Anya Hindmarch

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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.

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

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My castaway this week is the fashion designer and businesswoman Anya Hindmarsh. Her name is synonymous with handbags, and her creations are seen dangling from the arms of the discerning woman and the savvy glitterati. It seems she's a designer with a conscience, too, and her I'm not a plastic bag canvas tote, created for a campaign to highlight her overuse of plastic bags, went down a storm. People queued for hours world wide to get their well manicured hands on one.

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The business she started from her little kitchen table now has more than fifty shops around the world. She's also a mother of five.

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Perhaps it's no wonder that she says her life's like juggling and dancing whilst having one arm and one eye at the same time. So you are you're good at circus skills then, are you? Not terribly, that's the problem, if only. Um you were awarded uh just this year the prestigious Feuve Clicot Business Woman of the Year for twenty twelve award.

Speaker 31:20

Not terrible.

Presenter1:29

Back in two thousand seven you got the Designer Brand of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. And I'm wondering, businesswoman or designer, which one takes centre stage? That therein lies the the problem in some respects, or perhaps or perhaps the nice aspect, because I love both. Recently actually I took the the brave decision, I think, to demote myself and go back to just purely the creative role.

Anya Hindmarch1:36

Center stage.

Presenter1:47

But obviously I'm still very involved in the business decisions, but I'm equally attracted to both roles and that's been a real advantage actually in growing the business. Do you see handbags everywhere? I mean, if you go to the Alhambra or if you go to the Empire State Building, do you suddenly think, actually, put a handle on that, change the dimension? I do. I'm afraid it's very sad. I see shapes. It's a lot about shape and form.

Anya Hindmarch2:02

I do.

Presenter2:06

colour pattern. I'm a very visual person and um

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One small thing, and that's why I think it's so important to travel and to feed your brain in a way. One small thing leads to loads of ideas. It sort of banks almost sub subconsciously. The curiously powerful language of the handbag, then, we might speak about that a little bit more later on, but but you yourself came in here today carrying what? Oh, carrying a rather exciting, rather lovely, rather graphic architectural bag, which is in sort of crinkle leathers inspired by Quality Street Suite wrappers. So you see, therefore, inspiration comes from many things, and often chocolate. It's interesting that we hear that a a single celebrity, an A-list celebrity, carrying a handbag and being snapped by the paparazzi these days can change the fortunes literally. I'm not exaggerating now, can change the fortunes.

Presenter2:51

of a company i when Princess Diana got out of a limousine clutching one of your beautiful little clutch bags, of course, and using it to sort of shield her cleavage bags. Her cleavage bag, yes I mean that can't have been bad for business.

Anya Hindmarch2:59

Her cleavage bag.

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No, but it's not something that I would ever shout about particularly. And of course it is lovely and very flattering, but it's not my starting point. I think that's the thing. And I think that it's become so sort of celebrity heavy. And I think in some ways it's not right. I think it should go back to that craftsmanship. That's a bit I think needs more sort of applause in many ways. And when it comes to the pattern of your life, I mean we know that you started this business when you were a teenager. We'll talk about that more, I hope. Also that you when you were just twenty-five you took on this very young ready-made family when you married a a widower and three children instantly were your responsibility partially. Every entrepreneur is very single-minded and you seem to fall into that category. I think it is a trait of being an entrepreneur and I think that there's a lot of sort of statistics or similarities between entrepreneurs where often you're used to being in sort of slightly uncomfortable positions. You don't have to kind of go with the flow perhaps and picking a husband and indeed a family because it was very much a picking a family. That is quite an unusual situation but one that was very natural to me and has been very lovely.

Speaker 33:51

Yeah.

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For me. Let's get some music then. We're going to your first track of the morning and your hind marsh. What are we going to hear? I Was Glad by Parry is a very special piece to me. It was a piece I sang at school. It was also played or sung at our wedding and really badly. And I was really sad because it's a very small, tinny French choir. He didn't really sort of get it at all. So it's something that means a lot to me and also has very funny memories as well.

