Photo: Tom Bradley

 Clare Finney spends a day in Dorset exploring the gardens, laboratories and organic canteen of Neal’s Yard Remedies - the natural skincare company that grew from Covent Garden cult to international success without ever losing its soul

“Phwoar. Get a load of that”. It’s 11am and I’m standing in the sunlit mixing room of the country’s most successful organic skincare brand. Yet as I put my nose to the proffered bottle, the scent that hits me is neither soothing, nor cleansing, nor particularly pleasant. To be honest, it smells a little bit like… curry?

“Exactly!” beams Fran, lab technician at Neal’s Yard Remedies and the creative genius behind its extensive range of lotions and potions. In one hand she is holding a plastic jug of rather questionable looking cream; in the other, the ‘eau de takeaway’ that, if ancient Indian medicinal traditions are anything to go by, will help transform the cream into a ‘brightening serum’.

The herb in question is turmeric; the tradition, a 500 year old wedding ritual in which Indian brides smear it on their skin it in paste form to increase their glow in time for the big day. More ‘technical’ cosmetic industries might sneer at the assumption that a fluorescent orange plant could pass on some of its brightness. Down at the Neal’s Yard Remedies eco-headquarters in Dorset, however, this faith in the powers of nature forms the groundwork for a business that has experienced rapid growth in the past five years.

“It’s still a small company - surprisingly small, I always think - but it has such huge potential,” my guide for the day, Nicola Nolan, reveals as she first introduces me to the exploding nettle patches, random clumps of wild flowers and wonky herb gardens that are Fran’s store cupboard. Inside the lab, the orderly chaos continues. Tubs and test-tubes litter the wooden counters, together with beakers of mixtures gone wrong (laughing, Fran shows me yesterday’s attempt at hair smoothing serum, now crystallising into what look like molasses) and detailed scientific descriptions of the experimental process. Some items are labelled - some, like the discarded brightening serum, have nothing but a small handwritten Post-it Note to indicate what’s inside.

This is who we are,and it’s a working lab where a lot goes on. It’s not about being polished and slick

“This is who we are,” Fran points out, “and it’s a working lab where a lot goes on. It’s not about being polished and slick”. But just beneath the lab’s experimental, suck-it-and-see surface lies a vat of industry experience, quality checks and rigorous testing processes. Only after the raw ingredients have been approved by the quality control team are they made up into new treatments; and only after the treatments have been tested by a large pool of volunteer consumers and Neal’s Yard Remedies staff are they put into mass production. In all, Nicola tells me, the process from thinking of a new product to it reaching the shelf can take up to three years.

It’s a far cry from the early 1980s, when founder Romy Fraser started brewing herbal remedies in a small kitchen behind her first Seven Dials store. Back then, Fraser’s company was the only skincare brand on the market offering products free from the synthetic chemicals, silicones and preservatives behind most beauty treatments. Today, the organic sector is estimated to be worth over £1.6 billion - but back when the company was founded, very few people even knew what organic meant.

“If you look at the brands in the organic and natural sector today, there are very few companies that have been in the game for as long as Neal’s Yard,” says Fran. By the time the big beauty brands began jumping onto the organic bandwagon, Neal’s Yard Remedies was already in the driving seat. Its guidelines are strict - there are 13 firm ethical pledges on the company’s ‘We Believe in Saying No’ list - and where other back-to-nature companies are happy to gloss over a few inorganic ingredients with a shiny ‘100 per cent organic’ sign, copywriters at Neal’s Yard are insistent that the number trumpeted on the bottle reflects the actual percentage inside it.

“You can’t have a product with 100 per cent organic ingredients,” insists Fran. “Water can’t be organic. Neither can salt, clays, minerals - they can ethically sourced, they can come from organic farms that are ethically run, but they can’t be organic. So that little green box that gives the percentage is our way of being really open and honest with the customer.”

This is not just clever marketing. Honesty might seem a risky policy in an industry dominated by slick copywriting, airbrushing and pseudo-science, but the readiness with which I am welcomed behind the scenes at Neal’s Yard Remedies is testament to the company’s belief that beauty products need to be more than skin deep. “This is a brand with a mentality which says if you don’t love it, you wouldn’t do it. It comes back to the idea of the company as family. Everybody has their own role - but everyone’s got a shared vision. Everybody knows Peter and his family. It makes such a difference.”

