Sarah Doukas

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is Sarah Dukas. A founder of Storm Model Agency, she is one of the most powerful women in fashion. Best known for spotting a fourteen year old Kate Moss and turning her into a multi million dollar brand, these days, alongside models Lily Cole, Cindy Crawford and Eva Herzegova, her books also feature Carla Bruni, Emma Watson and Michael Booblay, people for whom modeling is a bridge to a different life.

Presenter1:01

But although she's been more than twenty years at the top of this most fickle of industries, she claims she's never had a proper job. I've always managed, she says, to survive without one.

Presenter1:11

It was the threat of spending her teens in Doncaster that propelled her to run away to London. Once there, she did a spot of modelling, ran a bric-a-brac stall and managed punk bands. I'm a terrible old rocker, she says, and I always knew my life would be unconventional. So, Sir Ducasse, um, you say you get that feeling when you see somebody who's going to be uh a model. What is the feeling as you're standing in the queue at Waitrose or wherever and you spot one?

Sarah Doukas1:39

A new spot.

Presenter1:40

Um, you know, it's one of these funny things in life. It's for me it's such an obvious thing that I just home in on a face. Beautiful cheekbones, aquiline nose, nice jawline. And the great thing actually about spotting people that aren't walking into your office and saying, Can I be a model? When you're out in the street, you can watch somebody move and you can actually see their sort of personality and then I really know.

Presenter2:06

Um you did, as I say, you you did um a bit of modeling yourself. I mean, you made a living uh as a model. You are

Sarah Doukas2:11

Mill

Presenter2:13

Um beautiful but very tiny. How come you made a living as a model? Far too small. I mean that it was ridiculous. It was y you know, I was sort of seventeen and a a budding photographer lived lived in my flat and took pictures of me and took them to a model agency. I said, I'm tiny, I'm five foot two and a half.

Sarah Doukas2:16

Maybe living as a mortal.

Presenter2:30

But I used to do loads of commercials and um I used to sit on the bonnets of cars because I made the car look big.

Presenter2:39

But do you know, I absolutely hated it because I knew I was too small, so I was always up against it. Is it true that four hundred people a week contact your agency in the hope of getting onto your books?

Presenter2:49

I'm quite sure it is. That's a phenomenal amount. Of those 400, how many might make it through even to the first round?

Sarah Doukas2:52

Uh

Speaker 42:52

And have those

Sarah Doukas2:52

Yeah.

Presenter2:58

It's so difficult to tell, but not so many, because I don't like to give people false hope, you know, and if I really don't think somebody's right, so we we invite them to come in, of course. All the ones that we think have got even an outside chance, we ask them to come in to storm. Do you look at them?

Sarah Doukas3:11

And dorm.

Presenter3:13

Yeah, I do.

Presenter3:15

It's the one thing I'm a control freak about. And how young might some of these girls be? Well, I mean this is the awful thing these days. They all grow up so quickly and I think most teenagers dominate their parents. So they're very pushy with them. So I mean as young as twelve and thirteen.

Presenter3:29

Which is very young. Very young. More to come. For now, let's have your first disc then. What what have you chosen for us today? My first one is Marvin Gaye. And why have you chosen this?

Presenter3:41

You know, What's Going On was one of my favourite all-time albums and um Mercy, Mercy, Me I just loved because it's got such a message. It's a sort of real eco warrior's dream.

Speaker 43:55

Mercy, mercy.

Speaker 44:00

All things ain't what they used to be now.

Speaker 44:05

Where did all the blue skies move?

Speaker 44:09

Poison is the wind that blows From the Lord for something so far mercy, mercy, me

Speaker 44:20

All things ain't what they used to be

Presenter4:25

That was Marvin Gaye and Mercy, Mercy, me. Your life, Sera Ducas, on paper is impossibly glamorous, it seems. There you are dealing with the most beautiful people in the world, sending them to the most gorgeous parts of the world. And yet you choose to spend your time on a farm come the weekend. That is the least glamorous place on earth. It is the least glamorous place.

Sarah Doukas4:44

On that

Sarah Doukas4:45

I

Presenter4:47

Well, the farm, you know, that I've been on the farm since I was three. It was my grandmother's farm. It's in the New Forest. And I love that rural life.

