Say it Sister...
Lucy and Karen, two 40-somethings, are always chatting about life, and all that it has to throw at them, and now want to share their raw, honest conversations with you. Their journey of self-discovery and healing is something many of us can relate to. We all possess a unique power within us, but life’s trials often knock us off course. They have the tools, the courage to speak up and simply say it as it is, so you might feel seen, and understood and gain practical tools and techniques for self-discovery and personal growth during the changes we experience.
Say it Sister...
James Brown: From Croydon to Vogue: How a Kid from Croydon Changed Fashion Forever
Legendary hairstylist James Brown takes us back to the 90s, sharing how he revolutionized the beauty industry by championing natural looks over the excessive styling that dominated fashion magazines.
• Coming from Croydon on a youth training scheme earning just £27.50 per week
• Creating Kate Moss's first Vogue cover and becoming the youngest hairdresser ever to achieve this milestone
• Living in the now-famous flat at 56 Brewer Street that became a hub for the 90s creative scene
• Transforming beauty standards by enhancing women's natural features rather than masking them
• Experiencing the freedom of 90s club culture where everyone was accepted regardless of background
• Reflecting on how today's social media creates unrealistic beauty standards for young women
• Sharing concerns about extreme beauty procedures becoming normalized for teenagers
• Discussing the importance of empowering young women with self-esteem and confidence
• Finding purpose beyond fashion through his love of animals and dream of opening a sanctuary
Use your voice, journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it, we hope you join us in saying it sister.
Hello and welcome to the Say it Sister podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Lucy and I'm Karen, and we're thrilled to have you here. Our paths crossed years ago on a shared journey of self-discovery, and what we found was an unshakable bond and a mutual desire to help others heal and live their very best lives.
Speaker 1:For years, we've had open, honest and courageous conversations, discussions that challenged us, lifted us and sometimes even brought us to tears. We want to share those conversations with you. We believe that by letting you into our world, you might find the courage to use your voice and say what really needs to be said in your own life.
Speaker 2:Whether you're a woman seeking empowerment, a self-improvement enthusiast or someone who craves thought-provoking dialogue, join us, as we promise to bring you real, unfiltered conversations that encourage self-reflection and growth.
Speaker 1:So join us as we explore, question and grow together. It's time to say say it, sister, hey, hey, hey. Sisters, today we're going to dedicate the whole episode to the 90s, and I can't tell you how excited I am about that because you know I wrote the book Leader X, which was all about the decades that shaped Generation X and the Xennials, and on my 40th birthday I danced all the way through the 90s music and I need to be honest, the only part of the 90s that's still with me is my music, my memories and my eyebrows. Um, but any woman of that generation, you feel me, um, but the music and the memories are like gold. And since the turn of the millennium, let's face it, fashion hasn't really changed all that much and my kids are pretty much wearing what I was wearing 30 years ago, apart from the eyebrows.
Speaker 1:So on to our guest. You know, say it, sister is a podcast by women for women, but that doesn't mean to say we exclude men, and especially when they are. James Brown, somebody who has changed the way women look and show up since the 1990s, and James has been at the forefront of fashion, music, culture and beauty for over 35 years. He was part of the 90s grunge movement, and so was I, and he styled Kate Moss for magazine covers such as the Face, love Dazed, id, gq and Vogue Worldwide. Moving to New York at 24, partnering with the world's top models, hollywood A-listers and rock royalty. I know I'm excited. How excited are you, karen?
Speaker 2:Oh well, I'm beyond excited because this is one of my best friends in the whole world. We worked together 20 years ago now, not in the 90s, but you know we certainly made a mark in what we were doing and we did so many collaborations, um, backstage at fashion shows, james was certainly part of the scene. By then I was a little bit more of a newbie and we just had this connection that has taken me forward in my life and I could talk about the professional stuff forever, but what I want to say about James is that he makes women feel like themselves. He helps women to almost like just show their more natural beauty, to be themselves. There's definitely something about having an attitude in there, you know, because James is one of those people who. He is a rebel, he is somebody who lives his life, I would say, in a very inspiring way, because he's totally himself and I am always inspired when I'm in the room with him and you know we have conversations that are hours and hours long, a little bit like me and you, lucy, where we talk about everything the state of the world, um, our hopes, our fears, um, he's been my ride or die for so many years.