Presenter5:25

I Was Glad by Hubert Parry sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge. So, Anya Heinmarsh, for men it's cars and watches that speak the complex coded language of status. For women, it's jewellery and handbags. For girls, the point is they're very mood-altering. And I think that's the thing that really interested me when I was given my first handbag at 16, how it made me feel. And I think that's the bit that's so special, because I'm not a sort of frilly fashion person at all, but it's that kind of confidence, that sort of power they have. It's way too complex, I think, for guys to even kind of get involved in. But girls just get. It's quite innate. Aside from Lady Bracknell, I would think that Margaret Thatcher is probably our most famous proponent of the handbag and its various uses. Has she ever clutched one of yours? She has, actually. She has. We made her a handbag a while ago now, and it was a real honour. I mean, the fact that she.

Anya Hindmarch6:04

In its various

Presenter6:13

She actually made the the word handbag into a verb, sort of says it all really for me.

Anya Hindmarch6:15

Yeah.

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You've also said that you were inspired by that idea of Thatcherism in the 80s, that idea that actually, you know, you can be.

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A young entrepreneur, you can be proactive, you can be out there bending the world to your will. It's not a very comfortable marriage, is it? Fashion and politics. It's a tricky one. It's not fashionable. But I think that's important to be outspoken and to say what you think. For me, what that period represented in politics was a change from

Anya Hindmarch6:32

It's not

Anya Hindmarch6:33

But I

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Sort of doom and gloom Britain to a kind of hope Britain. And I think it's important to be outspoken about that and to try and recreate that movement. Because I do think that business and for me art and fashion and

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The creative industries are hugely important to this country, so I'm always a bit unfashionable and outspoken about those things. Let's talk for a moment about the This Is Not a Plastic Bag phenomenon, which was this little canvas bag. Anybody who's seen it will immediately be able to recall the image. It was rather beautiful little bag.

Anya Hindmarch7:00

Yeah.

Anya Hindmarch7:03

Do you

Anya Hindmarch7:06

The little bag

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It only cost five quid, and you made twenty thousand of them.

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That was the first run.

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It sold out within an hour, is that right? That was really ridiculous. I mean, 80,000 people queued in one day for that bag in the UK, and it w it just went on and on round the world to the point where.

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Very sadly, and the reason we stopped it was that thirty people ended up in hospital in in Taiwan. It just got sort of mad. But essentially it was because I think we were all thinking environment, environment, and hearing the sort of buzzword and knowing that we needed to do something, but pretty unsure about actually what I as an individual could do. And

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I was unwilling I could use the platform of the itbag formula, which is one I don't particularly like, but is very sort of potent.

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Encourage people to do the very simple thing, which is just to try and use less busy bags. It was a very simple aim, ultimately. And it went ballistic. And I think every line on my face would be to do with that project. But here's the thing: the irony of that, of course, was it became the it bag, and that people ended up trading them for 200 quid on eBay just a week later because nobody could get hold of one. So, in a way, you sort of became the thing that you were trying to fight against. Was that bad? I was very open about using that for, I think, a good message. And very simply, it was about getting as much noise around the issue.

Anya Hindmarch8:02

Okay.

Anya Hindmarch8:03

BAP

Anya Hindmarch8:06

Well then I

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Let's have some more music then, Anjai and Marsh. What's next? So the overture from Funny Girl with Barbara Streisand. It's a piece that we used for our first ever Fashion Week show. It was actually the first on-schedule show we did. And it still makes me feel a bit sick in my stomach because the reveal at the very end is the me on a bicycle sort of pretending to power the entire machine. It was all animatronics, very difficult to describe. But it's a lovely piece of music that makes me feel sick and happy all in one.

