The Long Way Home: Rollo Skinner on TV Deals, Advertising Burnout and Becoming a Florist at 30

0:04Hello and welcome to The Slowdown. I'm so pleased to be back with season five of this podcast. Thank you for listening. If you could do just one thing for me, it would be to like, subscribe and review this episode or the podcast, depending on what platform you're listening on. It really does help. And of course, share this episode with a friend you think needs to hear it. I'm doubly pleased that this season is also sponsored by a sustainable swim and resort wear brand I absolutely love called Keone. Founded by two extraordinary women in Athens, I actually wanted to interview them for an episode, but they really wanted all of my guests to be on board.

0:44So, and because it's my podcast and I design it how I want, rather than a repeated ad in each episode of this season, I'm sharing eight short bespoke stories about the brand instead for you to get to know them a bit more. When I was thinking about this new season, I reflected on how much of modern life is about adding. Adding credentials, followers, achievements, building an identity out of accumulated things. But what if the path back to yourself isn't about adding anything at all? What if it's about stripping away and returning? Today, I spoke to Rollo Skinner, British artist, author, and botanical set designer.

1:24Rollo tried to embrace big city life and took a series of self-described wrong turns in his 20s and only began a floristry work experience at the age of 30, eventually finding his way back to the natural corner of the world where he grew up. And that return changed everything. He spends his time in a shepherd's hut on family land and has grown a practice that spans illustration, painting, botanical installations and set design, working with the likes of Gucci, Mulberry, Barber and the legendary fashion photographer Tim Walker. He's also published a debut illustrated fable about queerness and self-acceptance.

2:08We talk about what it means to recreate yourself, why so many of us abandon the parts of ourselves that actually make us whole, and how the natural world became both his biggest inspiration and his anchor. Recorded at Brazen Studios and sponsored by swim and resort wear brand Keone, I hope you enjoy this episode with Rollo Skinner. Hi Rollo, welcome to The Slowdown. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Well, I'd like to start first with your childhood. It's always a place that I like to begin because I think it provides context. So I'm curious, where were you raised, by whom, and what were your kind of early examples or understandings of success?

2:54okay so i was raised on the wiltshire dorset border by my mom and dad and i guess you know my two brothers i was the middle of three boys um and we grew up in an old farmhouse and and i guess in a way you know as much as i was raised by the family i was very much raised by the natural world around me and by the trees and by the landscape um was very very formative for me growing up it was my you know it was my refuge um and I guess my definition of success uh from a young age was just slog it and you know just punish yourself until you achieve the thing and it's all in the achievement you know it's not in the process it's all in the the accolade, the thing that you can achieve.

3:47And yeah, this real kind of exhausting grind mentality somehow imprinted into me at a young age, as I'm sure it doesn't to so many of us, but it's kind of mad that from a young age, you know, the way I approached exams was just like slog away, like squeeze every last drop of effort out of myself to be able to achieve the thing that I'm trying to achieve. Do you think it was unusual that you were so connected to the natural world? Like, were your brothers also like that? Did you play in the woods a lot? Or were you kind of the kid at school that was like unusually connected to nature? I think, I think sort of somewhere in the middle of all of that, you know, I think I would, like, you know, I was that weird kid at school because I would like go off, you know, behind the trees and write little poems to birds, You know, whilst also managing to kind of maintain this quite good, you know, facade of, you know, being able to kind of just about fake it enough to be able to fit in so that people didn't think I was a complete weirdo.

4:49But then having this kind of very private part of myself that would want to go off and retreat, I guess, into natural spaces. Yeah, I think my I do have a very, I guess, green fingered family. You know, my dad is a big gardener. My mum loves flowers. My grandmother was a apple farmer and a fruit farmer. And my other grandmother was an incredible gardener. So I think it's it's there. But for me, it was very dormant for many, many years. I was given a tiny little flower bed behind the house and it was north facing and it was like filled with rocks. And it was really a very difficult place to grow things.