Presenter4:55

And she was there until she was 98, still sort of farming away. Is it true that you spend your weekends trying to artificially inseminate pigs? Not every weekend, but I have done, yes, and I was completely unsuccessful. Is it a difficult thing to do? It is a really difficult thing to do. I've always had pigs and I have two Glosterol spots. But it's difficult to get a Glosterol spot bore, and the vets hate pigs and they didn't want to do it. So I did it with a girlfriend, and it's all got to be obviously just at the right time. Yes. I mean, I won't go into any graphic detail, but it was a nightmare.

Sarah Doukas5:05

In fact,

Sarah Doukas5:25

Yes.

Presenter5:30

And I thought I might have done it, but sadly I didn't, and it didn't work. I think I tried it three times. Do you need that life as ballast to the to the other part of your life? Because of course the fashion industry famously

Presenter5:42

You know, it's full of quite awkward people, and it's really about a whole load of candy floss in the end. Do you need the real stuff? Oh, yeah, well, I do. I can't talk for everybody else. I definitely do. I mean, I feel as if I go to work on the moon, and I definitely could not live that life on the weekend, and I couldn't get into the whole social razzmataz of it because it's so full-on in the day. I talked to literally hundreds of people that I can't talk anymore. Are you sort of always metaphorically on a headset? Are you always bluetoothed up and available to anyone? I'm always bluetoothed up and available. So I take the phone call, deal with the problem.

Sarah Doukas5:49

Yeah.

Sarah Doukas6:10

To anyone

Presenter6:15

But I have to take that phone call. You don't know what it's going to be. Of course, and it's a people industry. It's all about people, and people come with all their baggage and problems. What might be the sort of call that you would get at three in the morning?

Sarah Doukas6:17

Uh

Sarah Doukas6:20

Yeah um

Presenter6:25

Well, I mean, it could be something intensely personal because, I mean, when you forge very strong relationships with your girls, boys, you know, you know a lot of things, you know I mean you know that um one of your boys' mothers is dying of cancer or you know and that you deal with every s human element, so it could be that.

Presenter6:43

Or it could be I'm sorry, I just don't want to do that job tomorrow morning. It could be any myriad of things.

Presenter6:49

And then you have to deal with it and you're dealing with a human being that things can go wrong.

Presenter6:55

Let's have some more music then. Disc number two. What are we gonna hear?

Presenter6:59

It's on Rico Caruso. Why have you chosen this then? Oh, because it's the f I think it's the first music I ever listened to. My my grandparents um had an old wind up record player and um I think I was about three years old and they loved Caruso. They had loads of seventy eights. It was my big treat winding up the old, you know, gramophone.

Sarah Doukas7:17

More

Sarah Doukas7:23

Oh the beautiful Come from the hell.

Presenter8:05

Enrico Caruso and Osola Mio. So, Sara Dukas, let's find out a bit about the early years. As you say, that brings back memories of winding up the gramophone. That was your big treat as a little you were about three when you did that. Um you were born in Malta, is that right? Mm, I was born in Malta because my father was a surgeon lieutenant in the navy. I think I was about eighteen months old when we came back. And what sort of people you say your father was a surgeon? What sort of surgery did he specialize in? Consultant, gynecologist and obstetrician. And your mother, did she work? Pharmacist. Right. So pretty high-powered professions, both.

Sarah Doukas8:36

Pretty high power.

Presenter8:38

What sort of expectations did they have uh for you?

Presenter8:41

Oh well I mean they had you know huge expectations. I knew I would go to private boarding school. I knew from when I could first think so when I was sent off before I was my seventh birthday in the September I was sort of six and three quarters. I mean I was not surprised. And my father just seriously believed in a really proper education and absolutely university afterwards. And then the only professions that were acceptable to them would be law, medicine, accountancy. I mean some, you know, a proper profession. He was just mad about education. Any bad report, you know, I was was in really big trouble. Yes, how were your reports? Terrible.

Presenter9:24

Right.

Presenter9:25

I don't know whether it was because he pushed me so much from when I was little I just rebelled against it.

Presenter9:30

Or whether, you know.