Presenter9:11

That was part of the overture from Funny Girl by Jules Stein. So you are, Anja Hindmarsh, an Essex girl. Yes, I am. And you know what? Very proud of it. It's much maligned as a county. And you were saying that when we were talking earlier on that the entrepreneurial spirit wasn't just to do with the 1980s and being a young girl then, it was also to do with having a father who ran his own business. Tell me more about that. Yes, I think it was. My father very sadly lost his father to cancer when he was very young. So he started his business very young, sort of, I think, early 20s, maybe. So I grew up with business being the norm in our family. I mean, I was very much the baby in the cot under the desk as my mother was helping my father type an invoice. So it was very much part of our family culture. And then watched his businesses grow from a sort of smaller business to then to a public company, and he was chairman and chief executive. So watched all those sort of business lessons and the highs and the lows were some scary moments, and the atmosphere in the family was sort of on tender hooks at times. And that was my business school, essentially. And did he talk business around the kitchen table? Absolutely. I mean, and it's now, as a consequence, every member of my family has their own business.

Speaker 310:08

Absolutely.

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Christmas is literally like a board meeting. I mean it is our language. It was a joke in my husband's speech at our wedding saying that, you know, it's always about sort of profit write backs and sort of tax returns. Let's talk EBITDA and food. That's our sort of thing, that sounds good talk. And what I haven't asked you what your father's business was. What would it be?

Anya Hindmarch10:20

Let's talk Ebit Dar and the food and stuff.

Anya Hindmarch10:26

What day was that?

Presenter10:29

And strangely actually, I think he actually was one of the first people to cut a hole in a in a plastic bag and actually create a handle. So it really has gone full circle.

Anya Hindmarch10:34

Yeah.

Presenter10:36

How was he with you then? And this is not a plastic. No, he was interesting. He challenged it a lot and actually said, you know, plastic is brilliant and light and effective and useful. And of course we both agree it's just about the the misuse of plastic. He told you to say all that, eh? No, no, yes. Very carefully brief.

Anya Hindmarch10:38

No, he was he was

Anya Hindmarch10:46

He told you to say all that.

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When did your dad say, Oh, clever you!

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Actually, when I received my MBE, which was such a lovely thing to get, and I invited my parents and only some of my children, because you can't take all of them, it was a very difficult Sophie's choice moment. And I could tell that meant a lot to him, actually, and to them. And so, and they wrote a lovely letter. So, yes, that was a really nice thing, a really good moment for me. So, you're all variously intertwined then. You sat in the middle in the family. You've got a brother who's six years younger, you've got a bigger sister.

Anya Hindmarch11:14

The outer

Anya Hindmarch11:15

You got a big

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And you've all somehow, at various points, b been

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part of each other's businesses or helped in each other's business? We've certainly helped. And we're a very close family. Uh my sister started her business in my sort of spare bedroom and and we very much sort of spent, you know, quite a few years together doing that when when my business is very small and

Anya Hindmarch11:22

We've certainly helped.

Presenter11:31

We then had our first offices in the same building together, and we support each other a lot. Time for some more music. Tell me about your next choice. Viacomme, which is Paolo Conte, and.

Presenter11:40

This reminds me actually very much of a very dear, sadly no longer with us friend, Joseph Etterguy, who started Joseph, the shop. Who started Joseph and Joe and Izzy, his wife. We were on holiday with them and he had this beautiful boat and we sat outside. It was Easter and we were all wrapped up and it was cool but the sun was out and we played this and we just laughed and drank too much pink wine and just had the most wonderful day and this piece of music will forever remind me of him.

Anya Hindmarch11:47

Just

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I'm not sure if I can do it.

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I'm not sure if I can do it.

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It's wonderful, it's wonderful, it's wonderful, good luck my baby, it's wonderful, it's wonderful.

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Swannifu, I do more fuel. Chips, chips.

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Yeah.