5:31And I was given it, I think maybe when I was like six, I was like allowed to have this little space. and I put you know everything sort of died that went in there I I think eventually just these like few ferns and some hellebores survived um I think I tried to grow like a mulberry bush in there that some kind of godparent gave me which just I think perished um and actually something I really loved growing up um was every year the like local village fair there were kind of different categories you know people are entering in like you know the wonkiest piece of fruit or whatever the wonkiest vegetable they've grown and the for kids there was this category of making these miniature gardens in tea trays and you know I became really obsessed with it every year and I would put like these little forget-me-nots in there like these tiny little blue flowers and then have tin foil as the kind of pond and little things of moss and primroses and yeah I think I just I yeah I don't really know why I'm why am I telling you that story I guess it shows that as a child you were really interested and fascinated in this stuff in a way that some people might be in like reading on their own or being super social or being into sports like clearly this wasn't just the context of where you were living that you were so physically connected to nature but it seems like there was just an interest in this from a really young age Completely.

6:59And I think, yeah, I think I, I think I really, you know, I grew up gay and still am. And really, it was so hard. You know, it's incredibly hard trying to fit into a world that isn't really designed for you. And, you know, in the 90s, thinks you're absolutely, you know, abhorrent just by being. I really, yeah, I really found it.

7:31I found it so hard to fit into the human world, you know, and both at school and at home, because all of my natural instincts were wrong or like deemed wrong by society. um you know even at seven you can always tell if there's like a seven-year-old is gay like it's sort of you know it shows you know within their within their character and the way they react to things and it's so wonderful it's so amazing and at that time it was not seen as amazing it was seen as something people would be very ashamed of and and so for me you know I just found that I would kind of always trip up in kind of social situations and not really understand what I was doing wrong, but know that fundamentally I was, there was something very flawed about me that people found uncomfortable and difficult.

8:18And so, so really for me, nature became this incredible refuge. And I was very, very fortunate that I grew up in this old farmhouse and we have, which where my parents still live today. And we have this long strip of trees, which we call the woods, but really it's sort of a strip of trees that is kind of crushed between two arable fields between us and the neighbouring farmer and that for me was this real refuge as a child and I would spend so much time there um watching you know I in a way you know you asked me these questions like did was I aware of that being kind of different but I thought of sort of thought that everyone was everyone was doing that you know everyone was going into nature and really studying and watching the natural world as it kind of grows and moves and shifts and changes around you I felt incredibly safe there and obviously that's an incredible luxury you know you can't a child can't just go off into any old wood and feel incredibly safe watching the natural world but I was very fortunate I did have this little cocoon of space to go to I found it hard both at home and at school my nervous system was so uh in a defense mode all the time and the defense was you know stick a big happy grin on my face and be as lovely and nice and easy as I can be just to stop any um you know just to stop upsetting the world you know not to stop like the wrath of the world turning on me yeah because you're like I'm already in my sexuality and my choices upsetting the world completely and at that time I had no idea that was because I was gay right but it was just I just felt I just felt fundamentally like I was this weirdo you know people just thought I was weird and like my my natural instincts were a bit weird like what they weren't you know but I'd love to dress up as a girl you know I'd love to like be Cinderella in the school play you know and like flash my knickers to the entire school like I had so much joy in that and yeah obviously that's such fodder to be absolutely rinsed by your classmates and then and at my elder brother was so embarrassed by me all the time and we were always at the same school and he was just you know mortified by my presence if I like came and said like oh hey at school if I kind of went up to him he's you know his heart you know you'd see his heart sink and that's just like a horrible feeling to to have day in day out for all of all of your life really it sounds like there was sort of we're starting at this kind of bifurcation of your life of like the nature side that is like joyous and and childlike and then the realities of the world and things that you have to step into academic and then going out into the world of work.

11:21And you describe your 20s as kind of a series of wrong turns. And so I'm wondering, what was the first wrong turn? And did it feel wrong at the time? Or is it just when you look back in hindsight? I mean, I think, you know, there were so many wrong turns in my teens. You know, I should never have been in an all boys boarding school, you know, like that was really difficult. But I guess, you know, when I had my own agency, um my first you know I always see it as a wrong turn but of course all of those every every decision I've made has got me to you know sit here talking to you right now so they're all learning along the way and you know um it's the the journey but um yeah so I was I loved drawing growing up I love that was really like a very evident skill that I had um was drawing and art and and I um but I was in I also loved acting but it wasn't perhaps that didn't perhaps come as naturally to me or it did if I was playing Cinderella do you know I mean like I think I could have made a fabulous drag queen but I would I was always cast in these quite like straight roles or these quite like young romantic lead roles and I ended up doing I was doing Les Miserables at school and the musical because I can sing that was like that's one of my one of my my favorite things to do in the world is sing and there was a casting director came and they saw me and said told you know one of the members of staff that I should go to drama school and should apply to drama school and I sort of I was so malleable at that point and I really had no sense of who or what I wanted to do or who I was at all and so I was like right well obviously I'll go and do what this person has said like I trust this other person's view of me better than I trust listening to my own innate instincts and what I want to do and I think also there was probably a part of me that had so much unprocessed emotion, like so many tears that I wanted to cry.