You can’t have a product with 100 per cent organic ingredients. Water can’t be organic. Neither can salt, clays, minerals - they can ethically sourced, they can come from organic farms that are ethically run, but they can’t be organic. So that little green box that gives the percentage is our way of being really open and honest with the customer.

‘Peter’ is former publishing magnate Peter Kindersley, the Neal’s Yard Remedies managing director, who bought the company from Romy Fraser in 2005. Kindersley is, it seems, a hands-on MD. “I’ve worked in places where the chair will turn up to the odd meeting not knowing what it’s about or what the next project is - let alone know your name,” says Nicola. “But Peter is in every week. He chats to everyone, sees everything we’re doing.” In fact, with over half of the product ingredients coming from Peter’s organic farm in Berkshire, “hands on” is something of an understatement. It’s all a far cry from his days at the helm of publishing giants Dorling Kindersley, but without his almost evangelical vision for Fraser’s home-grown company, the green products that were once the preserve of hippies and homeopaths simply would not have the far-reaching appeal they’ve achieved today.

It helps that Kindersley has a lot of money and a lot of business experience. But it also helps that he first saved up for a farm in the early 70s, first started cycling to work around the same time, and was part of the green movement long before it became a potential money-spinner. One staff member I speak to describes him as “the Duracell battery rabbit”, but I suspect a solar powered rabbit would be more to his liking.

Back in Peacemarsh, the production lines are just starting to empty. “They’ll produce another 2,000 bottles today, but we’ve started work on the Christmas programme now so we’re not feeling too stressed,” says line manager Neil, standing in the spring sunshine of the production room itself (Peacemarsh keeps artificial lighting to a minimum). He gestures towards a line of gleaming blue bottles, into which two of his white-clad team are carefully piping the last of a run of orange blossom face wash. The entire production line cannot measure more than 20 metres, and the tools they are using are vaguely reminiscent of that thing my mum uses to swirl icing onto cupcakes. This tiny belt is one of only four production lines in the facility, all of which have seen their daily output triple in the past two years.

Outside in the cultivated wilderness of the company’s physic gardens, the next batch of calendula is just starting to bud. “You’re going to have to use your imagination a little bit, but in the summer there is every colour you can imagine out here,” says Nicola, and I am reminded of what she said earlier about Neal’s Yard being “a very small company with huge potential”. It may have the potential to grow, but standing out in this lovely little garden it seems unlikely that the company’s size will ever quite reflect its potential. ‘Ethical’ companies that expand too quickly often find that their success has come at a price - Innocent smoothies seemed less so when they sold to Coca Cola, while Quaker-founded Cadbury sold its soul to an American behemoth. But Neal’s Yard Remedies’ success remains rooted in the company practicing what it preaches. This includes growing this calendula crop in as wild and natural an environment as possible. It also means ensuring that suppliers get a fair deal and that the company’s carbon footprint is minimised through energy efficiency measures and carbon offsetting.

Photo: Tom Bradley

The ethics are important, but it is also essential that the products actually work. Over lunch (locally grown, homemade and organic, it almost goes without saying) Nicola and technical director Pauline Hilli swap stories of customers whose testimonials have been so dramatic that they’ve become company folklore. “One of the most frustrating things is companies making these wild claims that ‘one in four people saw their wrinkles reduce’, and you think, ‘but that’s only 25 per cent of people!” Nicola exclaims. “We’ve got customer testimonials from our anti-ageing Frankincense range with over 69 per cent of people saying, ‘Wow, what a difference, I’ve really seen an improvement in my skin.’ That is something. As a brand maybe we don’t shout about it as much as we should because we’re so concerned with the quality of the ingredients and the welfare of the suppliers - but to have a brand that people trust and come to us because the products work as well… that is exciting.”