Presenter9:33

Maybe I was just stupid, I don't know. Well, that's clearly not the case, is it? Because here you are today running a business that's got an eight million. I just think he was way too pushy. And and it just made me you know, I just sort of backed off.

Sarah Doukas9:37

Yeah.

Sarah Doukas9:39

I just think he was

Sarah Doukas9:41

Rang

Presenter9:44

And it sounds young, of course, to be sent away at seven. W were you were you homesick or quite self-reliant? It's funny, I think I became very self-reliant. I think it was quite an austere period of life. So it was pretty stiff upper lip. I don't remember crying too much, because I don't think it would have fallen on any sort of sensitive ears. Right. Um uh so you spent a lot of time with your your grandmother then. You were talking about her on this farm which she worked on until she was ninety eight. Why did you spend so much time with her?

Presenter10:13

It was geographically because she was in the New Forest and my prep school was in um Wickham in Hampshire. And my parents moved from London. He got a job in um South Yorkshire.

Presenter10:25

I hated it up there, and every half-term and holiday was spent on the farm with her, which was a total joy. What was she like?

Presenter10:32

Oh, a serious character a fantastic woman very eccentric, very opinionated, funny. She'd have me up really late at night, you know we'd be carving and stuff. I was this, you know, small child. I mean, there was no boundaries.

Presenter10:48

She was just like, Right, you're staying up tonight, this calf is I can remember being out on that farm at midnight. If my parents had known, they'd have been furious. She'd have been in bed at seven, you know.

Sarah Doukas10:56

And you know.

Presenter10:57

She was just great. I loved it. And and how I mean, you're a mother of three children yourself then. Um how are you with boundaries?

Presenter11:06

I'm quite relaxed'cause my husband thinks that I'm way too liberal.

Presenter11:11

I'm not liberal about, you know, drugs per se, but I mean smokes a little bit of this and everything in moderation.

Presenter11:19

And not everything.

Presenter11:21

But I did try things and do things, so I I'm not ridiculous with them. I don't go mad, and it makes them more communicative with me.

Presenter11:29

I mean, I don't say they tell me everything, but they tell me quite a lot, which is good. Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear next? Oh, the small faces that are fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. It's just all my, you know, early life in Yorkshire as a teenager and I had all these friends who were rushing around on scooters in their parkers with their mod haircuts like Stevie Marriott.

Speaker 411:51

On the bridge of sights To rest my eyes in shades

Speaker 411:58

Under dreaming spies

Speaker 412:02

To Ichiku Park, that square happened. What did you do there? I got hot!

Speaker 412:08

What did you feel there?

Speaker 412:12

I have the trees there, tell you why It's all too beautiful

Presenter12:20

That was The Small Faces and Itchikoo Park and Memories Syradukas of being a teenager with those mods on on the bikes. You you were in Doncaster, by the way. Actually, that song reminds me of a sort of mad multicoloured dress I had, which was way too short and

Sarah Doukas12:27

But when I was

Presenter12:35

God, could I have had Terry to have land shoes on in those days? I just think I might have done. But um I used to wear virtually nothing on the back of these scooters. How my father and mother let me out, I don't know. And were you getting high and touching the sky? I mean were you having a little bit of that? Yes, yes, those boys smoked. But I was always quite moderate, you know. I was I didn't like being kind of out of it, as they say. Were your parents worried that you were going to hell on a hand cart?

Presenter13:01

Well, you know, they were very strange actually,'cause they allowed the house was always full of people. Um, and I always had loads of friends, and they never shoot anybody off. Why was the house always full of people? Well, they were actually quite funny, because we had loads of aunties in the house. We had lots of unmarried mothers,'cause my mother

Sarah Doukas13:10

Supply was

Presenter13:17

At that stage, I was on the Adoption Society, and my father obviously was a gynecologist obstetrician. So we seem to have a lot of unmarried mothers around who've been sort of.

Presenter13:26

Rejected by their families because they were pregnant out of wedlock. And then I mean we inherited lots of them afterwards, so we used to have aunties. And as a young, sort of pubescent girl, that's that's interesting, isn't it? Because that's the point at which you're beginning to connect the reality of what's happening with your body and in your romantic life with when I say the reality, the harsh reality of what can happen. Did you make those connections as a as a young teenager? Well, I mean, I certainly, you know, never got pregnant.