13:33And I think, you know, going to drama school is a wonderful place to go and be out kind of gay person who's able to, you know, go and cry in a room. I very quickly realized that to work in the industry, it's mad now because, you know, here we are 10, 15, 20 years later, you know, every straight actor is playing gay you know it's so like it's the coolest thing to be queer but at the time but at the time it was really not um and so I kind of came out of drama school and my agent the first thing he said to me was you know I don't want to know if you're gay don't tell me um so that was kind of horrible and then and then I proceeded to have like lots of these very difficult um difficult things but I was very fortunate that I was I was cast in I kept on getting jobs um and so I was able to through doing the job which coincidentally one of them was called Wrong Turn Six and it's it's you know the sixth film in one of the longest running horror franchises it's a slasher gore film I was playing like the main guy's best friend it's like I was like this little American journalist it's 20th Century Fox it's like a very legitimate thing but i hate god i hate god they they um these mutant hillbilly cannibals hogtied me tight like caught me in the woods tied me up into a tree and then someone like came out of this like hut and he's going it's like this terrifying man with this like horrible like really long nose and this massive machete came out of this log cabin and gutted me and like gored me and i was so scared because you know when you hear about those awful stories of you know the gun being switched on you know the film set i suddenly thought right what if i actually what if that machete has been switched for a real one and he then gored he gored me and i then and it was so i really screamed for my life it was just like they were like this is great great take they were really like this is great and i was like that's the best thing i've ever done in my life and then these children come out these like mutant hillbilly children come out of this cabin and all eat my entrails and then someone has sex underneath my body oh wow so there we go so i guess but what's interesting to me there is like this notion of you go down a wrong path but you still get booked on the jobs so it's very difficult because you're going but i'm achieving in society's idea of success.

16:05I'm making money, I'm booked and busy, I'm doing things, I'm a jobbing actor, but I'm not in my purpose, not doing anything that I really love. Totally. Yeah. It, it was very incremental. You know, it really took a while and a lot of, you know, I had to really gather a lot of evidence to be like, okay, no, this is, this is not the right thing for me. But it was like, you know, the promise of the thing to come and you're kind of building, you're building on this thing. You've invested so much time into it. You know, you've trained to do this. And also that thing of like, anyone else would kill for this opportunity.

16:42And so feeling so guilty that you're not actually enjoying it when you're experiencing it. It all came to a head when I, so I was filming this TV show called The White Princess and it had Jodie Comer in it and it was The War of the Roses. And I was playing the head of the Royal Tudor Stables, the Tudor Royal Stables. I don't know how to say that, but, you know, as the stable boy and the slightly Machiavellian stable boy. And I and it was the most dreamy gig because I got to ride the Lloyd's TSB horses across the great British countryside throughout the entire summer. And it was kind of six months of filming.