Speaker 2:Um, he helped me when I was miscarrying my daughter, um, in a hospital in Delhi, and James was the one that called me and said what are you up to? And I was like, I'm in Delhi, I'm in a hospital and I'm bleeding, and he said right, I'm going to sort this out for you. And he, he called me back and he said when you're out of hospital, I've got two friends, they've got an apartment. Go stay there for a bit and just get yourself, um, recovered. And I did that. And it was this beautiful place of going into a space that was warm, safe, caring, after something that was very, very traumatic. So, james, thank you for always being here for me and I feel emotional as I say that because you are, I couldn't imagine my life without you. Welcome to Say it, sister.
Speaker 3:Hello.
Speaker 2:Oh, bless, yeah, Anything you want to say about the introduction, anything you want to say or add it.
Speaker 3:I don't know it just doesn't it. I hear what I hear it. I'm like, oh god, that all sounds quite good. Who is that? It doesn't it's it's, it's so in my DNA but seems so far removed from who I am now, but in a really lovely way, like it's like there's been a massive face exhibition in London at the moment and I'm just all over it and like it's on really iconic work and everybody has been sending it to me constantly, which is really nice.
Speaker 3:But just living your life, aren't you? It's so long ago but, like Kate said, the kids are into the sort of 90s and my goddaughter, kate's daughter, is like wearing all the clothes from there and she always asks me questions about it and Kate always says, oh, you've got to listen to Jimmy B. He's the one you've got to listen to. You know he knows what he's talking about. So, yeah, but it all seems I've done so much sort of you know life, stuff and my animals, and it's just a part of me, a little part of me, but it keeps coming up because it's sort of so out there again, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:absolutely. And yeah, the 90s are, um, you know, it was a period in history which was very unique and, yeah, the youngsters now are really into it and again they're listening to all of our music, they're copying our clothes and, you know, in the 90s it did feel like a revolution when you were in it, you know, even as I was 13 when I entered 1990. And so I did all of my formative years during that decade and it felt different. It felt like something was changing. And, you know, since then I've started to learn more and there's more documentaries and things like that about it. And it was that fascination where, you know, the street almost combined with the fashion houses, the common people were, you know, uh, changing and mixing with the elites, and it was really shaping culture. And you know, I was there living it, but you were there shaping it. So, although it feels like a distant memory, we'd really just like to just hear your thoughts on what it was like way back then. Did you know you were part of some kind of big shift and change?
Speaker 3:Well, for me, I was just obsessed with hair. So I was just obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. I was the first to work every day, I was the last to leave every night and my Kate was still at school. Kate Marsden, we used, we used to get you know, she used to bunk off from school. We'd get the train together to london and she'd hang out in the salon, and then she started modeling more, and then I didn't really. There were, there were fashion magazines in the salon, but they were all what I would. They were all like big boobs and red lips and massive hair, and it's just so far removed from my version of a woman and what I thought is beautiful. I didn't understand why women were always made to look like that, like big, as the Italians say, bella gonfia, big, swollen hair, and it was just all so crass and not real. And so I never really took any notice of the fashion magazines and I just sort of got on with my thing. And then, and then one day, kate brought this photographer into the salon who looked exactly like her actually, and then, and her boyfriend, and she said, oh, could I cut her boyfriend's hair? And then we got chatting, and then I needed somewhere to live. So I rented a room with them and and then I found myself in, you know, that very famous flat that's been documented in every everywhere in the world, in 56 Brewer Street. So I lived with Corrin. So from living with Corrin I had a flat in Brewer Street in central London. So all my girlfriends, kay included, would all come to the flat to get ready to go raving. So I would sort of dress them up, do the hair, and Corinne used to say to me all the time, oh, do you want to do a shoot with me? And I was like no, I don't, actually thanks. Because I thought when I heard that word I thought it was like the women that I saw in the magazine, with big hair and red lips, and I thought, oh, I don't want to be any part of that, it's not my vibe.
Speaker 3:And then one day I came in from a rave actually, and and I got into bed and Corrie knocked on my door. She said, oh, can you just do this girl's hair how you do Kate's? And I said, oh god, corrie, no, you know. And but then I got up out of bed and I went into the living room, which was quite often doubled as a studio. A lot of those famous Vogue pictures were shot in my front room and on that orange couch and I looked at the girl. I sort of looked at her and she had on a sort of t-shirt and skin type jeans and no makeup and I sort of thought that was the second. I thought I got it, I got it, I got it. And that second that day I thought, wow, that's different, that is that's where I want to be. I want to be part that. So I just did what I did with the girl's hair, like I would do Kate's, and then the model left and then I said to Corrin I literally remember this like it was yesterday. I said to Corrin is that what you want me to do on shoots? And she said yeah, and I said, oh, okay, definitely, I love it. So I that's when I realized the power that photography could have. And then I did a.