Sarah Doukas13:48

And as you make those connect

Presenter13:54

So I absolutely must have done.

Presenter13:57

And my father was incredibly you know, he I can remember him saying to me, I was horrified, you know, at about fourteen or fifteen, Well, you know, I I'll be putting you on the pill, so you have to let me know what's going on.

Presenter14:08

And I was like, nothing's going on. How could you speak to me like that?

Presenter14:13

Um and because my father that was his business, it was must have been forever in my mind that, you know, I would always be v very sensible. So you are clearly um a bright person, as I say, who runs this big business with an eight million pound turnover and yet at school not doing well. What was the problem? Did you hate writing essays? Did you hate sitting exams? I think I hated writing essays and hated

Presenter14:39

Sitting exams, and I think it was one of those things that I I find it now that I would um you know, I'd be interested in the subject and listen to things that I was interested in. And I have this horrible capacity to just totally shut off and it doesn't stay in my brain. It just doesn't. My b it only retains things it's interested in. And so you you ran away, did you, in the middle of your A-levels? You said, stuff this, I'm not. Oh, I was very naughty. He he sent me to two different crammers, and then I thought.

Presenter15:05

I don't know what I was thinking. It was in the middle of my A-levels. I think I did one or two. I can't even remember. It's terrible. And I thought, I've had enough. I'm going to leave.

Presenter15:13

And I hitched, which was pretty foolish anyway. Um

Presenter15:16

I hitched back up the M one with all my bags and never went back.

Presenter15:20

And in fact my father was coming home he used to come home at lunch time, and he'd pick me up. I can see his maroon jag.

Presenter15:28

and took me the last literally five hundred yards to the house. And then we were having lunch, he just looked at me and said, I presume

Presenter15:35

that you've left and you haven't done your A levels. And I said, Yes, I have left. Two weeks later I took off to London. Let's have some music. What are we going to hear now?

Presenter15:48

And now we've got um Leonard Kellen.

Presenter15:51

He's just at a time in my life when it was sort of first boyfriend, first love affair, first disappointment and, you know, it just epitomized, you know, the angst of teenage love.

Speaker 416:04

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river.

Speaker 416:11

You can hear the boats go by

Speaker 416:15

And we spend the night beside her.

Speaker 416:18

And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you wanna be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you

Presenter16:34

That was Leonard Cohen and Suzanne. We should say, Saradukas, that, of course, your parents, as we know, had these great expectations of you, and you're one of three children, and none of the three children have ended up being a doctor, or a lawyer, or a city financier. Your brother Simon is a director of Storm, and your sister is the wonderful, wide-eyed Alice Tinker in the Vicar of Dibley. Did your parents ever sort of sit you down and say we're desperately disappointed with you all? My father definitely did it to me. Did he? I don't think he did to Simon and Emma.

Presenter17:06

Um because of he left when you know, when we were all quite young, especially when they were young. But um, yes, with me he he was absolutely horrified. You say he left? He he left your mother? He literally I think I was seventeen and he um disappeared on a Friday and went to Australia. Simon I didn't see him for ten years. How extreme? Wa was there another

Sarah Doukas17:24

It was extremely good.

Presenter17:25

Yeah, so no, he I think he practiced his um gyne in his private life, right, his profession.

Presenter17:31

He was a bit of a philanderer. No, he left with another doctor, a female doctor. And they went to live in Australia. And so by this time you w were you living in London? I was living in London. Right. And so there was this huge family disaster. This terrible disaster and I then I came home a lot.

Sarah Doukas17:43

Family dissolves.

Presenter17:48

And it was an appalling time and everybody was deeply upset. And um and I looked after Simon and Emma a lot. They they lived with me in London in holidays and um and how did that go? Because I mean you weren't you were you living a bit of an unconventional life. Yes, thank you for quantifying that for me.

Sarah Doukas18:02

Leave.