The cynic in me can’t help but to ask how much of this apparent efficacy is due to wishful thinking on behalf of the consumer, or to a placebo effect that comes from believing that what you are smearing on your skin is superior to other, more synthetic products. This is the elephant in the garden of any herbalist, and it’s not until I meet Dragana, the company’s long-standing head of herbs, that my inner sceptic is silenced. A family history of herbal medicine spanning four generations helped to shape a career that has seen Dragana study traditional Chinese medicine, live with Tibetan tribes for five years and, most recently, work with the UN to improve sustainable food cultivation and production in Afghanistan. When I finally pluck up the courage to ask this small but formidable lady whether some herbal remedies might be more in the mind than the matter, she positively snorts in frustration.

“The whole of your life - everything that you are, everything that is - depends on the mind. Your illness has to be in your mind first before it reaches your physical body. Your success has to be in your mind first before it matures in a physical aspect. This poo-pooing of the mind comes from an ignorance of the material world, of the broader aspect of human beings. Really the mind aspect is all that there is. Different choices you make have different outcomes, and the sooner you realise that, the sooner you stop blaming the world around you for what happens.” It sounds a bit abstract - it is a bit abstract - but as I mull it over with a cup of Dragana’s Beautiful Skin tea, it sort of begins to make sense.

It helps that Dragana’s skin is radiantly clear, almost to the point of distraction. But it also helps that she, like everyone else I meet at Neal’s Yard, is remarkably down to earth. For every airy spiritual claim there’s a detailed description of plant structure or a reference to the latest findings from Kingston and Metropolitan, Neal’s Yard Remedies’s university collaborators.

“We get to know the ins and outs of the fine materials and use this knowledge to improve the function of our products” - Dragana gestures towards the rose-coloured tea - “so you can take this as just another cuppa, or you can understand it for what it is and understand that by drinking this tea instead of Coca Cola, you will have better blood, better skin, and probably be less neurotic than you would with a can of Coke.”

Even if you don’t understand every ingredient - and you won’t, always - if you know that you’re buying it from an ethical company, an organic company, you can rest assured that the chemicals used in it are naturally derived, are naturally occurring

So how does Neal’s Yard Remedies hope to sell that message to people who don’t brew nettle soup, never read the label and find the growing world of botanic and organic a little overwhelming? “For us, the next few months are about helping those people understand what it means to go natural, to go organic” Nicola explains. “Even if you don’t understand every ingredient - and you won’t, always - if you know that you’re buying it from an ethical company, an organic company, you can rest assured that the chemicals used in it are naturally derived, are naturally occurring. It’s easy to underestimate Neal’s Yard - I did, coming from the bigger beauty industry. But you’re missing a trick if you do.”

A magnificent cocktail machine

Jean-Paul Aubin-Parvu talks to Blake Perrow of La Perla Bar & Grill  

How did you come to be general manager at La Perla Bar & Grill?

I’ve worked in bars and restaurants for over 25 years. I actually started in Covent Garden, first at The Rock Garden and then TGI Friday. After that I moved around working as a waiter or bartender and using the money to travel the world. I spent 18 months at a fine dining Italian restaurant in Melbourne. I had a wonderful time and then returned to London where I ended up here at La Perla. I started as a bartender, became bar manager and now I’m general manager.

 Tell me about La Perla Bar & Grill.

Our full name is La Perla del Pacifico, which means the pearl of Pacifico. That’s because our first place in Covent Garden was Café Pacifico. La Perla opened in 1996. Maiden Lane was much quieter then and didn’t get so much passing trade. I’d say it took us a good year to get a strong foothold. These days we’re just permanently busy, which is great. Some places have a big bar with a small restaurant area or a big restaurant with a small bar, but La Perla is half and half. You could literally split the business down the middle.

Who is Tomas Estes?

He’s the founder. Tomas started the original Café Pacifico in Amsterdam back in 1976. We still have a small interest in it, but we don’t own it anymore. Tomas has been nominated by the Tequila Regulatory Council as Ambassador of Tequila to the European Union.

 What is La Perla famous for?

On the drinks side of things I would say we’re famous for tequila and cocktails. People travel from far and wide for our margaritas - we sell thousands of them - and the choice of tequilas is unbelievable. We stock around 120 different tequilas plus a small selection of mezcals.

 Tell me an interesting fact about tequila?

Tequila ages five times faster than all other spirits and so a three-year-old tequila will be similar to drinking a 15-year-old rum.

Many English people view tequila as simply a means to an end. Is that fair?

