found it hard to even speak English, let alone French.

22:16There's no one, you know, I mean, what were you, 25? 25. 25, yeah. But of all the training and everything we get, no one prepares you for a baby. Oh, my God, I don't... I think I'd held one when I was 10 or something. Oh, genuinely. but Chazzy um he wanted a baby from the day we met he he his um half brothers are much younger so he kind of grew up with them and looked after them he's amazing with babies and things so he he's very hands-on yeah um but yeah it was a it was a shock to the system and then we moved back to England when he was 10 when Wolf was 10 months old hang on so so you you you were struggling um having having having had this baby yeah i mean you you've talked about postnatal depression yeah quite a lot yeah um i mean i i'm very lucky i never had that but did how did you know that you had that were you able to recognize that's what it was or did you just think you were lonely and feeling miserable and i think when oh god when it was really bad I couldn't even think straight.

23:28I think when I was pregnant I just felt very lonely and that but I've always had this thing where I find it very hard to ask for help so I'd much rather everyone else was happy and by me sharing that I'm unhappy I would then worry about them so I couldn't tell my mum because she was far away far away and I didn't want to worry her yeah And Charlie, again, I didn't want him to worry because he didn't have hundreds of friends around either. So I'd have to whack on the smile and I've learned that that's part of it. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Not part of that. Everything's fine. Everything's fine.

24:04And I've grown up like that. I've just learned to keep going outwardly. But I remember when it was really bad, it was, yeah, it was horrific. I definitely knew that something was up. I remember going to the doctor there and but couldn't even admit it to the doctor and he gave me pills for a tummy ache so and then I finally came back when we were in England and they started me on some medicine which and I remember like probably three weeks in thinking oh my god I've just laughed and it was a real moment of joy and it's starting to feel better yeah it's horrific Well, I mean, I knew nothing else.

24:48I know, but it's still incredibly brave to kind of, and not once, but three times. Did you get it with all three? Not nowhere near as bad. I just kind of knew that it's in there. But it's funny, I've recently been diagnosed with ADHD. and so and often adhd is misdiagnosed with depression oh that's interesting and so actually i kind of question it now whether it was just a mix of both but yeah adhd has got a lot of very similar behavioral traits and sensitivity and kind of making sure everything out masking essentially yeah um so yeah and and when you say recently been diagnosed i mean that that's also brave because in a way you kind of think because I've quite often thought should I go and get tested and I'm actually but to what to to what gain or whatever the word is it's like yeah yeah um I never even thought I it wasn't a thought and then my accountant said to me yeah probably two years ago well done you did really well today what do you mean she said well you only got up four times so and then I said to Charlie he's like yeah so I kind of looked into it and the testing the only reason I did it was to try and understand myself more and now that I do I am so much kinder to myself of course I don't it's that understanding yourself and then you realize why you behave in certain way why you feel I'm so sensitive and I grew up being told you're too sensitive you're too sensitive and when you say sensitive you mean to what other people might say something and you take offense or find it upsetting or yeah because part of it is there's something called rsd which is rejection sensitivity dysphoria so any perceived rejection criticism it's you feel it five billion times more than a normal non-neuro device person so just understanding that is so helpful yeah even if you're not going to take medication or you can it's just it's been really helpful yeah I bet it has actually yeah that's so that's so interesting that's definitely a bit of food for thought seriously so having written this book um did that did that really kind of change everything in terms of I think it certainly confidence wise it must have been fantastic yeah I remember getting that first but I was just funny I was talking to Kit my smallest last night about coming to meet you and and and he's got some big exams coming up and I was trying to talk about him like what are you most proud of what are you most fearful of you know all those kind of interview questions yeah I said, what are you most proud of?