17:20And I would, you know, I was very in and out. You know, I was just doing a kind of, you know, come in for a day. and but I was filming at like an Arundel Castle and Cardiff Castle and these beautiful places but anyway it was during filming that I was like okay this is my dream to be riding these beautiful horses um I also should I should say I was I'd also been diagnosed with Lyme disease when I was 21 which was which has been a whole thing within my family and so I was kind of I was struggling a lot uh internally with health things and for me it was largely anxiety it was health anxiety and I was filming this tv show and my I was just so terrified every time I'd leave my trailer I'd be so terrified of walking on set and delivering my lines in front of people because I was also just like struggling with this internal battle so anxious about my health I realized right this is my dream gig and it's not I'm not happy at all I'm like actually so far from being happy i'd applied to this school called the school of school of communication arts um which is in brixton it's like a tiny little school and i somehow managed to get i found out i'd managed to get into it um because i just knew i i was so envious of all of the the set design people the prop people the um you know the florists the lighting people you know anyone who's helping craft the visual world and tell that that wider visual story I was I felt like I had that to offer within myself I thought god I really could do that but I kept on suppressing it and kept on suppressing it within every job but it was on this job that was really like no Rolla you've got to listen to that feeling so I found out I got into the school I applied it all happened quite quickly and I was still filming the show at the time and so I went out and because I was wearing a wig and I had this like long golden hair and it was like glued onto my head essentially I could it meant I could go and shave my head for the first time since leaving drama school because they always say you know never shave your head right you look different exactly totally you've got to keep your you know hair look the same you've got to look the same that's so restrictive especially being queer and like wanting to kind of inhabit my queer identity but also being told you can't be gay uh by literally everyone within the industry I then went out and yeah, shaved my head.

19:40And I walked back into my flat and I was feeling so elated because I was like, oh my God, I'm claiming my future for myself. I can go and go to this kind of creative school and go and, you know, just be myself. And my phone rang and it was my agent. And he was like, oh my God, Rollo, congratulations, you've done it. You've been cast as the lead in a Netflix show. and the show was called Free Rain and it was all about horses and like it was basically like Pony Club, the TV show. And it was for like, you know, 13 year old girls. And I literally felt like I'd been shot through the stomach. I was like, this is the worst possible news.

20:25And I was kind of gasping for air on the phone being like, yeah, okay. And even then I was still like, yeah, okay. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. Just, you know, my soul utterly destroyed. and I guess why was I so feeling like that was because I was going to have to again play this like I was 25 at the time and I was going to have to be playing this 15 year old you know romantic interest for a kind of 13 year old girl and so I was going to basically have to go fully back into the closet to do this and it would then and you know that thing of being like at that time if an act was suspected of being gay, it was like front page news.

21:04Like, oh my God. You don't get GQ man of the year award. Exactly. You're just like the laughingstock. And I was like, I don't want to be the laughing, I just don't want to be that, but I want to go and be myself. But then why didn't you feel like you could say no? Well, because I was, the expectation. Your agents worked so hard too, you don't want to let them down. Totally. And just thinking, right, I can just, I was, I think I was just like, right, it's three months I can do it like and it was good money and then like an hour went by and I was just in such a gloom and then suddenly the phone calls again he's like great news it's for three seasons and I'm just sorting out the contract now and I'm like I can't do it like that was the that was the moment that I was like I can't do this and he obviously completely imploded and it was a horrible conversation the first of like a few horrible conversations where i had to continually be like no i'm not going to be an actor anymore i sort of needed this kind of quite climactic end i think i don't know why um but you know some i needed to be able to say no to say a full no to the the real deal as it were you know and i kind of i at the time was like if this show is really successful i have to be okay with saying no to this you know knowing that the show could possibly be really successful and i had a really strong instinct that it would be really successful and it was an incredibly successful show for netflix it was like one it was like their number one tween show for like three years it was like a major show and look but then you would be that guy completely and you know that guy has now got nearly a million followers on Instagram and you know it's doing very very well and I'm so pleased because that was his that's the thing is his dream like if he wanted that you know to be doing something you don't really want to be doing and have a million followers of tweens that you know completely you're going you're at the top of the wrong ladder he actually also met his wife on that show so I'm you know could not have been more perfect um that he went and did that you know that I didn't take that job so then I went to the school and I was free and it and it felt like the first time where me who I am you know wasn't being put under the microscope for people to kind of analyze and say yes or no and what were you learning um so I went into the school thinking it was going to be a very entrepreneurial focus it was it was all quite kind of smoke and mirrors the school like to get into it it was all it was like in an old nightclub in the top of the church in Brixton it was yeah it It was, yeah, the nightclub was called Mass.

23:46The principal of the school's office was in the DJ booth. Like it was so, it was so sort of renegade and kind of freeing and exactly, exactly what I needed to go and do. But I went into it on the kind of understanding that I was going to be kind of slipstreamed into this kind of entrepreneurial thing. And they took in kind of 24 people in a year. And normally how it was divided was you'd have like one or two people who went into the entrepreneurial thing. And then kind of the other remainders would all be focusing on advertising. And it was basically like a year's speed dating for creatives for advertising.