Speaker 3:I did my first ever sort of job was the cover of the face, which is that really famous one. And so there was Melanie Ward and, and dick page was the makeup artist. Melanie ward was the stylist which all everyone was signing on except for me. I was the training hairdresser. Everyone else was on the doll and we were just normal kids from suburbia who were, um, not privileged, not posh, you know um. I mean, I had 27 pounds a week and I'd buy lunch for everyone on the shoot some days, like no one had any money.
Speaker 3:So then suddenly I'd sort of wake up in the morning and there'd be this strange Icelandic singer sat in my living room and she'd be like oh hi, I'm Bjork. And then I met her and then I'd just hang out with her doing her hair all the time. I'd be cutting her hair all the time and then everybody would come to the flat because it was the hub of the place to be Like. No other young photographers at that time had that sort of hub. We, you know, it was Kate and Rosemary and me and Mel and Dick and Corinne, and everybody came to our flat, including Vogue and Dick and Corinne, and everybody came to our flat, including Vogue. And then what happened was I was at the salon and the bookings editor was called Jo Jo, something I can't quite remember her name, but she was very well spoken and she kept calling the salon and saying, oh, can we get James Brown to do a shoot? So I'd be going no, no, no, no, I don't want to do it. I don't want to work for Vogue. It's like all old women, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 3:And then one day, my boss, anne-marie all my bosses since I was 17, every single boss has been a woman. I've only ever had, I only have ever had bosses that are women really, um, and anyway. So Anne-Marie came to me. I was like I know, tinting someone's hair actually, oh, that woman from Vogue's on the phone again. And I said, oh god. She said, no, no, I think you should go talk to her. So I went to the phone and she said, oh, hi, james, I've finally got you. And I said, yeah, yeah, what do you want? I'm really busy, I'm so cocky. I said, oh, we've got this job. We want you to do it. And I said, listen, I don't want to do that, it's in Thailand. And I said what? She's in Thailand? And I said what do you mean? It's in Thailand. You're going to pay for me to go to Thailand. And she said yeah, and I went oh, I don't think I've even got a passport.
Speaker 3:So then I suddenly found myself going to Thailand, um, and continuing my thing of the same models that I saw in the magazines, with the big hair and the boobs pushed up and the skin type Versace dresses. Those same women were suddenly in front of me, but I was making them look like the women that I aspire to more and the women that I think are beautiful, like natural beauty, like I never understood the mask of fashion that they gave to every single model, like where's the woman gone. So I suddenly was, and those days you used to take two weeks really to do one shoot. It used to take two weeks really to do one shoot, so you'd have a week off to relax in a five star hotel and then you'd have a week to do an eight page story. So we had all different models. Megan Douglas was one of them.
Speaker 3:I remember Tracee McStover is one of the most amazing women. I've never forgotten her. She told me the day I met her, she to me she was a beautiful model. She said to me I'm doing this because I want to open an orphanage. And I I was only 20, 21, and I was like, well, I didn't really click it, I didn't really. And then she did do that. She earned the money. She an orphanage. She's had it for about 25 years. So she used her.
Speaker 3:It was women like that that I started meeting like really inspiring women like Christy Turlington, like super, smart, super, it completely. So I found a little space where I could fit in this sort of posh world that I really didn't really want to be part of. I wanted to ride my horses and have money to ride my horses. That's what I really wanted. I wanted to do hair and have a farm. That was it. Um, so you know, I really I really, yeah, created my own little space, but very organically, it kind of all happened by mistake and it all happened because I brought something new.
Speaker 3:Like I remember, um, I'd go into the Vogue office smoking, probably at the time, clutching a McDonald's, and I'd sort of plonk myself down and hang out and I think because I was sort of literally off the street from Croydon, I was was so honest and I was so passionate that they loved me and it kind of I wasn't playing any games. I didn't know there was a game to play. I was just me. Like I would say things like oh God, who'd wear that dress? That's hideous. Like, and I'd say that to some of the most famous editors in the world. But they liked that because I made them fresh, I suppose you know. And then you know, it all sort of took off. And then I moved to New York at 24 and I was, you know, found myself doing every single major campaign in the world and I just carried on doing my thing.
Speaker 3:I've never really changed my point of view on women. I did the odd sort of thing which was like crazy wigs and stuff, but it was never my vibe. My vibe is always to enhance women's natural beauty. It's, it has been and always will be like, and for me, uh, the last, the last decade, um, is so against all of that. I feel like it's like, so fake and it's so. You're not right if you're not like this and if your hair hasn't got 40,000 products in it to lift your face, it's just so for me. I don't want any part of that. It's just not what I'm personally into.