Sarah Doukas18:04

Uh

Sarah Doukas18:05

Quantify

Presenter18:06

Uh

Presenter18:07

Tell me about this unconventional life in London. Well, you know, it was just sort of um I mean at one stage I think I was in a sort of two-bedroom flat. There were eight of us. I seem to remember sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag for forever. You said that you didn't see or speak to your father indeed for ten years after he left. Why did you um re-establish contact with him? Was it you indeed who did that? Well he he did write letters, you know. He did write letters and um

Sarah Doukas18:29

Do you

Presenter18:33

Well, I'd just had Noel, you know, my daughter and I was twenty five and Simon had just finished school, and we talked and we thought it would be a good idea to go and visit him.

Presenter18:43

So I think without too much thought we jumped on a plane.

Presenter18:47

And I remember we had a panic attack when we got about an hour short of Perth airport. We had a panic attack at thirty nine thousand feet, thinking, Oh, my God

Presenter19:00

And we got we both got quite distressed, actually. And what did happen? Well, he pretended as if nothing had ever happened. Oh, hi, you know.

Presenter19:07

And were you there with your daughter Noel? You say she. I took Noel, she was five months old. Right. And he just had a child who was also five months old.

Presenter19:15

Um, so it was quite a bizarre situation. He had these two new children, um Cameron, who was three and Conrad, who was five months. And then he went on and married somebody else and in and inherited their two children. So I had another two. But it was difficult my father's not the sort of person you can ever bring anything up with, so there was no absolutely no point in talking to him about why he'd left, what had happened or what was going on. He's just one of those people that won't talk about the past.

Presenter19:39

Right. So we never did?

Presenter19:42

Let's have some music then. What are we going to hear next?

Sarah Doukas19:43

What are we gonna do?

Presenter19:44

And so now we've got Otis Reading. I went to live in Berkeley in California with my first husband who'd started this independent record label and I lived in the in Berserkley Records in this sort of huge house. Berserkly Records. Berserkly Records in Berkeley. And it was on Spruce and Arch, which are streets quite sort of high up towards Grizzly Peak and it overlooked the Bay of San Francisco. And so I used to listen to sitting on the dock of the bay.

Sarah Doukas19:58

Bizarrely recognized.

Sarah Doukas19:59

Did that

Speaker 320:12

Sitting in the morning sun

Speaker 320:16

I'll be sitting in the evening calm

Speaker 320:22

Watching the ships roll in

Speaker 320:26

Then I watch him roll away again

Speaker 320:29

Yeah.

Speaker 320:31

I'm sitting on a doppelgang.

Speaker 320:34

Watching a tide roll away

Presenter20:41

Otis Redding and sitting on the dock of the bay. So, Sarah Dukas, this rock and roll life that you had established for yourself took you for some time to Paris and then you ended up in California, and by this point you had a young child, as we know, and you were married. Um so what age were you when you realized that actually you might be quite good at this very it is a strange job being a a booker and working in a model agency?

Presenter21:02

When and how did you realize that three or four years and um

Sarah Doukas21:02

Whether not

Presenter21:09

John being the typical American musician, you know, the band sort of ended after I don't know how many years they'd been together, ten years, and he wanted to live in England. And I wanted to live in England. So I didn't have a job and I went back to England and it was you know, it was it was a nightmare and I was staying with a friend.

Presenter21:24

who's a photographer, and he said you'd make a great booking agent.

Presenter21:28

And, um, you know, I just took to it like a Dr. Warsaw.

Presenter21:34

I think it's become a much more difficult job recently, but so many things. I think you've got to have a lot of empathy with young people. You've got to genuinely like people. But I think you've got to be a very strong person. You've got to be creative. Because if you start people before they've ever modelled, then you have to package them up beautifully. And basically, you are selling them to a client. And because it's so busy, it's very difficult to get somebody who is so driven and actually finds the young girls and boys and says, rings clients and says, you must see this person. They'd be brilliant. At one point in this busy life of yours, and I mentioned it in the introduction, but I've sort of missed out talking about it, you did run an antiques stall. I'm wondering if this is quite good preparation, you see, that idea that I know what you like. I've got something for I've got a little treasure here. Only this time your little treasure is the beautiful fifteen-year-old girl with the unbelievable eyelashes and the ten-foot-long legs. Is there something of that in it?

Sarah Doukas22:29

This girl with

Sarah Doukas22:33

Yeah.