27:43And I think getting that first book deal was probably my most excited, proud I've been. It felt like such a big achievement because my mum was a writer and my granny was a writer as well. So it felt like this is what I'm meant to be doing. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And so young. I mean, it's really kind of extraordinary. Anyway, that was one of many. Who knew that that was one of many? so you came back when um wolf was very little yeah 10 months yeah and so I think my book came out as I got back yeah and then so that when you write a book it that of that type it takes a good year so you hand it in and it takes a year to print yeah and then I started doing um another book which was more kind of nature based this is number three this is number two right so this is decorating with nature and then in that one again I was starting amassing more bits I did a section on flowers and then I had this like eureka moment like this is what I'm meant to do so I then stopped all the other bits.

28:49So had you not done flowers before in France you've done any of that? No. So you suddenly thought okay I'm going to do flower arranging or something in the book? I guess it was yeah yeah so that one was decorating inspire the art of living with nature so it was bringing nature into our life yes and in it there was a arranging with flowers section and when I was doing that I I loved it so much and that was the eureka moment yeah but how and I told Charlie and he is like right I'm gonna end for Christmas that year he gave me a course a week's intensive yeah and I went and did that which was I just I loved the whole thing about it it was not my style at all it's very tight right a tight bunch yeah wiring everything so you're learning kind of how to run a flower business you're learning how to wire bouquets so very helpful yeah in in as much as it showed me that this is not the style that I am yeah and they thought I was a lunatic and out of control because my flowers were shooting off everywhere they're like neat cubes yes um but yeah it gave me that yeah this is what I want to do oh god I mean that's so exciting to have that you know because quite often I mean you know as a creative I don't think I've ever had a eureka moment I've kind of just ended up doing what I'm doing and I absolutely love it but there was never a moment of kind of do you love jewels when you were little yes but but I did but I um but if you'd asked me what I wanted to do all the way until I started doing it uh and and I'm and I'm still kind of still not sure what you want to do no no I am absolutely sure I want to do it I absolutely love it but but I think you know you it's that eureka moment is quite a relief actually in a way because all this time I mean I don't know whether you have that but uh that kind of imposter syndrome situation do you think you you've had that through your life or not really totally and i think because i always take on too many things yeah i never really have time to think about that actually quite a lot i'm like oh god i've done that tick onto the next onto the next and it's just because that's my brain saying you need to do more more bit yeah so i often don't think about what i'm doing and what the implications are exactly and therefore you've got five times more things on your plate exactly but it is quite hard to get my head around what you've got on your plate because uh you know between raising three boys and and you know you obviously spend a lot of time on the touchline a lot of time yeah do you are you able to share that you and charlie or yeah all the yes well they would quite like to do it together okay yeah um yeah the my life my kind of work life friend children drug balance is terrible yeah um I think seeing my friends is the bit that often gets left behind yeah um but I think it's also just a stage when the baby's a little and I've put them first so I I work term times majoritively yeah I have a um an online magazine a substack called the seedling so that runs all the time no matter what um but like events and things which I do and I I will only do that in term time so everything kind of works around that the boys yeah which means my windows are quite small yeah that's why it's quite you've got to ram in loads and loads in a really short time yeah yeah that's sounding very very familiar yeah yeah i mean luckily my my lot have grown up now but um so does it get easier yeah yeah no that's not very confusing it's different it just gets different uh you know and and that is just part of that juggle so it's not like you're kind of putting anything on the side no i know and i tried like i have a shop as well an online shop and what's the online shop what's it called willowcrossley.com thank you and that is um all kind of floristry and a lot of collaborations with design with kind of artists and things yeah And so I thought maybe I'll make that a bit smaller.