We work hard to educate people about tequila. It should be sipped just like any spirit. How many people do you see doing shots of a good cognac or 15-year-old malt? They just wouldn’t do it. We tend to serve our tequila in snifters rather than shot glasses. I myself like drinking tequila with ice and a splash of water - the same as some people drink whisky. So tequila should definitely be sipped.

Why are there hundreds of names engraved on shields above the bar?

We have a tequila called Cuervo Coleccion 1800. It costs £125 a shot, and the reason for that is its rarity - they only make a tiny amount for the world market. It’s an extra anejo that’s been aged for about five years. It’s absolutely superb and many people compare it to a fine cognac - that one should definitely be sipped. Anyone who buys a shot has their name engraved on a shield behind the bar. One customer spent £1,000 on eight shots. He left us his card saying to phone him if someone beats his record.

Doesn’t La Perla produce its own tequila?

We are the first bar in England to do this. Our tequila is called Ocho and is produced as a collaboration between Tomas Estes and the renowned distillers, the Camarena family. Ocho is the first ever brand to bear a “tequila vintage”, name the field and the area harvested, and because it’s made from blue agave plants harvested from single fields you won’t taste the exact same tequila for another six to 10 years - that’s how long it takes the plants to grow. Our 07 is highly prized by many bartenders and tequila aficionados.

 Hasn’t the bar also been awarded the Distinctivo “T”?

Yes. This is an award given by the Tequila Regulatory Council in Mexico to establishments that really promote the culture and quality of tequila. We’ve turned many people around, customers who’ve come in refusing to drink tequila because they’ve had a horrible experience in the past. But that’s probably occurred at the end of a party when there’s been nothing left to drink except for a bottle of cheap, nasty tequila they’ve managed to find. So I persuade the customer to try an aged anejo - they just can’t believe it’s tequila.

How would you rate the food here?

Our food is superb. It’s a mixture of Mexican and Tex Mex. Everyone loves fajitas, they’ve got to be our biggest seller, but we also do fabulous enchiladas. We even do one with mole sauce, a bitter sweet, slightly spicy chocolate sauce that you find in very few Mexican restaurants. I tried it once in Mexico, but it wasn’t to my taste. It’s a bit like Marmite - you either love it or hate it. I wouldn’t say it’s a signature dish, but that’s definitely much more learning towards authentic Mexican food.

Who are your clientele?

Everybody and anybody. We’re a very relaxed, informal bar and we don’t try to attract a certain type of crowd. We welcome old and young, families, all sorts - it really is across the board. I’ve had customers tell me that coming in here feels like walking out of London, because La Perla has such a nice chilled out atmosphere. There’s no pressure. The owner’s motto is “heavy on the bottom, light on top.” This means that everything must be done professionally and to a very high standard - but in a relaxed manner.

 La Perla Bar & Grill

28 Maiden Lane

020 7240 7400

www.cafepacifico-laperla.com

Tatty Devine is a small independent jewellery brand with more wit and invention than a thousand high street jewellery chains put together. Jackie Modlinger meets its charismatic creators..

“We were 20 when we started up and at first we went a bit bonkers,” says Rosie Wolfenden, looking back at the early days of Tatty Devine - the jewellery company she established in 1999 with her friend Harriet Vine.

And as the company’s new spring collection clearly demonstrates, a bit bonkers they most definitely remain. Paper doilies, Chinese cocktail parasols topped with glace cherries, anchors and chains, scallop-edge love hearts in bright reds and pinks, pearly queen pendants, ice cream sundaes – this may be jewellery, but not as we know it.

The company’s inventive, quirky, witty, kitsch brand of art costume jewellery and accessories is hand-made in London and found in two signature shops in the capital - the first in Brick Lane, the latest baby in Covent Garden’s Monmouth Street, which, with its distinctive rock-candy-pink exterior, looks like an accessory sweetshop.

Rosie and Harriet, both 32, met at Chelsea College of Art, where they were both studying fine art. Neither has any formal jewellery design training, but then Tatty Devine isn’t formal jewellery design. They began by scavenging bags of leather samples from skips, then using their findings to make wrist cuffs which they sold at London’s vintage clothes markets. They ended up selling out every week.