24:20So the way that a creative team works for advertising is you've got the copywriter and the art director. And so the two of you are paired together traditionally in kind of traditional advertising creative departments. and somehow I suddenly found myself slightly again like in this play like in this speed dating for creatives doing something I actually didn't really want to do I didn't want to go and work in advertising um but it hadn't really been very clear to me and to be honest I'm sure I could have you know had a few more conversations before saying yes to the school but you were 25 and you were like design I need an answer exactly anything but this anything but advertising anything but acting and I need it to be, um, yeah, exactly something design based.

25:03And, but it was, it was an amazing year in, in many ways. It was so intense and it was such an, an incredible grind. And we were really, I mean, it was the most kind of, you know, the grindiest grind there is. It was just like, go. And there was constantly like this leaderboard of, you know, who was on top and who was like the second and third teams and it was it was really hard but I did also really enjoy it and um I think it taught me a lot about how to have ideas and how to kind of shape creative ideas and um I went in as an art director but then there was always a kind of question mark around whether I'd also be a copy whether I'd be a copywriter um but then I eventually found my lovely partner creative partner, Miranda.

25:49And the two of us then formed this creative team. And we were then hired out of there in a very small startup, you know, advertising agency. This was right when kind of social purpose marketing had really kind of taken off. And the idea of this agency was to work with brands like, you know, Budweiser, Adidas, Mars, to help to make the world a better place ultimately you know went into it very you know excited and it was it was a great it was an amazing environment very very smart people but it was also incredibly hard work and such a slog I and I really really struggled um I kind of managed you know also because I was in a team dynamic and Miranda was so kind of relaxed and like at ease in that environment and so brilliant and so she kind of you know propped me up I think um I stayed much longer because of her ultimately and and because I loved lots of people there but I really really kind of struggled and I was also in a very very difficult relationship at that time which was very subtly controlling and increasing increasingly and it was really robbing me of my confidence and of my agency and of my self-worth I was like scraping the barrel of who I was and I was exhausted you know I was really like burning myself out because I had no escape I had no respite I didn't have you know the woods of my childhood you were in London I was in London and I was just knackered and um so stressed and I reached a point where I actually stopped taking the tube because I was just kind of, I became terrified that I was going to throw myself in front of it, not because I was feeling suicidal, but because I just had these incredibly intrusive thoughts.

27:45And, and I think that was just, I guess, like a symptom being utterly burnt out, isn't it? You know, I, I, I didn't trust myself and I was just, I, yeah, I, I, it was a very, very, very, very low point. It sounds like in spite of the learnings that you got from that experience, it was like another wrong turn, as you would describe it. Was it that you started to realise, as so many of us did, that all of these campaigns were a lot of greenwashing for a lot of big brands? There was also like a disillusionment factor, like what were the elements that came together? Or was it just a burnout that made you again say, I have to say no?

28:22It was all of those things, definitely disillusionment with the industry. You know, It was working on this PepsiCo brief where we were, you know, we were having to research recycling. And PepsiCo were wanting to kind of come out as these big champions, these leaders within the world of recycling. And at the same time, they were just, you know, pumping out this plastic into the world. And when we were then pitching all of our ideas, you know, things that were actually trying to help, actually genuinely trying to help make a kind of positive impact and reduce the amount of plastic that they used and they didn't want to have any of it you know and you were suddenly like wait okay this is this is actually greenwashing and I think I was also just inhabiting this like digital world and I was going to bed so late you know I was sleeping on my laptop so late every night and getting up so early to make sure that I could kind of do all this like massive routine of yoga and things just to make sure I was in a, you know, relaxed headspace to be able to survive the day.

29:24And I, yeah, I was, was really searching for something. I was like, something has got to change and I don't know what the hell it is. And, and I was reading lots of different kind of, lots of different self-help books at that time. You know, it's really like looking, there's got to be a better answer than this and I was really examining this question of like what do I what did I love doing as a child was just the thing I was like I know that somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn from a path as a little boy where was that wrong turn like how far back can I trace myself back up that path to find something that I genuinely remember love I loved doing you know before the noise of school and and I thought back to those little fairy gardens you know I thought back to just being in nature and I went and bought these tulips for four pounds and I came home and I sat down with them and it just felt so good like I felt so giddy just the fact that I'd actually bought myself something to have a play you know I didn't I I didn't even have colouring pencils or, you know, paints.