33:09And yeah, that's not going very well either, because I keep kind of coming up with ideas that I can't not make. Does anyone help you? Yeah, I have a really good team. Amazing team. OK, so you do have a team. I think that's quite reassuring for people to know. Yes, yes. It's quite reassuring for me to know, actually. yeah no i do i have an amazing team and i have a kind of a brilliant fulfillment center who does all my yeah all that so yeah um i do yeah i'm very lucky with them emily i have emily who runs the seedling basically so that's quite onerous and ali who does so they're my kind of day-to-day so let's talk about the seedling okay so you said um the the seedling charm so i really i just visualized it i mean i've got a real thing with with kidney bean shape i know lots of seeds are but i love that shape something so tactile so i've imagined this charm uh as a gold kidney bean with a little tiny it it opens actually it's a locket um and just at the section in the kind of saddle section where the seed is yeah i'm very technical you are better on the diamonds this is diamonds okay the saddle is all lovely uh diamonds and then um and then it's got a little just the beginning of life little a little stem um in gold and two little shoots two tiny little leaves which will move and the leaves have got green savorites inside on them showing kind of green shoots beautiful but yeah I think it will be I think it will be gorgeous but just tell me about the seedling because so it's an online magazine yeah on a magazine and it's kind of it's about everything I love so it's um fashion beauty lifestyle it's more than just my but it's the stuff that is in my orbit of my world that I come across and I love and I find and I discover um and I have an amazing friend Emily who does it with me yeah and yeah I just I love it I get to create edits so it's that kind of fashion new world it's and it's i love sharing great discoveries i think and it could be anything from fashion to travel to i love anything yeah i find yeah so that's that's essentially what it is and people now we used to have it as our own separate thing we've now moved over to substack and so people pay for it now which means i can monetize oh yeah i mean but i thought no one would ever pay and you know that awful kind of again there's your imposter syndrome no one's ever going to do it and they do and it's great and it means that i can kind of work with brands to do partnerships and deals and bring the audience great offers and so yeah but it feels does it feel like kind of full circle somehow yeah yeah all the bits that i love and i can do i can say no to bits but you don't we've established that but you don't every week ever i like because i'm obsessed i don't know about you i get a million emails a day and half time i'm like i i do not want to be on my screen yeah so i'm very aware of people just being sent crap all the time yeah so we try and keep it as short as we can it's very hard but the dream we've done one and now we're going to do another printed issue because i just love printed yeah not nothing like not a glossy but like a kind of newspaper type yeah um kind of a5 a5 yeah um and so how often will it be we've just done one we're doing another one for christmas it's actually a year one a year at the moment may go into two but i just love it they sit on the kitchen table really good interviews so we had ula johnson was on our last one and yeah um it was great so that we'll do more of that and that's what makes that's full circle that really yeah it really is full circle yeah um that's that's incredibly exciting too but i mean that is more time and you've still got to write it and i know you know i know what emily is incredible on that so but you've said i think it's really i've read somewhere that you said you hate tech i'm like it's quite well first of all you've got to talk you've got some stack i mean most people if you're like me you know i I know what Substack is, but just.

37:45You don't do it? No, I don't do it. Maybe I should do it. Substack, yeah. It's an incredible community. It's very different to an Instagram community. In which way? In that a lot of people say that Instagram is free, so they wouldn't even think of paying for it, whereas the Substack community, they know that. They've got to pay. Yeah, and they're very involved. It's an incredibly engaged community, so you kind of really know what they want. So for you, it could be wonderful. and everyone engages with each other and shares things and it's a really lovely space. So how do you feel about UK's Queen of Flowers?

38:22I think that's awesome. It's very very kind and unwarranted. Well no, but let's be clear, let's just talk about that a bit. So you've done all these amazing, you know, in fact can we just go back a bit? So you did a one week course in terms of flowers. Yeah. So then what happens? so then my second book i had a lovely i have a lovely friend called alice who did all she worked for anthropology yeah and she launched my book so they brought me into anthropology where i taught people i do workshops a lot of that and i built these huge displays like with cabbages and stuff like that as my book launched right and i i think luck um but but you make your own luck yeah yeah you you learn to recognize the opportunity but totally yeah so and it was like buses I got that and then all these other brilliant brands started asking me to do things and it just kind of grew and yeah it was very organic and learning wise I did that week but I think I often get asked the best way to get into floristial learning it's purely from getting on jobs and so I have an incredible team of freelancers who they all work for other designers and then they'll come and work with me and I'll learn things from them vice versa and so it's been a very organic process and floristry is funny half of it is mechanics and logistics and timings and once you've got the basics you've got the basics and I guess creativity so yeah but but yeah in In all of that, I mean, so other brands came.