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Via Comme by Paolo Conte. You're a mother then to five kids, Anja Heinmarsh. Some of them quite grown up now. Have you been the sort of mother who's been around for homework? No, absolutely not. And probably a good thing, too, frankly. They're much cleverer than me, is the truth. No, I've been very much a working mother, but I adore my children. They come before anything. They know that. That's the important thing. And they.

Anya Hindmarch12:49

Right.

Presenter12:59

In turn, share what I do, and it's so much because I work with my husband as well, so it's so much part of our family. So it's okay. I think it's a I'm a great believer in you have to do what you're good at, and homework was particularly not my thing. Not your thing when you were at school. You were at school in Chelms, for I was, yes, and it wasn't my thing there either, actually. I was rather impatient in the classroom. Not very successful academically, actually. It was something that were all.

Anya Hindmarch13:12

I will

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Sadness to me, and I think that

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Interesting, seeing the my five children, the three my three inherited children.

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are very academic and brilliant in that way. And my my two birth children are are much more like me, much more creative, will pick up a pencil to draw rather than to write. I'm a very visual learner, and I will remember details that many people wouldn't remember, so I can see things in in great detail. And

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If I had learnt in a visual, maybe a verbal way, I think my my learning would have been better. You were at school, though, a very committed smoker. I was, yeah, indeed. I said that. Very seriously. We were allowed to smoke'cause we had nuns. It was a convent.

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And the nuns in the full, the full penguin suits, and they decided they couldn't really control the smoking, so they just thought they'd make it, you know, okay to smoke when you reach sixteen. So it's a great shame, actually, probably in retrospect, but I was yes, I was very committed at that, so I definitely excelled, but not many qualifications apart from smoking. Did your parents mind that you weren't academic? They no, my parents are very supportive. They and I am a great believer, and I think confidence matters in life, first and foremost. What I did get from school, and it was it was the most beautiful. It was actually a Tudor Palace, so it was called Bewley, and it was most architecturally really inspiring, surrounded by these incredible cedar trees. And I gained a lot from that architecture, strangely. But because I wasn't a natural in the classroom, I actually found real love for music there, and that was a real inspiration for me. And the huge choirs and the big choral pieces, and I actually thought about it as a career at one point. Singing. Yeah, singing. So that was fantastic for me, and I enjoyed my time there very much.

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Here's a remarkable thing: you sketched a picture.

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Of a handbag shop with you standing outside it and your name above the door.

Anya Hindmarch14:50

Yeah.

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Well, probably about seventeen, actually, in my sort of last couple of years at school, there was a girl who came to talk to us, an old girl from school, and she was managing the Emmanuels.

Presenter15:01

The fashion designers at the time. They did Diana's wedding, exactly. And she talked about the fashion industry and about.

Anya Hindmarch15:02

Who did Diana's wedding basically?

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The business of fashion. And I left that talk and went back to my room and drew a shop and knew that's what I wanted to do. And it's such a bonus to know what you want to do in life, because you can then just, you know, go straight after it. And that was a help to me. Did you tell anyone? Yes, I did, absolutely. And that's why I ended up going to Florence and spent then quite a few a lot of time in Florence then. It seemed to me that was the home of leather and the home of handbags. And so I went straight out there and watched a room with a view.

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More of that to come in just a second. For now, Anya Heimarsch, tell me about your next piece of music. The Contique de Jenra Scine with Befaray. This is one of those big choral pieces that I sang at school and I think is just really very beautiful.

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Contique de genre scine by Gabriel Faure, sung by the monks and choir boys of Downside Abbey.

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So there you were at eighteen. You go off to Florence and you think I'm going to Florence and it for you I mean it wasn't just to take a look at the nice museums and maybe eat some ice cream and learn some Italian. It was something else. What was in your head when you were in the middle of the day? I was very single-minded. I knew that I wanted to start a business, that I wanted to understand the home of leather, Florence, the factories. It was totally exciting to me, the markets. And I saw a bag on a girl's shoulder, the sort of drawstring duffel bag, and so I got one and I felt kind of really Italian and cool. And I then found a factory and had some samples made and took them back to London and actually had a friend of a friend of a friend who had a stepmother who worked in the office department of Harper's and Queen as it was then.