30:37Like I wouldn't, I didn't spend any money on my own enjoyment. And so I started to play with these flowers and it was just a really wonderful feeling. And I thought, God, this is so uplifting and peaceful and quiet. And I felt so connected, I guess, back to that little boy who loved being in the woods. and loved getting mud into my nails and being messy and dirty and free and i loved the messiness of it you know it's messy but like working with flowers and the leaves and just this tactile thing with my hands i've been spending so long tapping away on computers um and that was you know a a a big shift for me because i was you know suddenly like right okay there is this whole dormant part of myself that I really now need to uncover.

31:33And so it was the flowers. And then I got, you know, coloring pencils and started kind of drawing and scribbling away. I suddenly was like, right, I want to go do like a little day's flower course. And I'm going to take the day off work, which I'd never done for like something just for myself, you know. And it was so amazing. And it felt so radical to allow myself to have a day off work. Like it was mad. And then cut to So, you know, two weeks later, the world goes into lockdown, COVID. And it was very fortunate timing for me because, you know, I was really had reached this like complete burnout and I was exhausted.

32:14And I'd suddenly discovered this little thing. And I found myself back at my mum and dad's. You know, I was. Had you been furloughed? I exactly I was furloughed I'd go to the woods and just kind of play with flowers and kind of and twigs and things kind of bring them back and make these little sculptures on the kitchen table for my family to kind of bring a bit of you know light and levity to that time and I became really kind of obsessed with it and I was so fortunate to be furloughed because it just gave me this space where I was actually being paid to experiment and play with no real, you know, I wouldn't have to show it to anyone.

33:00And it was so luxurious. And so when I came back to London, I was then, on Saturdays, I would go and work at local florist and kind of make bouquets and then do my job, you know, the other five days a week. And so it was a slow transition. It wasn't just an instant I'm quitting my job I'm out of here it was this kind of yeah this shift that took a you know probably the course of like a year a year and a bit how did it feel to to be a beginner again because I suppose you'd there's the second time that you've left kind of a successful part in your career and you're trying to learn something again um it was so I just turned 30 I broke up with the boyfriend and it felt like this kind of giddying new lease of life and I'd also started going to therapy I was like he I was healing you know all aspects of myself so I had so much energy um and I was so kind of hungry and excited by this new thing it was very hard to find work it's very hard to find people to assist because there were no events at the very beginning And I really want, I knew I didn't want to work in a shop.

34:08I actually hated working in a flower shop and making bouquets. It was soul destroying. You know, I'm just like so sensitive. I like have to find the exact right thing. So I knew it was flowers, but I knew I wanted to make big, big scale things. Did botanical set designer exist in your consciousness as a role? Like, did you know that that was a job? No, God, no. No, before that, not at all, you know. But I think, you know, in all of this kind of introspection, I'd sort of kept on coming back to this idea that like, you know, making big sets with flowers, you know, I was like, it's so niche, but I just think I can just feel absolutely that that's something I'd love to do.

34:47I don't really know how or where I can do that or, you know, who else is doing that. And I kept on asking people if I could assist them and they kept me like, we're so sorry, we don't have any work. You know, we're allowed like two people on the team. and so I ended up going to a place called the London Flower School which had a four-week course and there I really learned how to make things at scale I just think I'm good at spatial design feels quite innate to me for the first time I was like yes this is it that I can do this this is my thing and then I kind of came out of that and I was just so fortunate because I had this grounding there um and because of my advertising experience and connections I just you know my first job actually my first job was was to do a music video for Arlo Parks and you know which is terrifying to think that would be your first job and but it was so exciting and they wanted tons of sunflowers and tons of delphiniums and I just after I'd clicked order to buy them they um they changed to breathe literally and then they were like we're so sorry and I'm like I'm so sorry because I can't cancel that order and so then they were like okay well do you want to keep the flowers so then I had this like a thousand pounds worth of sunflowers and delphiniums coming to my mom and dad's house so then I made this installation in the greenhouse and then that was kind of became this kind of calling card you know that was like my first like proper thing that I could be like that I've made that and then from that I just started to get like amazing from the off amazing jobs coming in so it was really mad.