Presenter22:34

Yes. That must have been part of what shaped me for the for the final job.

Presenter22:39

Um these beautiful, perfect young girls that that come through your doors, you say some of them I mean, I was astonished to hear you say that. When I said how old and you said twelve or thirteen, I thought you were going to say fourteen or fifteen. I mean, they're little girls, thirteen year olds. Yes, I mean my one of my daughters is twelve. It's w far too young.

Sarah Doukas22:53

Yeah.

Presenter22:57

But what we do at that age is we sort of keep them on file. They really don't work. I think sort of fourteen is the youngest. And I'm very I mean, my brother and I feel incredibly strongly about education. You you get two different types of people. Sometimes you get parents who can be quite pushy and say, Look, it's not that important and if she's got this chance. So we have to put the brakes on with some. And others are anyway absolutely terribly reticent about their children going into this business. I mentioned Lily Cole, who's on your books. She was very young, fourteen when she started modelling, has since gone on to gain a very good degree at Cambridge or Oxford or Excel. Yes. So she's got her education.

Sarah Doukas23:20

It's

Sarah Doukas23:26

Uh

Sarah Doukas23:30

Four.

Sarah Doukas23:32

Modeling have

Sarah Doukas23:35

Oh, I'm so pleased.

Presenter23:39

She started modelling before that. Oh, she did, and we worked w with her all the way through. So what do you say to parents under those circumstances? Well, I mean, I say, listen, I've refused to take them out of school during the week.

Sarah Doukas23:45

Well, I mean

Presenter23:51

With Lily, she was exceptional because what happened was two things happened. One was that her career went into the stratosphere very quickly. And we're talking here about things like Vogue cover. American Vogue with Stephen Meisel. She was traveling. It was you know, but

Sarah Doukas24:00

American

Presenter24:04

She was sensible enough she knew that that was an opportunity that couldn't be missed.

Presenter24:09

And so she would work on the plane, and her grades were phenomenal. She got.

Presenter24:15

Phenomenal A-levels. So there we are. There's the success story. But surely for every stratospheric success story like Lily Cole, there are hundreds of young girls who are thrown in the gutter at a young age with their dreams dashed, their education's gone to hell. Well, you've got to be really careful about that. Honestly, we talk to parents all of the time. And we start by doing.

Sarah Doukas24:22

Stratospheric signal.

Sarah Doukas24:24

There are

Sarah Doukas24:26

Oh.

Presenter24:39

Very gentle tests of them. And sometimes they don't do any for a while. They just sit on the books, and I say, Look, we think you're great, but you're very young.

Presenter24:48

I mean, if they've come into this agency, they're going to go into somebody else's agency. One has to be realistic about it. So I'd rather keep them with us, and I think that we're really sensible. Okay, let's have some music then. What are we going to hear?

Presenter25:01

And so we've got Richard Hawley, and the sound of this You Love Why.

Presenter25:05

Oh, I just, you know, I I only discovered him about uh eighteen months ago through my husband who well, I used to love pulp, but I never realized that

Presenter25:14

Richard was impul and I was just knocked out by him.

Speaker 425:25

So open up the door.

Speaker 425:30

Cause we've time to give

Speaker 425:34

I'm feeling it so much more.

Speaker 425:39

Open up your doors.

Speaker 425:45

Uh

Sarah Doukas25:46

We love you.

Presenter25:48

That was Richard Hawley and Open Up Your Door, and chosen really because Tim, your second husband, introduced you to this music. The environment that a lot of these girls find themselves in, if if we're talking there about the fashion shows and there have been exposés on on television, you know, young girls away from home

Sarah Doukas26:01

He's on on television.

Presenter26:05

Being preyed upon by the worst elements of that rather giddy high society, surrounded by booze and drugs, it can be a toxic mix. Oh, I think it is a toxic mix. But the the great thing to remember is that first of all I care about all my models, but British girls that I have control of that I'm mother agent to first of all they would never go and do those shows. I probably only have three girls at any one time doing shows, so I send my agents with them.

Presenter26:36

It it has to be controlled for me because it's a nightmare.

Presenter26:40

Mother agent, what a what an intriguing phrase that is. I know. Mother agent means that I am their main agent. I'm responsible for them completely.