Speaker 2:And it's that personality piece that I know you for, that you bring forward in someone you actually help them to just be themselves.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Show themselves rather than covering and wearing a mask.
Speaker 3:That's all you've got is yourself Like if Kate wasn't herself, she would never like Kate, was told. I was in the room when people said this to her oh, you'll never make it, you've got dodgy teeth or you're bow-legged or you're flat. I mean, I was in the room when those conversations happened and I was in the room when photographers said things like that.
Speaker 2:So what do you think it was about her that you know? I mean, she has been an icon ever since. She captures people's hearts and their minds and their imagination. What is it about her that you know? If you think about what was going on culturally with our world in the 90s, you know like we were all kind of it was quite a tough time to be alive. It was like there was mass unemployment, football hooliganism. You know people, Clause 28.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the AIDS virus, aids virus, aids virus. You know, it was really really tough and I remember the toughness of the times and I remember seeing the poverty. I remember there were so many abandoned dogs on the streets. I remember things like that, you know, like just these dogs that had been just passed out because people couldn't afford them anymore, and um, and just growing up and thinking, oh, oh, my God, the world seems really really scary, much like now, actually.
Speaker 2:However, there was something about the time that was also liberating, where we just went to the clubs and we let it all go on the dance floor. We were talking about this earlier and this feeling of like wow, life is really hard, I need to release, and finding our output and finding our release and just using that energy to make stuff to. It wasn't necessarily we weren't thinking how do we be successful or how do we, we just did it and we were inspired by, I think, some of the dark times as well into a space of creativity and opportunity that we made. We made the opportunities in a way, just by being there. Yeah, sorry, that was a lot of spiel from me, but I just was like it was coming through, yeah from that.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, you know that that the thing about the thing about Kate is she was and, and when you're from Croydon and you have nothing and you have an opportunity, you're kind of gonna, you're gonna work hard, you're gonna bring something fresh because, um, like now in the, in the in the uk, fashion is now like the 1950s again. Unless you're privileged, uh, you can't work in fashion anymore. There will never, ever, ever be another me who came from an estate in croydon. There will never be another k, everyone's privileged, everyone's from um a money background or they're from some sort of privilege. So that will that. That that's why the 90s will never happen again.
Speaker 3:Also, um, it's just when things go to extreme, like the big hair, the red lips and the boobs pushed out, like so many women feel excluded from that. So I think in the 90s, um, when people were shown a different version of a woman, they were just so keen to pursue that because it's like, oh, thank god, like, thank god, we're okay and thank god we, you know, like this and and also, it was just fun, wasn't it? Like suddenly you went from very segregated, um, kind of like straight clubs, gay clubs, um, and all in between to. Suddenly everybody was on a dance floor together and that was like the most incredible and I tried to explain it to but they they'll never get it like it's the most just, incredible experience you have to be there you have to experience it.
Speaker 2:And no phones. There were no phones. You know I think this was the thing you were in the moment looking at the person next to you, looking at the person on the podium or whatever they were doing, you know, and the person in the boiler suit and the person putting vics on, and you know, it's just like looking at them, thinking wow yeah, yeah, I mean I was going to say there's something, because my, my daughters are 17 and 20, almost 21 and um, and I obviously have to give them advice on going out and being safe.
Speaker 1:And then I thought back to my childhood and like, oh my god, you know, I was going out, dancing, getting in like lifts with people I didn't know, meeting in, you know, um, service stations, all of that kind of stuff. And then it made me realize it was a different time, because at no point did I feel unsafe and I didn't feel included. Everybody was accepted. And that's got a lot to do with the, the ease and whiz that we were all consuming, but it was a different time and it was all about love. And to speak to that, uh, what you said about the hooliganism, it was claimed that because of that time and what we were doing in the clubs, how can you then go and fight everybody on the terraces? You know it was just and and that's the thing it's like they will never get it because they're not doing the, the things that we were doing at that specific point in time. And I am so grateful that I lived it, because it changed my whole world view, yeah, of people yeah, I think we were.
Speaker 3:I think we um were, as Karen said earlier about about everything was so tough and there was so much going on that we were definitely looking for an outlet to just have some fun. You know like and fun now unfortunately comes through people's phones, it seems. But we were really searching out, we were driving down motorways to meet in a field, like we were searching out that fun and I just I'd love the kids to be still doing that, but they're never, unfortunately, because the phones they're never going to be able to do that. But um, again, the music.