Anya Hindmarch17:00

And it was something else.

Anya Hindmarch17:02

When you're looking at the

Presenter17:31

And I knocked on the door and showed my samples and they ran amazingly. They ran with the offer and I sold five hundred bags and I made seven thousand pounds profit. It was the most exciting thing. Where did you get the money to place the order with the factory? I very simply managed to sort of negotiate that I was paid before I had to pay the factory, so I just worked out a simple sort of payment credit terms. Payment credit terms, you were eighteen. Yeah, I know. I didn't really understand it terribly well, and that's why I was in the past. Didn't they look at you and say, Go away, little English girl? Well, a couple did, and a couple, of course, you know, were sort of total red herrings. I ended up in sort of piano bars and it's all a bit weird, but. I did then find a factory that that believed in me and I think could see some potential in the design. I can't work out eighteen where you get the nerve to do all of that. Well, I think that came from the era. I mean, we were very there was that sense of you can do anything and it's all happening, all these businesses kicking off. And I mean, we were buying

Presenter18:18

And school, you know, shares in our lunch hour. It was very much that time. It was very intoxicating. And I think it's easy to forget that period, which was very sort of fertile for that kind of ridiculous confidence.

Presenter18:29

So you are a bit sort of precocious and you just go for it. It's really interesting that you say you are. I mean, what you mean is you were. I mean, there weren't many fifteen-year-olds who were buying British gas shares in their lunch hour. I mean, that's a very unusual activity. Yeah. And where are you? Because, of course, there was a huge enthusiasm among enough people that they voted Margaret Thatcher in many times, but she is.

Anya Hindmarch18:38

Life

Anya Hindmarch18:40

Yeah.

Presenter18:49

You know, she's a creature who has definitely split the nation in terms of their opinion and their memories of that time. Were you aware?

Speaker 318:52

Yeah.

Speaker 318:53

Memories of that time.

Speaker 318:55

Hmm.

Presenter18:56

That there was a whole other part of the country that only saw Margaret Thatcher as somebody who was decimating their industry and imposing the poll tax on them. Very much so, yes. I know it was, you know, it was complicated. But she I met her actually not so long ago. And did you tell her that she'd inspired you to start your business? Yes, I did, absolutely.

Anya Hindmarch19:01

Uh

Speaker 319:02

Imposing the poll tax.

Anya Hindmarch19:03

X on them.

Anya Hindmarch19:10

And the

Anya Hindmarch19:13

Yes, I did, absolutely.

Presenter19:14

What does she make of that? I think she was really pleased. And I think it's nice, probably it must be very alienating, that role. And perhaps it's nice to hear that you had inspired something that has gone on to to grow. Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear now, Anya? So My Room by Earl Oaken. I'm love live music, and Earl is such an unlikely character because he's sort of sixties and he's dressed in sort of janja bottom glasses and spats and um

Presenter19:40

and then sings a rather sort of

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raunchy bossa nova and is deeply

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sexy actually when he sings and uh it just makes me laugh.

Anya Hindmarch19:50

If you come into my room.

Anya Hindmarch19:57

Put a smile on your lips

Anya Hindmarch20:01

Come to my room, kinda loosen up your hips.

Anya Hindmarch20:09

Come to my room, baby.

Anya Hindmarch20:13

We're gonna have a song

Anya Hindmarch20:17

Fun

Presenter20:21

My Room by Earl Oakin. So, Anya Hindmarsh. Fashion houses and the people in the fashion industry are often very flamboyant. People I think of Anna Winter reputedly having somebody to go and collect her Chanel tennis shorts from the dry cleaners, and Valentino having a butler to look after his pugs and so on.