40:05Yeah. And also, actually, interestingly, when other brands come, so Ralph Lauren came to you, for example. So do Ralph Lauren want it their way? Because they're very particular, I would imagine. And how does that kind of work with your creativity and their house style? So what specifically with Ralph? Well, I'm kind of thinking Ralph because they're very specific. Yeah, okay. So genuinely speaking, the bigger the brand, the more loops you've got to jump through the more hierarchy you've got to go through but I'm quite lucky now that people will be able to you what Instagram says like the most brilliant kind of yeah book book um they can see my style yeah so and they see other people I've worked with and it's funny also these big brands often yes they've got hoops to jump through but they just want it done yeah and so you you pitch and you say this is what I want to do and all the kind of powerpoints all that stuff you've got to do to get to that stage before is months and months of planning it's like six months to a year so and there's a lot of like no i don't like that no we can't do that because it's only allowed a meter onto the pit to the pavement the customers have to go there's a lot of hoops yeah ticking boxes first yeah yeah and the more i guess you do the more we know that like now i know that there's no way it can come out that way tends to me to yeah yeah yeah um but still you had to learn all of that you just pick it up as you go yeah and that on really big events i i'll work with so um buchanan studio i've worked with a few times and they're friends and wonderful and they are really good at that side of it and very creative as well yeah but the kind of mechanics on a huge install is not my forte right I know what I can do I will do the kind of the vision and the making it happen the floral bit yeah but all the building the health and safety in the building the scaffolding and things that's not my I would outsource that bit right okay but yes it's a lot it's a lot yeah I mean it really is a lot I'm like those big installs are just so incredible I love them are those your favorite is that is that your favorite or florally yes yeah yeah work-wise I think collaboration's my favorite like designing different products for people hey I want to come back to that but um yeah we're going to come back to that um I can you just tell me because flowers are nature yeah presumably they don't always come out when you want them to come out oh god no they die when you don't want them to die all the time so what happens when you've got some big event or some wedding or you're not doing weddings I don't think anymore yeah I do oh you do few but yeah pick and choose if you're lucky yeah yeah okay so so you got the call up for Megan's wedding yeah okay so what happens if they were all dead when you got there the flowers so obviously they weren't they won't be because what happens when you have a real disaster like that because it must happen please tell me it's not all perfect because it all looks so perfect it's not perfect at all i'm so anal in because i'm so obsessed with it being perfect for because i have to please all my customers you know you know it's like i have to make them happy and so i will over order and i will over plan yeah i will have more than enough in case everything dies and like i did a wedding at blenheim palace and it was something like 30 32 degrees in the shade oh i mean it you know yes it was horrific and we had you have a kind of flower tent and we were having to hide everything under the palace and it was still just dying everything was dying the candles that take eight hours to burn were burning down in 30 minutes it was horrific but i had enough flowers because i'd over ordered i told you i'm really bad at maths yeah so actually profitability right or your accountant back to your accountant yeah i mean i don't make any money but it looks fabulous

44:10that's my priority how it looked at the end is my ankle my husband is like you are unbelievable not in a good way he despairs but I just want to go back to that call for because I mean that was an extraordinary thing to have in part of that wedding yeah that was amazing so so i mean was that how did you feel when that happened i was just so excited i couldn't believe it yeah so where did you get the call from the palace or no no from they work with um i don't even know if i'm allowed to say any party that's some kind of party wonderful incredible planners and just assume you're not yes thank you um so and i'd worked with them lots before and they had put me forward yeah and I went to meet Megan yeah and we got on really well yeah and I think I took I took her a bunch of flowers and she must have liked them but yeah we just got on really well and do you know what hopefully I can't remember the sequence between meeting her and being asked to do it but I knew that there were other people who I knew had been asked to do it right who had been asked to pitch for it yeah so was she quite um you met her you gave her your lovely bunch of flowers was she quite prescriptive because one would imagine she might be quite prescriptive about what she loves flowers right really loves flowers and she was very um it was obviously may so which is prime flower time and she knew what she loved yeah um But she was very kind of open to me suggesting things.