Speaker 3:I mean now I just went to a 21st in of my goddaughter in new york and and there was only me and her mum there. The rest were all her friends and her age. It was only me and her mum there, the rest were all her friends at her age. It was just me and her mother, that was it. We were the only adults, as I'll call them, but they listened to the same music we were listening to. So it's quite interesting. But they just don't have. The outlets Like the clubs are shutting down. You know we had mad clubs like Kinky, galinky and Hacienda and all of those amazing places where not only just the music but like Lee Bowie performed there and loads of bands you know Seal and Adamski and all of those guys you know came out of that era. So exciting.
Speaker 1:I grew up in rural Herefordshire and that was the castle morton common rave experience, and then I was too young to go and know anything about it. But then, suddenly, um, my little village on the the sunday or monday just had all what we call travelers or crusties turning up and the outrage of our ultra conservative, um community. And I just looked at their outrage. I'm like, I want to be like that, so I went full on um grunge.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, um went into more of like the traveler kind of clothing because I was doing everything not to be like my parents. Um, and that was it. And then it moved into a different form of me. But um, karen said you were a bit of a grunger as well then what was that?
Speaker 3:like I was a club kid so I was really a club kid, but you were more club kid, karen, I was club kid.
Speaker 2:I was like there in the like white lacy dresses and the oh no, not for me in the 90s yeah, everyone would have double padding well, I didn't need it.
Speaker 2:So I was like, literally, like, in fact, the last thing I needed was a wonder bra. However, um, it was my outfit of choice and, you know, I went to the hacienda and I did all of that and just was like you know, and I think I was 16 when I first went to the hacienda. So, you know, for me it was like, as a 16 year old, like I had so much freedom, like my parents, I mean, I don't know, I could not do that now with my daughter, but I had a lot of freedom. I went out, I partied, I did it all, and I don't regret any of it. In fact, I look back and I just think how on earth did all that happen and how did we stay safe? Yet we, we were safe, and people, you know, people like walking along shaking your hands, and it was like you know all of that as you're trying to go to the toilet, and it was a moment in time to get to the toilet.
Speaker 2:Remember the old phrase can I give you a massage? I feel like I need a wage. You know what I mean. So it was, you know. Those are the memories that I cherish and I wish we could go back to some of that. And I'm also very, very aware of, you know, the changes that we're all experiencing. I don't even know what to say about that, you know now the kids.
Speaker 3:From what I experience through social media, the kids seem to be always at cheesy restaurants, like me and Kate used to share. I used to get a tip from a client. Social media they're, they seem to. The kids seem to be always at shishy restaurants, like like. Like me and kate used to share I used to get a tip from client, would share a cappuccino, literally would share a cappuccino bar, italia for hours, but now they all just seem to be at shishy restaurants. That there's not, they're not in nightclubs, they're not in um you know. But so I don't know where the money's coming from because we didn't have any money, so I don't remember how I paid for anything. I earned £27.50 a week on a youth training scheme, so I went out seven nights a week. So I don't know how it happened. I lived in a squat at one point in Wood Green, so I just don't know how it all happened.
Speaker 2:The 90s, yeah and I suppose people shared as well, didn't they? I mean, you know, people would share we shared outfits for sure. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:You would wear the Westwood top. The next week, someone else would wear the Westwood top. Like definitely, we did that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Definitely so strange. What are the highlights?
Speaker 2:of the 90s for you? What were the low lives? To wear the westward top like definitely we did that. Yeah, definitely so straight life. What are the highlights of the 90s for you? What were the low lives?
Speaker 3:um, the highlights for me was my first boat cover, definitely because that was so quick and so extreme and I youngest hairdresser in the world to ever have one and still it's still, I'm still the youngest headdress the world ever to have a Vogue cover. So I'm really proud of that. And it was Kate's very first Vogue cover and that really is. I wasn't proud at the time, I didn't really care almost, but now I'm really proud. I'm just so, so proud of that and and all the amazing images that we created. I mean people are going. You know Corin's not around anymore and you know people are leaving us.
Speaker 3:And what didn't I like about the 90s? There's not much I didn't like about the 90s because it was because I mean I was flying around the world, I was going, I was literally this was my life in the 90s. I'd concord to New York, I'd do a Calvin Klein job, I'd concord back and you know I was a kid from Croydon who was on his own and then suddenly I had money, so that meant I could buy a farm and have my horses and and. So the 90s to me were very, very good. You know, and and and, like I said before, it was all just very organic and I I still never learned to play the game because I'm still really, as South London people say, feisty. I'm still really feisty. So I never really learnt to play the game. Still, and I just did me. Thank God, you know, I just did me and I never, and I think from doing me has served me very well, you know.