36:25It was mad, yeah. Kiyone was co-founded by Lydia Vusvouni and Amelia Thorodoropoulou, two women in their 30s, both mothers, both Greek, both deeply in love with their country and its craftsmanship. What they've built together in just a few years is extraordinary. A brand now recognised across Greece and internationally, loved by celebrities, featured in major press, and even worn on screen in a Yorgos Lanthimos film. and they say they continue their journey with the same enthusiasm with which they began. That's the thing about building something from genuine love rather than just ambition. The enthusiasm doesn't run dry.

37:06When I look for partners for the slowdown, these are the kinds of stories I want to be able to tell. So I was overjoyed when they wanted to be our partner for season five. Their support pays for this studio and our amazing production and editing team and keeps this podcast going. But there's also something in it for you. Keone are offering a 20 % discount to The Slowdown listeners. Just use the code THESLOWDOWN, one word, at checkout on their website, keone.com, for 20 % off your first shop. I hope you check them out and support this female-founded brand the way that they are supporting this show.

37:43And you've worked with, as you say, Gucci, Mulberry, Barber, Tim Walker, the photographer. is there any particular job that comes out to you now as like a great example of the kind of thing that you love to do so I did a job with Tim Walker it was it was the day after Glastonbury it was and I was at Glastonbury and it was and it was with Alexa I'd only been asked like you know two weeks before and I was like I'm not going to not go to Glastonbury because of this so I'm going to make it all work and you know I made it all work and you know on the Sunday of Glastonbury I was like driving back via my parents' house to cut loads and loads of like flowers to make this massive, massive bouquet for Alexa Chung to stand in this allotment in Stratford for Barber.

38:33And I just I love that image because it's so it's so kind of uplifting and kind of glorious and wild. And and I feel it really kind of captures captures my style of I love abundance and natural things that have grown in the UK that feel really real and kind of but also kind of whimsical. and um yeah and and also there's a kind of also there's a kind of melancholy to it as well which i find very very beautiful so yeah that that image i will be very pleased with when i die you know um they're all great jobs you mentioned there a couple times obviously doing a lot of this stuff back at your parents house and you effectively like lived or moved back for a period of time to your parents house with your sheepdog in a cabin on family land western capitalism's idea of success would say that that's actually a failure, that that's like a step back from what you should be achieving.

39:32Where do you stand with that? This kind of concept of returning, not being so popular, but you did it anyway, because I feel we've gone sideways as a society, like that leaving our parents, not investing back in the land that we came from, not continuing to build together, focusing so much on individualism and kind of going off and doing better than the generation before has left an entire generation behind and homes behind and land behind. And so I'm just wondering if you felt a level of other people will see this as like me backtracking, but actually this is how I see it. I absolutely love what you've just said.

40:14Like I've never really thought of it like that. And it's so true. And it's so mad, isn't it? That we all just kind of completely continue to kind of fracture and splinter away from before. Whereas, you know, if you go back thousands of years, we would absolutely stayed in that kind of, you know, group, that unit or within the same area. Yeah, for me, I think it was just that I realised how much importance and kind of significance to me that little bit of land had to the child me. and how much I needed to be near it. And, you know, I'm not at a point where I want to be buying my own home in the countryside.

41:01You know, I've got my flat in London and I've spent, you know, quite a lot of the gravity of my life is up here with work. And there was a part of me that's yearning to be back there by those woods and to be close to my family. You know, at this point where my parents are getting older, my nephews and nieces are all lived down there, my brothers, you know, all my family down there. But I didn't want to have my own home. And so it just made so, you know, we've got this field and it's actually, it's an old agricultural field. It's been very over farmed for many years. And actually the field has always made me feel very sad.

41:39I've always felt very depressed by that field because it's just heavy clay soil. It's been really over farmed. the land is knackered and there's so much water surface runoff and it's very depleted and you feel it and a year ago it's stopped from a year ago it stopped being farmed and it's been sewn over with wildflowers and i i you know i see so much of myself in that field you know and and so So my shepherd's heart has arrived six months ago. Although, you know, over the winter, I've like, you know, been slow to get curtains and that sort of thing. So I've not had lots of nights sleeping there yet.