Presenter20:40

You don't seem like that sort of person, do you have little personal foibles? Far from it. No, I'm not. I'm I'm actually quite a shy person in a way, and I'm not good at uh the sort of ta-da, that's not my thing. The red carpet I hate. Actually, I'd love my kitchen table is my favourite place in the world, and it's about real friends, and for me, the craftsman and the you know, the my team from work, that's that'll be my mix.

Presenter21:00

Nineteen ninety three, it strikes me, was a very important year for you. It was the year you opened your first shop in London, and it was the year that you met the man who was to go on to be your husband. It was a very pivotal week, actually. So week that had I had flu that week would have been quite different in life. But um How did you meet James? I met James at a dinner party and I knew the moment I met him I was going to marry him.

Anya Hindmarch21:05

Unhidden?

Presenter21:19

And I don't really believe in that sort of thing, but genuinely that was the case. And I don't think he thought that about me actually at the time. He said I had some weird sort of winking habit. I kept obviously trying to kind of wink at him and sort of show him reassurance. And it was obviously came across as a slight facial tick. But we have been very lucky and we married three years later. What was it about him when you met him that you thought, yep, there you go, that's him, marrying him? He is just a really lovely man, truthfully. He just doesn't take me seriously at all. He's a man who lives absolutely in the moment. For him, it's Saturday and that's create a fantastic omelette. And it's Friday night that's open the best bottle of wine we've got and he is the absolute opposite to me and we're good together actually. He's a great dad. He's absolutely my rock. I'd never tell him that to his face, but he is. Yes, quite right. How much harder has it been?

Presenter22:05

being a stepmother than you thought it was going to be? You know what, it's just been honestly genuinely been the biggest honor and most lovely thing for me. And I I think we all feel pretty lucky. Of course it comes with its challenges and of course there are times when I'm sure they want to murder me and

Presenter22:17

Occasionally, when they leave their trains in the kitchen, I want to murder them, but actually, you know what? That's just parenting, isn't it? Even though you fell for him and fell hard.

Presenter22:25

For a lot of twenty-five-year-olds, they would have gathered up their broken heart and run in the opposite direction. It was so much to take on.

Anya Hindmarch22:31

Function that was

Presenter22:33

Yes, but I think, you know, by then I'd probably had quite a few years of business experience and perhaps I was slightly older than my years.

Presenter22:39

You know what, you just have to believe in fate a bit, don't you? And I mean, it was, you know, it was certainly my parents said to me, this is, you know, really, you don't mess with these children's lives, this has to be really right. And I remember asking James his age, and um.

Presenter22:50

In my head I thought, Any older than thirty seven, it's a no, it's that's it, that's my absolute limit And I remember as he mouthed the words thirty seven it was almost in slow-mo and I just thought, Yap, it's you know, it's good to go. It just felt right, you know, you have to follow your your heart, don't you really?

Presenter23:05

Well tell me then what we're going to hear next. What is this and why have you chosen it, Anya?

Presenter23:09

The Battle Hymn of the Republic is just such an incredibly rousing piece of music. I first heard it actually at my very dear friend's Father's Memorial, which was in Wells Cathedral, and there's that amazing cross transept there. And

Presenter23:22

You couldn't see, but behind the the transept were a sort of an eighty strong male voice Welsh choir. So I've ever since then had a complete obsession actually with Welsh choirs in in a slightly unhealthy way. And every single event we do at work I always go, How about how about maybe a Welsh choir is at the moment?

Presenter23:37

And they keep saying, No, no, no And then finally, actually, on my fortieth birthday, I was sitting at my desk and um

Presenter23:42

And in walked a huge male voice Welsh choir and sang to me and I I embarrassed and I I cried and it was a total disaster, but it was it's a b it's a Welsh choir's and this particular piece is very special.