Speaker 2:I'll never forget the first time we met. We were working, you were doing the hair for Frost French and GHD was the sponsor, and, um, I went in and I was like hi. And you were like hi, and I said, um, can we talk about the hair? And you went, what do you mean? I'm the hairdresser and I was like, well, there's a couple of things I do need to talk to you about. And you were like, well, I am the hairdresser. And I said, should we go outside and have a chat? And you were like sure, we went outside and I said to you all I care about is that you can see the hair and you use the products. What you do with it, I really don't care, but don't put a hat on their heads or do something like that, because that's happened to me before. And you went of course not. Why would I want to do that? I want to see that, you know. And we just had this connection.
Speaker 3:I remember that conversation.
Speaker 2:You remember because I was really nervous because I thought oh, my god, like you know, I'm not a hairdresser and I don't never claim to be a hairdresser, but I, if I, if this happens to me again, I'm probably going to lose my job. Um, you know, if you can't, if GHD is a sponsor and you can't see any hair on any of these things have happened and they do happen, as we know. And you've got a hair sponsor and you were like, of course not. And I just knew, I knew that I could trust you and we just clicked, didn't we? And we have.
Speaker 3:I've got, I've got a polaroid from that exact day, actually from you know, but that's we click straight away. But but things like that happen to me, like I, I, you know, when you're at that level and you're that and you're, you're sort of the the biggest hairdresser in the world at the time and you're flying, you're in four, five, six countries a month sometimes, um, and then I flew from LA to London for a job and I walked in and I just saw about 70 hats and I thought what's going on? So, uh, so the model arrived and everyone arrived and then they started trying on hats and I was like what's going on? They said, oh, it's a hat store. I said I've just flown 11 hours, I'm exhausted, like you didn't need me to be here, like for a hat story. Like why do you need me? You know, like, so things do happen, yeah.
Speaker 1:I have to just say that. Here's another thing that's gone full circle for my daughter's 21st birthday, she's asked for a Polaroid camera.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God, there you go, amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'd just like to bring it on to a little bit of a feminine viewpoint. Onto a little bit of a feminine viewpoint, and I've shared that in the 1990s, being labelled a feminist, it was a really dirty word. Nobody would use that word and if you did, it was because you were a dungaree-wearing lesbian and a man-hater. And so it then shifted from all of this kind of like freedom and raving and they shut all that down and then everything seemed to transition into the Loaded magazine, hustle magazine, all of that kind of stuff, ladec culture, where it was like, ok, if you can't beat them, you've got to go join them.
Speaker 1:And so I went along and I did that because, again, I wanted I didn't want to ever be that good girl or what you know, the big hair, push upup, boob kind of versions, um, and you know, and I I was, you know, still raving and you know, doing all of that kind of stuff. And now I'm the, the mum of girls, and I'm seeing them today going through their version and feminism is still having a backlash, but they've got like their tribe around them and things are shifting. But what I'm also noticing is they're they are so divided and they're getting all of their, their fashion and like their beauty products, everything about this ideal look that they're seeing on social media, and then they've all got to have this unique identity. So we're getting more and more fractured and it breaks my heart, really, and I just wondered what's your take on feminism today, or the problems that women are facing young girls really?
Speaker 3:that the ones who were, yeah, 19, 20, 21 well, I have always said this I'm a, I'm a feminist. I know that. I have always said this I'm a feminist. I know that. I have always, always, always, always, always said that, always. I feel way more in tune with everything about women's sensibilities and all my bosses have always been women. I fashion industry. All, every almost 99 percent of the editors are women. They've all the women have always been my bosses.
Speaker 3:Um, I think now there's so many labels, there's so many boxes to tick, there's so many um, um, out of reach almost I can't even think of the word grotesque ideas of beauty to me that I really worry for young women. I really do, because if they're getting all their information for a phone and everything is retouched, everybody talks about the same thing. But more than that, if we're putting people on platforms that are every single thing about them is fake, that to me, makes my stomach turn. It also makes me very angry that that the that has been pushed in front of young women. It just is wrong and everything. I am against every single thing. A fiber of my being is against the 16 year olds having nose jobs, the 20 year olds having their cat eyes done just the boobs, the butts, the sucking, the tucking, it's just all too much.