Fate intervened one Friday afternoon, in the guise of a Vogue stylist, in the basement of Steinberg & Tolkein, the now sadly defunct vintage fashion shop where Rosie worked during the week. The stylist admired Rosie’s bright pink rhinestoned alice band, customised with ribbons. “This will be great for my Millennium shoot,” she enthused.

“It’s by my company, Tatty Devine,” said Rosie. “We can bring you the whole collection if you like.”

“Can you come on Monday?” asked the stylist.

“Of course,” replied Rosie.

A weekend of working around the clock to prepare the promised “collection” proved the turning point in the girls’ career. The Millennium issue of Vogue saw the girls’ accessories modeled by the likes of Erin O’Connor and John Galliano. Six months later their designs were in Browns Focus, Whistles and Harvey Nichols. A year later they were showing at London Fashion Week.

A decade on, Tatty Devine has built a cult following and has enjoyed collaborations with the likes of the V&A, Tate and Chicks on Speed. Hattie and Rosie have come a long way since their market days, but they have never compromised their playful spirit and their sense of invention.

Harriet now sports a wonderful Louise Brooks bob, courtesy Anna at Vidal Sassoon. “I thought that they would be trustworthy with my hair, as it’s difficult to cut,” she says. “I had had long hair for a long time and meant to cut it off for ages. I quite like the French-ness of it.” She hails from Rochester in Kent and now lives in an old, converted veneer shop in Bethnal Green with her guitarist husband Daniel and their 20-month-old daughter Bebe. Daniel is currently a house-husband. “He is fundamental to the whole operation,” she says. “It was a natural time for him to have a break from music. It isn’t forever.”

Rosie grew up on the Isle of Wight. She shares a flat in a turn-of-the- century block in Stoke Newington with her film editor partner, Tony. Both women share a love of music, especially live gigs, a fact which is reflected in their design ethos. Their much loved Best of Perspex collection features plectrums, dangling musical notes, white piano keys, a volume button brooch and a vinyl record necklace, while black Swarowski crystal music notes embellish a silver chain link bracelet. Hattie is currently learning to play the ukulele she bought from The Duke of Uke shop in East London’s Hanbury Street.

Tatty Devine is modern jewellery, but it has more than a touch of old-style rock n roll.

So how did it all start?

Harriet Vine: Through us meeting at college – the moment that Rosie moved in with me in Brixton, we realised that we were into the same sort of things.

Rosie Wolfenden: Harriet worked in the restaurant at the V&A, where you could touch everything – we catered some of the events and we’d be serving canapés to the king and queen of Sweden. It got us through college. You could eat what you liked, so I just ate on Wednesdays and at weekends. We left college in 1999. Before we left, Harriet found loads of leather strips waiting for the bin-men - we were always into skip-rummaging – and she knew that they were too good to miss.

We both came out of college and weren’t going to get conventional jobs. The snowball started to roll. We never had a set plan, but I always knew that I wanted to create something, so we created Tatty Devine. Our parents have all been self-employed. I never imagined having a boss or having to get a job.

HV: We decided we would try and set up a studio in Rosie’s bedroom in Brixton.

RW: Harriet made an old leather belt into a wrist-cuff, held together with a hairclip.

HV: My dad worked as a carpenter. We had all the materials and he really helped us. On our first market stall - Camden on a Tuesday in July 99 - we took £50.

What inspires your design themes?

RW: For 10 years, we have been led by our own whims and fancies. Our one big inspiration is our friends – artists, photographers and film-makers. What we have in common is not being very conventional. We just have a love of old-fashioned dreams. Before the word “vintage” was coined, we were into it. Most of our wardrobes are second-hand.

HV: We have never had enough money to buy expensive clothes and we have never wanted to look like everyone else. Neither of us particularly like shopping on the high street. We have an ethical, moral aesthetic. We want off-the-wall pieces, not off-the-peg .

Why did you choose Covent Garden for your second boutique?