45:55And yeah, she was a dream to work with. Really, really nice to work with. Is there a flower that you must have your favourite flowers? Yeah. Well, let's talk about your favourite ones. What I really want to know, what you really hate. Oh, God. Which do you want first? Favourite or hate? I don't mind. I don't mind. I am allergic to gerberas. Oh, God. Well, I don't like the colour. That's hideous. OK. That's interesting because you love colour. I mean, you absolutely love colour. But I'm so particular about colour. Okay, I knew you were going to get into this. There are some yellows that bring me out in a rash.

46:32Very yummy. Awful. Yeah. But my favourite flower, which has not changed for a long time, is Solomon's Seal. Well, I'm going to have to look that up. So she's like a... She? She. I love her. She is like a big lily of the valley. Same, just little white bells. Scented or not scented? Not scented. She's out for three weeks in May, likes growing in shade. And it's just an arching shape, quite tall. The most beautiful kind of perfect creamy white bells. Oh, like kind of snowdrop-esque? Yeah, loads of snowdrops. A bit more simple, but just... Well, I have to show you my tulips, because I have a whole collection called Tulips.

47:13I made them in Mother of Pearl. Oh. And they are divine. They really are. They're like that. You can put them on. In fact, when I spoke to the team about how to how to present them, I showed them a picture actually of a lily of the valley. Because the way they dingle. So this is called Solomon. Solomon's seal, polygonatum, heaven. OK, yeah. Interesting. And OK, so no to yellow. I'm with you. No yellow. Apart from daffodils. No. No, don't even like daffodils. I like a white daffodil. OK. But those yellow ones, I know they're cheery and I get hate mail when I say things like this. But they're called cheerfulness.

47:56They're so offensive. I know I can't do it. Monday, maybe. Maybe next year. Maybe next year. And are there any absolute rules, no rules to flowers? I mean, apart from the ones you hate. But is there, you know, I don't know if you if you were just saying the one, two things that never do. Is there anything like that? Never use foam. Never use foam. Never use foam. Actually, I bought I watched preparing for this. Yeah, I watched you. And what's the thing called? It's a spiky thing. Oh, I bought two of those as a result. Good. I did. Good. Yeah, I buy a frog. That would be another one. Yeah. Play with some chicken while I play with a frog.

48:40okay no foam no foam by seasonal yeah um they're really good website called flowers from the farm you type in your postcode yeah and it tells you where your local growers are and they'll be in london they're all over the place and it will change your life okay if you buy seasonal flowers okay that's because they'll last longer etc etc yeah better for planet they last longer they look prettier they smell better uh hang on and what happens when there's no flowers like winter so what do you do then? Bulbs. So a lot of, I'm starting now, I'm a bit behind, forced paper whites, forced hyacinths, loads of amaryllis and I put them in, take all the soil off, put them in bell jars.

49:19So I have them throughout the winter. So basically we've kind of talked about this charm. I totally, so gripped my conversation, completely forgot to describe to you how I've described how I've designed this charm I mean this charm is utterly gorgeous it's a flower pot it's a it's a it's a it's a pot um and it's it's basically like a like a terracotta flower pot um I've made it with kind of light brown uh pavé diamonds so I think it'll be absolutely divine an absolutely perfect replica of a flower pot. And then to be discussed, not gerberus, clearly. Not gerberus. But I've just put basically three little flowers, some in yellow gold, some in white gold, with each of your children's birthstones as the centre stones.