Speaker 3:And in a world of so many visuals coming at you, I noticed recently, just a couple of days ago, I looked at there was a fashion show popped up just recently in Paris and I gasped at it's the same old debate at how skinny the models were. I literally gasped. I could not believe, kate, what I was seeing. They all looked like they were about six foot tall and they were skeletal and I thought, wow, what is going on? Like what is going on. There was one model who actually had a bit of a butt and she almost looked disfigured because she was in the middle of all of these clothes hangers. It was so shocking in 2025 that that I was sort of on my own but I was looking around the room. Like what is going on? Like it, just I, just I really worry for young men and young women. But, um, but um, young men, I think, internally women, externally, like the external, that and I see it with some friends daughters, they're filtered up, they're highlighted up, they're sucked there.
Speaker 2:It's just so upsetting to me it's almost like you're looking at something that is a caricature, and you know, especially with the filters and things, because they, it's like, is this, ai, is this?
Speaker 2:but it's a real person, you know, and that's what's scary for me, and I mean, I've got a six-year-old and so she's. We had this conversation today and she said something like nobody's ever going to want to marry me, mummy. And I said what? I don't know where she got this from and I said, um, well, I don't think that's right. Um, however, you may not want to get married, you may decide not to marry, um, but certainly lots of people will love you and you know she's already trying to like, work these things out.
Speaker 2:Now she doesn't have a phone or anything like that, but it it's like, where's this coming from? And I feel like, for whatever reason, you know, young girls are very insecure in that need to be loved, liked, approved of, and that starts so, so young. And she's six and it's already there and she's not thinking about the necessarily aesthetics yet, but there's something inside her that's sort of telling her that she's not good enough somehow, that she won't be selected and that this goes against everything I believe in, because, well, I am a feminist, I've always been a feminist.
Speaker 1:But you know, I certainly believe in waiting for something if it's right for you and not going down the traditional line if that doesn't work for you so I think they hear things in the, the schoolyards and playing, because I know that my friend has got a seven-year-old and she asked for that I can't even remember the brand, but the butt cream to lift and shape your butt at seven, and I don't know where she's seen it, but then she's put it on her Christmas list and they will be talking about this in the schoolyard and you think six, seven, they're really young, but it's infiltrating them.
Speaker 1:The marketeers are infiltrating them already and it's and that's why I said it's just that on the one hand, they are being empowered by people like us who are saying you don't have to get married, you can be who you want. You know beauty, be natural. And then on the other side, there's this relentlessness. Relentlessness to say, actually you've got to look like this. If somebody you know, just look at um love island, they've all got that aesthetic. Um, you know, my, my daughter I couldn't stop her from watching it and um, and with the under boob. But I was like you are not going to to the beach with an under boob like that, but, but nobody will find me attractive like what is going on.
Speaker 3:Um, so it is desperate times and it is grotesque, I agree the most extreme attack on women right now that there's ever been, I feel, on on generations of women. Um, because in the 90s the fashion magazines were leading, um, but unless you really bought fashion magazines, they were just on the shelf in a shop, not men. People had food to buy, they did. There was no money. People had kids to bring up. They weren't buying fashion magazines very elitist, so you could sort of scan it but not really take much notice, whereas now you, you can't get away from it. And now the it's so extreme and so rammed down everybody's throat and in the psyche. Before they go to bed they're looking at those images. When they wake up they're looking at those images and from what I can see as a fashion person, um, and from a lot of the people that are in the magazines, now it's the it's.
Speaker 3:I don't want anything to do with it. I mean, I don't know what else to say except I just don't want nothing to do with it. I'm hoping it will all just go away. I'm not saying let's go back to grunge of the 90s, but I want to go back to seeing a version, whatever that may be, of a real woman, because I'm not seeing that and that's terror. If I was a parent, I'd be terrified, terrified of that.
Speaker 2:But the women, that for the girls, let's go with the girls, the young women, the girls who are not buying into that because there are, there are. There is the alternative, where then they don't want to look like, they don't want to be like that. You know, I can just see the issues for a mile off, you know, to me, and it's almost like that doesn't speak to me. So then they become more outcast, or is it the other way around? I don't know, but I feel like it's really got to be about coming back to who we are, and at those ages you don't really know who you are yet. So, you know, it's almost like that celebration of somebody's true nature, you know, the natural. I mean. I try to do a lot of work with Catalina around self-esteem and listening to her and talking through things and, you know, showing her like iconic women and their paths and what they've done, and pretty much all of those stories actually are grounded in some element of poverty. If I'm going back because I'm going back now all the way to like Rosa Parks, um, you know, there's so many different iconic women, but they've all come from a difficult upbringing. They've all come but they've managed to sort of step into a moment in time, take something forward and generally say actually no, that's not okay and I'm not going to do that. There's always that kind of force of the rebellion that I see in these stories and those are the ones that I want to show to her, because I want her to know that she doesn't have to conform.