HV: Monmouth Street has a lot of independent boutiques. We wanted to be in a boutique area that wasn’t quite so “destination” as our previous one in Brewer Street, Soho. We looked at Marylebone, Upper Street, Islington, but in the end Covent Garden felt like the best – everyone in the world has heard of Covent Garden. It’s famous as a tourist destination - and we feel that as a British company we have something to offer them. We are getting more and more well-known world-wide, across the globe there are like-minded people who love what we do. Seven Dials has got an old-fashioned feel to it – Neal’s Yard, the cheese shop - you have the sensation that you can get anything that you want, any kind of food. Everything is very compact and it has a Parisian feel to it with the cobbled streets and the monument.

Who is the Tatty Devine woman?

RW: A mixture of us both as we evolve –people who we admire and respect, like a girl or woman with individuality and a desire to look different.

Where do you see your niche in the market?

HV: Our strength is that it is made in England. So much stuff is made in China now, but we are small, independent, design-led and hand-made in Britain. That’s the niche. People really want pieces which are special, not just mass-produced. We use one company in Nottingham to source our materials.

You seem to have quite a famous following

HV: We have never been into mainstream celebrity, rather people who like vintage. We hold on to our values. But that said, we get quite a few fashion folk in here, also singers – Katie Perry, Kelly Osbourne, Beth Ditto, Chicks on Speed, Kate Moss. Claudia Schiffer rang up and ordered a “name” necklace for herself.

How do you see the future?

HV: We don’t really know. We have this business established which we have worked really hard at. Now this year we are 10, but the day-to-day running of the business is so frantic that it’s hard to stop and think. It would be quite nice to open more shops. This shop may become a nice template for opening in other places like Brighton and Glasgow.

Antonio Carluccio may have lived in London for over three decades and have made Covent Garden his professional base for 26 years, but England’s very own godfather of Italian cooking has no intention of settling down. “I like the wide world,” the white-haired 72-year-old says, in his a rich, flavourful accent. “You see, London is for me a fantastic base. So I feel in the centre of the world actually; from here I move a little bit in every direction.”

He’s been moving around in various directions almost since the start of his life. Born in a village on the Amalfi Coast, he relocated as an infant with his family to the north of Italy. As a young man he studied in Vienna before moving to Berlin and then to Hamburg. When he came to live in London, it was to study English and work as a wine merchant.

“When I arrived in 1975, Italian food was quite primitive actually. There were a few dishes every restaurant had: spaghetti bolognese; ‘pollo sorpresa’ – the chicken kiev; the dessert, a peeled orange in syrup; the avocado pera gamberetti, which is the avocado pear with a little prawn sauce – ‘salsa aurora’ – which was nothing else but mayonnaise with a little ketchup!”

Antonio made it his life’s work to wean us off these paltry offerings in order to discover real Italian cooking, a mission he started in earnest in 1981 when the older brother of his wife Pricilla, a certain Terence Conran, invited him to become managing director of his Neal Street Restaurant. Sir Terence had founded the eatery in the early 70s when it effectively functioned as the canteen for the Conran design studio upstairs. Under Antonio’s guidance, it was transformed into one of the capital’s most popular destinations for Italian food.
He’s nostalgic for those early years in the atmospheric cobbled lane. “Oh that was sweet, it was wonderful!” he says, lighting up at the thought of it. “For a start, Neal Street itself was a beautiful street. I remember there was even a shop repairing wheelbarrows! There was an Italian café – genuine stuff.”
The secret of his success appears to be a genuine, authentic love for his vocation. “Making money is not always the elixir of happiness,” he observes poetically. “It’s good when you do something nice and you get money for it. With the principle to start something just to make money – that is not my scene. There’s something else beyond money: satisfaction.”

He declares simply, “The fact is that I love my business. I love the food, the origins of recipes, the cultural aspect. You know, food is not just a banal thing that you eat for keeping your body; you eat it for being happy.”

His beloved dog barks, it’s time for lunch and the autobiography beckons: on the surface it seems like a scene befitting a retiree. But rather than rest on his laurels and rely on his bus pass, retirement is the last thing on Antonio’s energetic, enthusiastic mind. “I’m curious in my life – I always want to know everything,” he laughs.

For the full interview, see CGJ6

In issue 6 of the CGJ, top hair stylist Adee Phelan tells JP Aubin-Parvu why he loves Liza Minelli, hates D-list “celebs” and no longer sleeps with his clients.