Speaker 324:18

Glory glory, hallelujah. Glory glory, hallelujah. His truth is mighty.

Presenter24:48

The Battle Hymn of the Republic sung by the Triorkie Male Voice Choir.

Presenter24:52

So, Anya Heinemarsh, you and your husband James, we know you had three children that you inherited, and then you went on to have two more children.

Presenter25:00

How much of a decision was that? It was always something that we had planned to do. And he's the eldest, my husband's eldest of five, so that sort of five seemed like a sort of sensible number. Maybe sensible is not quite the right word. And step parenting, of course, is on the increase. So many of us now are involved in step families. What would be the saved bit of advice that you would give them? Well, I think actually it's Be United as a couple. I think you've got to stay very much as the parents of Be United in your message. And I think it's have fun with them. I think if you're, you know, if you can show your kids that you can kind of get through the tricky patches and you can laugh about it afterwards, I think that's a hugely important thing to teach them to have as a sort of you know a skill set. But we were so lucky because we were so supported and still are so supported by our respective families. And James's late wife's family have been fantastic to me, all of them. And what about bereavement? Of course, you know, we we shy away all the time talking about death and talking about the shadow that it can cast in our lives. I think the first thing you want to do is you want to make children feel secure and loved and try and dispel the fact that they it's going to happen again because obviously that's the big risk in their head. And then just try and get a lovely sense of normality back. And you know it's it's something that should always be talked about and and you know um them their mother is still always their mother and I'm sad in some respects happy that I never met her because perhaps it's almost easier but um

Presenter26:18

You know, I think I would have liked her very much. I often say a prayer to her when I need something, okay, you owe me. How about this?

Presenter26:25

And have you ever had that moment when one of them has screamed in your face, you can't tell me that, you are not my mother. Well, strangely, quite the reverse, where once I was worried about something, I said, you know, is this because, you know, because I'm not your real mother? And that particular child's sister said, no. And actually, I felt rather stupid. And actually, rather horrible moment. And I just realised, actually, no, that is just parenting. You must be a very tough person somewhere inside. You've got to be tough to run a business. You know what? I think I'm strong. I think that women are strong, actually, by nature. And I think that, you know, I can take, you know, sometimes you do have to take tough news or tough thoughts or, you know, whatever. And I can take it and internalise it and deal with it. I think that I'm quite a vulnerable person as well. I think I'm not a sort of big sort of, you know, I'm not in a sort of a suit of armour at all.

Presenter27:14

Whose shoulder do you cry on then? Is it your husband's? If you say, I just can't take any more, this is the bank. The bank's a listener, I hate to tell you. Really? Well, he'd sort of be listening whilst sort of, you know, I don't know, making a cup of tea or something. But that's quite good for me, actually, to be honest. I think that the team are amazing and we talk through all these things and we deal with them together. My family are brilliant. Actually, my kids sometimes are fantastic to talk to. And a bottle of wine occasionally helps too.

Anya Hindmarch27:18

Yeah.

Presenter27:39

Let's have some more music, Anya. What are we going to hear now? Well, on the subject of a bottle of wine, Zorba the Greek.

Presenter27:45

from the film where he goes, You want to dance? And I just think it's just brilliant. And it is actually often with a bottle of wine, often around the kitchen table or on holiday, not particularly in Greece, but just it's just one of those things that just makes everyone just have a great time.

Presenter28:31

Zorba's Dance by Mikis Theodorakis from the soundtrack of the film Zorba the Greek. So Anya, the fashion world is notoriously fickle and shallow. You don't seem either of those things. How have you survived? You know what, it's not. I have to dispute that. Actually, I think I have some very dear friends in the fashion industry, and actually it's quite a serious industry, and I think it's often portrayed as that. And actually, I think it's important to dispel that myth, because it's increasingly becoming incredibly important in terms of size of businesses, as employers, employees. And I think that actually there's some very real people. So I think a lot of people are mistaken about that. Why have we got that wrong impression?