Presenter26:50

I basically bankroll them and look after their career completely.

Presenter26:54

I'm wondering how the mother agent felt then when she was hit by something of a storm. When when you open up your your new well, actually you didn't need to open it up, because on the front page, there it was, Cocaine Kate. She's your biggest client. She's been with you since she was fourteen.

Sarah Doukas27:05

Yeah.

Presenter27:08

Did your life tumble round about you? It did tumble round about me. But, you know, I I'm very good at dealing with stress and the worse the situation, the calmer I get.

Sarah Doukas27:10

And

Presenter27:17

The the press are quite good. They often ring and say, Look, this story's coming out. What do you have to say? In this instant, no, I knew nothing. And had Kate Moss phoned you to say well Kate was in New York, so obviously we got the press ahead of her.

Presenter27:34

The main thing was that, you know, making sure she was fine and

Presenter27:38

I immediately with my brother flew to America and I basically just spent, you know, a lot of time on the phone trying to reassure her big clients that, you know,

Presenter27:49

You can't believe everything you read, and also, unfortunately, all press actually is good press in this world we live in. So, you know, keep calm, don't have a knee-jerk reaction. And as you read the press statements coming in from, let's pick out a few, whether it was Chanel or Burberry saying our current contract has come to an end, we have no plans to X, Y and Z, did you see the most famous supermodel in the world's career tumbling before you? No. So you had a strategic view of it? I had a strategic view of it. I just thought she will be fine. And I knew some of my

Sarah Doukas28:17

I

Sarah Doukas28:18

Which was

Presenter28:23

Great clients that were huge clients to her. They stuck by and they said, No, we're in your capable hands. We we'll we'll stick by her and they did. Did her price go up?

Presenter28:34

It's hard to say, isn't it?

Presenter28:37

I'm wondering. That for all the flurry i in uh the press that in the end

Sarah Doukas28:38

It didn't go

Presenter28:46

For a client.

Presenter28:49

She is worth more because, yes, she does. You know what? She lives a rock and roll lifestyle. She lives the lifestyle that most of us as we trundle into work on the tube and the bus can't can't ever hope for. The thing I felt strongly about her was that, regardless of any of it, was the fact that Kate, you know, wasn't a sort of Hollywood actress, so she hadn't put herself out there, she'd never done interviews, she hadn't done hello.

Sarah Doukas28:56

As we turn

Presenter29:09

And I know, you know, that she is in the public domain, so she has a duty to appoint. But on the other hand, you know

Presenter29:16

Her private life is her private life, and she is just a model. Yes, and she's not somebody who has traded on her private life, so nobody can throw that one out. No, they can't. But what they can say, and of course, you'll have heard lots of people say this, is that there she is looking beautiful for Top Shop or whomsoever, selling my 13, 14-year-old daughter her wonderful line of clothes. That she is.

Sarah Doukas29:23

No, they can't.

Presenter29:37

She is to those very impressionable young girls the great role model, and that role models should not behave like this.

Sarah Doukas29:41

Land.

Presenter29:44

No, no. I mean, there's absolutely all thoughts, and I totally take that on board, and and um she did as well.

Presenter29:52

But, you know, one lives and learns and moves on from there.

Presenter29:55

We're on disc number seven now, Sarah. Oh, heavens. Yes. What is it? And what are we gonna hear? Oh, it's Catano Veloso.

Sarah Doukas29:57

Uh Okay.

Presenter30:02

I love him. And what is it about this particular piece of music? Oh, it's, you know, that Almodivar film, my husband is mad about Almodovar film, so.

Presenter30:11

I'm not terribly cultured. I'm terrible. I don't often go to the movies. But when I watched that film with him, I just that soundtrack was just, you know, I I loved it and so I listen to it all the time.

Speaker 430:24

Dicen que por las noches, noma seleiva en poro yora.

Speaker 430:34

This end cannot come here.

Speaker 430:38

No masele ilva en purotoma.

Speaker 430:43

Urane el mismos sextremes alloy sullianto.