Adee on fashions: “Just because something is in fashion doesn’t mean it will suit you. I went through a period of doing David Beckham’s hair, and everyone was coming to me for mohicans. I’m like: ‘Are you crazy? You look like Peter Sutcliffe and you want to look like David Beckham. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to happen.’”

Adee on starting up: “I was working for a guy in Leigh on Sea and committed the cardinal sin of opening up a shop about 500 yards away,” he says. “It was brilliant though. I grew very quickly and went from being someone who just wanted to do hair to a person obsessed with success. That’s when I knew I was going to move forward. I named the salon Strangeways after the prison in Manchester.”

Adee on celebrity: “The word celebrity is such a loose word now. All you’ve got to do is sleep with a footballer, pull your skirt up outside a club and you’re a celebrity. Or do a reality TV show. When people call me a celebrity, I tell them: ‘No, no, no, I’m a hairdresser. Let’s get that one straight.’ Who cares about someone from Big Brother or a boyband?”

Adee on hair: “It can make you look shit or it can make you look great. It’s a massive part of someone’s make up, and it’s a thing that can make or break someone. If you have a bad haircut, man or woman, it can lower your confidence – you can feel shit. I’ve seen people crying their eyes out because they’ve had bad haircuts.”

See CGJ6 for the full interview

Laura Lee on inspiration:
“My mum had this fantastic bracelet and she used to put it on for special occasions. She travelled quite a lot when she was young - she met my dad in Australia and she’d been to America. She had fantastic things on this charm bracelet, like an orange from Florida, and Eiffel Tower from Paris and a koala from Australia. All these things to me, born in north London, were really exotic and exciting. I think it was bracelet that planted the whole jewellery thing in my head.”

Laura Lee on having her studio under the shop:
“It’s an old fashioned concept, but it’s all tied in with my whole approach. It’s just nice to say that we make the jewellery downstairs. If I was shopping, that’s exactly what I would want to hear.”

Laura Lee on fashion:
“With fashion, you’re hot one minute and then the next nobody’s interested. That’s the nature of the beast.  It’s exciting, and I like being involved in it, but I’m also seperate to it.

For the full interview see the Autumn issue of the CG Journal

Legendary restaurant critic Fay Maschler has put her considerable clout behind a new event designed to celebrate London’s thriving food scene. The London Restaurant Festival runs from 8-13 October and involves hundreds of the capital’s restaurants offering special menus at affordable prices, designed to showcase the variety and depth of their offerings. For an exclusive interview with Fay and her business partner, the broadcaster and critic Simon Davis, see the Autumn issue of the Covent Garden Journal. See londonrestaurantfestival.com for more details.

Fine Rees, the woman behind Miss Lala’s Boudoir, on Marie Antoinette, Hollywood and big, glamorous knickers

“When I came up with the boudoir idea, it was all about chandeliers and silk sheets, it was a lady’s private rooms, it was old Hollywood, it was Marie Antoinette trying on clothes and eating cake. My mum brought me up on black and white movies, and my love of lingerie harks back to that Hollywood glamour. I could be wearing something as dull as jeans, but underneath I could be Jean Harlow.”

“I think colour makes people happy. I think sparkles make people happy. I think bows and frills make people happy. Underwear is the first thing that goes on your body. If you’re miserable and you need to brighten your day, lingerie can make you feel better. If you put on a grey pair of cotton knickers, it’s a message to yourself. You should put on really bright silky ones when it’s raining outside. It can really cheer you up.”

“We have a barrister who comes in, who always buys the brightest underwear she can,” she says with a huge smile. “It’s the only way she can make a statement. When she’s in there in court in this incredibly masculine world, she’s wearing this amazingly bright sparkly underwear underneath. The judges would probably die if they knew.”

“In the department store world that’s been dominated by Elle McPherson and Chantelle and all these samey brands, they’ve now got these insane Miss Lala Presents stands that look like somebody’s set up a cupcake stall for the day.”

“I think in terms of stories. If I’m buying something I have to think about who’s wearing it. It’s no good somebody telling me, oh Kate Moss is wearing it this season. I have to think about Mia Farrow, I have to think about Marilyn, it has to be impossibly glamorous.”

See CGJ issue 4 for full interview