Presenter29:09

I suppose it seems quite frilly from the outside, um and it seems a bit hysterical and um

Presenter29:16

You know, some unnecessary perhaps, you know, the sort of amount of money spent on fashion. But I think that actually, when you get to know the characters within it, there's some really great people who are very, very serious about what they do. You're a trade ambassador for Britain. What does that role involve? What do you have to do? Just really shouting for Britain and shouting for people who are starting businesses and helping them to export primarily. But I think also important to feed back actually and say what I think would be helpful to help small businesses. And I think that is really the engine, actually, and makes a real difference. If you can just get to that next stage, you lose so many businesses at that stage. And I remember how lonely I felt, so it's kind of nice to help back. As you know, I'm going to cast you away to a desert island. I hope this on my own. So, somebody that has hundreds of employees, just one husband, but five children, you're going to be. Yes, you're going to be all on your own.

Anya Hindmarch29:56

You're going to be yeah, so you can

Presenter29:59

Not something you're used to, really? No, that'd be absolutely hopeless. I think I'd probably start talking to myself. So I would have to.

Anya Hindmarch30:01

Oh yeah.

Presenter30:04

I have a lot of discipline to structure my day and to keep myself busy. And I think you would be so busy, you probably would be okay, but it would be difficult for me. What happens when you're on your own? I get busy and I go find people pretty much. What are you worried about when you're on your own? Why do you not like it? I like the company of people. I like the response and the reaction. And I don't know, I'm just not very comfortable on my own, actually. Okay. Let's have your final piece of music. What are we going to hear? Why have you chosen this?

Anya Hindmarch30:31

What are we gonna do?

Presenter30:33

Well, good old Dolly, Islands in the Stream. It's sort of a bit of a family anthem, really, and it just makes me smile. And it's very much a call to action for my kids. And in fact, our very dear friends, the Robinsons, who we holiday with a huge amount, mainly as their guests. So thank you, Robinsons. But they also have five children. They have four girls and a boy, and we have four boys and a girl. They both work together in fashion. So it's just a brilliant mix. And when this comes on, all 14 of us take to the dance floor. It's not pretty, but it's kind of great.

Speaker 331:02

Islands in the stream, that is what we are.

Speaker 331:07

No one in between.

Speaker 331:09

How can we be wrong?

Speaker 331:12

Set away with me.

Speaker 331:14

To another world

Speaker 331:17

And we rely on children.

Speaker 331:20

From one lover to another.

Speaker 331:28

I can't live without you if the love

Presenter31:33

That was Islands in the Stream with Dolly Park and Kenny Rogers singing. The Bible then you get and the complete works of Shakespeare and yeah, and you also get to take a book of your own along. What would you like to take to the other side?

Anya Hindmarch31:42

Yeah.

Presenter31:45

Reading hard for me, and and yet, of course, it's wonderful to be read to. I would probably choose Grimm's Fairy Tales because I have been read it a lot and loved it, and I do read it to my children, and I think it would sort of spark my imagination of all those plots which you could play with. So I think that would give me hours of pleasure. And your luxury.

Presenter32:04

Difficult one again. I'm torn between taking a really lovely photograph album, but perhaps that would be slightly torturous experience. Maybe, therefore, the thing that I would always take. I'm next to me now is a yellow rotating pencil and a beautiful book of unlined paper. Because actually, with a pencil, you can kind of do anything. I could write, I write a diary every day anyway. So I would keep a diary and I would plan and make lists. Without lists, I don't think I could actually operate. And that would make me feel normal and sane. Right, you may have that too. And of course, you'll load one disc to save from the waves.

Anya Hindmarch32:34

The waves

Presenter32:35

I think the thing that I would like for the longest and would go back to is probably the Parry, actually. Right, the I was glad is yours then. Anya Heimarsh, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you, Gaston.

Presenter33:32

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.