Speaker 2:However, we live in a world where, if you don't confirm, there is some really big consequences, and that's when it gets scary for me, because I just think you know I'm like use your voice, speak up, tell the truth, and then there's a part of me that's kind of on the inside going, oh my god, well, that cost. There's a cost to that as well, and I feel like we're in this space and time now where we are speaking up, but we can see the backlash and we can see the wave that's coming forward against women mobilizing and speaking up. You know, and men are doing it too, they're speaking up too, and it just feels. It feels awful. And you know, I had two night terrors last night about this situation, so that's how deep it's going in for me. As somebody, james, who's worked with women, I don't expect you to have all the answers. By the way, you know who has been on these huge rides with women. What would you, what do you want to say to women who are really scared right now?
Speaker 3:people like me, um well, what I would say is spend as little time on social media as you can. Number one drown out the noise, just drown it out. And drown out the noise, drown out the um, opt out of it all, really within reason. Do you know what I mean? Um, just, I mean the whole thing of having kids now, uh, and I see the.
Speaker 3:I was in the gym the other day here in Ireland and the guy was telling me a very sort of burly man man was telling me that his daughter in school was being told that she wasn't allowed to eat by the other girls. You're not allowed to eat, you're too fat. So the girls were bullying her. There's a lot of bullying like that going on. It broke my heart. I just thought, wow, and what you just said about empowering them? Um, karen, I don't know what to say. It's, it breaks my heart, you know. It just really does. I don't know what to say.
Speaker 3:But I think it's a higher level, like. I think, like that show that I just saw in paris, if we are, if we're sending that message out to the world again, there's a real problem. There's a real, real problem if, um, and also it comes from a place of um elitist bullshit, I don't know how else to put it. You know, like, this is the aesthetic, this is what you've all gotta um aim for. Um, if you don't look like this, you're not um accepted or normal. You know, like we're, we are literally in a situation where a nose job now is like having your ears pierced, and that is terrifying situation for women to be in, like 14, 15, 16 year old girls wanting their noses done. You know.
Speaker 1:I am going to. I'm conscious of time, so I'm going to end with one final question, for Karen wraps up, because I'm just intrigued and it's a lighter one. You said when you were starting, starting out, all you ever really wanted to do was have a farm. Did you ever get it?
Speaker 3:yeah, I got. I put, like my dad reminded me of this quite recently and he said, oh, you always said we, because I'm like for Croydon, like where does he come up with that one? And I said it from like I'm gonna have a farm. Yeah, I had I, yeah, I bought my farm when I was 27.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I had my dream. But you know, while other people were sort of spending their summers and their weekends in wherever San Chope or Ibiba, I was on my farm shoveling, you know, cleaning the horses, and that's what, and I still do the same thing today. So for me, fashion was a means to take me from Croydon to have my dream of, of having my animals, and I'd love to open a sanctuary at some point. Dogs, horses that's my dream, to, to, to make some money and do that. That's what I'd love to dreaming, james keep dreaming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna make it happen.
Speaker 3:I always make everything happen.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna manifest it thank you so much for being here today, thanks for being on this journey with me, thanks for supporting womankind around the world. I'm I always love hearing your stories, listening to your wisdom. Um, if there's one thing that we can all take away from this conversation today, it's to check in on our little ones, the little part of ourselves, our younger generations, and just spend time listening to them and being with them, because I feel like our wisdom is needed along the line.
Speaker 3:It's what I said to you this morning, carol, about you sitting down and eating with Catalina. That doesn't happen anymore. People don't even have dining tables, they sit in front of a screen. Even that small thing of talking to your daughters and your son and talking to them like forcing that to happen until 12, 13, 14, like forcing that to happen to, you know, until 12, 13, like forcing that 20 minutes of torture for them. Probably they want to sit with their parents, but that's so important. It's old, almost old school values, isn't it?
Speaker 2:old school values. Thinking about, you know, that time of the 90s, what we were all searching for was freedom and liberation, and I feel like still seeking it and we're still searching it. Yeah, that feeling is a feeling that lives inside all of us and so it's our job to do the deep, to do the deeper work back out and to help the younger generations.
Speaker 3:Let's all say it together thank you so much if anybody wants to call me about the menopause, it's 0800 666 122 oh, you've been brilliant.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. So, thanks for listening, and we can't wait to welcome you next time.
Speaker 2:Until then, use your voice, journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it, we hope you join us in saying it's a star.