50:20And I wasn't sure when their birthdays are, So I haven't been specified that, but I think they would just be really gorgeous because charms are so much about what it means to you and, you know, and all of that. And they've got two little little leaves at the bottom, 18 carat gold. And they'll be gorgeous and textured. Exactly. And they'll be what we call entremelant, which means they'll be moving just a little tiny bit. and then I think on the bottom of the pot we should be engraving something but yeah to be discussed okay so just does Charlie get involved at all yeah he yeah he's amazing he he helps me with all my spreadsheets and all my money you know all that kind of side of it as well and he he's just an incredible sounding board he's he's any disaster or worry I know I can just chuck it almost like i'm thinking out loud yes and he knows when i actually want help or whether i or he's just needing i'm needing a sounding board does that make sense yeah it's yeah yeah it makes complete sense um and he is so if i'm here or if i'm doing an event or something he is there with the boys picking them up and on the sidelines and doing all that so there's always one of us with them so we are we're a very good team yeah it is incredibly it's i know he runs a different business to you but it is incredibly helpful to have two entrepreneurs together if actually you really understand the other space yeah exactly and the dramas yeah yeah yeah and and and also the uh you know that imposter syndrome thing because i don't know about you but in my john has always been unbelievably good at telling me that i'm being ridiculous when i say i can't do that totally yeah yeah and it's just they know you've they've got you back exactly yeah and they'll tell you the truth yeah they'll tell you the truth yeah and so willow so you're writing another book which is coming out hopefully 27 27 spring 27 okay if i can actually write it well you'll have to yeah yeah yeah so you're writing another book you're uh you're now producing a little magazine once a year yep magazine seedling seedling printed seedling printed seedling okay um you're continuing to do collaborations so let's talk about those collaborations a bit so so just talk to me a bit about how that works because actually collaborations is they can be many yeah they can be on very different levels yeah so do you sketch them do you draw them how do you how do you go about it well i guess like the site the at home one was massive so yeah um basically i i am very involved so i will draw or come up with ideas and then go back and forth with the designers because i know a lot of collaborations or people just chuck a name on them well that's right that's what i'm so i'm very very i'm so specific about what i want like and don't want them yeah um so yeah so come up with a concept a pitch essentially if I'm going to the brand and say that's what I want to do and then come up with mood boards, collections and then it all gets refined and refined and refined and then we shoot the pieces and then go.

53:48Bang. Yeah. Sold out. Yeah, in a nutshell. Yeah. Sold out. Well maybe we should talk about jewellery. Yes. Yeah. Maybe we should talk about jewellery. Love to. I just love that thing of learning something completely new yeah and working with new people I love people I know it sounds really kind of general thing to say but I think one of the best things is really good conversation I know when you and I met yeah just I found we had such good yeah it was a chat and I just and I love that and when you kind of find new people to meet that's I know it's so exciting isn't it and you learn so much I mean basically that's that's how you learn from other people yeah exactly I find it very hard learning when I'm bored and I'm very I get bored quite easily so that being excited and awoken to new things I find what makes me most joyful oh Willow it's been so fun talking to you I've really really enjoyed it thank you now listen as a thank you for coming and thank you so much for your time I'd like to make you one of these chances at present for real for real oh my god yeah thank you But you need to tell me which one.

55:02I think it would 100 % be copy decks. It's going to be the copy decks. Do you think? I don't know. I'm like, well, you know, because I want you to wear it. So you want to be, think about that too. I think it's the, I think it's the copy decks. Copy decks? The madder the better. Okay, absolutely. No, it's brilliant. It'll be such fun to make it. It will be such fun. So good. Willow, it's been so lovely. Thank you so much for coming. I've really, really enjoyed this chat more than anything. You too. Absolutely brilliant. I could just sit here all afternoon. I could too. Thank you so much for having me.