Presenter30:55

That was Catano Voloso and Kukuro Kuku Paloma from the soundtrack to Pedro Amuravar's film Talk to Her. We have talked a little about your husband. Is it twenty years now, you and Tim have? Yes, it is. It must be nearly twenty years. You once said it was a saga of love that wasn't an altogether smooth journey. What was the saga element about? Oh, well it was a saga of love because I'm terrible, you know, I hate change in my life. So I was very close to my first husband. It's just one of those things that wasn't right and it hadn't sort of worked for a long time. But I could never extract myself and I met Tim sort of several times and then we sort of started this quite intense love affair and I was still married so it was really difficult. And then. I got pregnant, which is not ideal when you're still married.

Presenter31:41

To your first husband, who was

Presenter31:44

amazing about it, and I still couldn't extract myself, and so Tim

Presenter31:48

Tim left me.

Presenter31:50

When I was eight months pregnant.

Sarah Doukas31:52

Eyes

Presenter31:53

Which is kind of my fault as well. And um and she went off and lived in Milan with somebody else. Right. Did that did that solidify your feelings? Uh Well, you know, obviously my marriage sort of ended during that time, but I remained very friendly with my first husband. He was very good to me. And all my friends said, You cannot have hope, you know, like girlfriends always do. They're just like, You're crazy. He's never coming back. And then the most terrible thing happened. I was swimming before I went to work one morning, as I did every day. And one of my absolute best girlfriends was standing outside the swimming pool when I came out. And she said, Look, I've got to tell you something. It's the worst thing I've ever had to tell anybody. But Tim's girlfriend is now pregnant.

Presenter32:34

So, you know, that's it, Sarah, you've got to move on.

Presenter32:37

What happened? Well, I mean, it was just, you know, it was horrifying, shocking, and I hadn't spoken to him for months and months and months, and so I went back to the office where my brother was. And so he said, Right, I'm going to ring Tim up. And it was extraordinary. Tim flew to London and we had a sort of meeting and all those feelings got rekindled and I mean it was it must have been dreadful for him. It was dreadful for all of us and dreadful for his girlfriend. But he sort of went through her pregnancy and stayed with her and very sadly for her but great for me came back to me and proposed marriage and we got married. And you said to me earlier that, you know, as things get crazier you get calmer. Were you calm throughout all of this what sounds to me like the ultimate craziness?

Presenter33:20

I think I had days when I went mad, but I don't ever remember not going to work and working and functioning.

Presenter33:27

He is he's a a creative person too. He's a designer. The creative director of Next Homeware, yeah. So he deals in inanimate objects and chairs.

Sarah Doukas33:30

He's a designer.

Presenter33:39

I do think lucky him sometimes. Sometimes I think lucky you.

Sarah Doukas33:40

Yeah.

Presenter33:43

Yes, I mean, I wonder, you know, this island, might it be a blessed relief from all the calls saying, I can't work with this client. I've found out that my father's unwell. Don't book me for that. I hate this. I'm not eating.

Presenter33:56

I think it might be unbelievable.

Presenter33:58

I just can I I can't imagine.

Presenter34:01

Just being somewhere with no phones, nothing, without all the craziness.

Sarah Doukas34:04

Nothing.

Presenter34:07

Let's hear your final piece of music today then, Sara Ducas. What are we gonna hear? Oh, it's Miles Davis, and it's the Dubop song.

Presenter34:47

That was Miles Davis and the Doobop song. So, Sarah, I'm going to give you some books now. I I give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take a single book. What will your book be? I will I'd like to take Song Lines, Bruce Chatwin.

Presenter35:01

Because I've read it, I don't know, two or three times. And I love Bruce Chatwin's work, all of his work. And Song Lines is just fascinating. I can keep reading it and I see, you know, learn different things from it. It's your book then, and a luxury too. What will your luxury be?

Presenter35:17

I think a photo album of my family. Right. For all the memories. For all the memories. It's yours.

Sarah Doukas35:19

Right.

Presenter35:23

And if I were to uh force you to choose just one of these eight discs, what would be your one disc, your special one disc?

Presenter35:32

Oh, it's so difficult, isn't it? Um, I think Marvin. That's yours. Sarah Ducas, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much, Kirsty.

Sarah Doukas35:37

Yeah.

Presenter36:29

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.