Anya Hindmarch

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2012

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the designer and businesswoman, Anya Hindmarch.

Given her first handbag by her mother at 16, she knew that her future lay in fashion. At 18 she went to Florence to immerse herself in Italian style, and ended up deep in the world of Florentine leather, getting samples made up of a duffel bag she'd spotted. An initial run of 500 bags sold out. Fast forward 25 years and her eponymous fashion business is globally successful with her designs much sought after.

She's also known for her conscience and designed a canvas tote called "I'm not a plastic bag" as part of an environmental campaign to highlight our over use of plastic bags.

She combines all this with a hectic family life. She met and subsequently married a widower 12 years her senior when she was 25. He had 3 children aged under 5 and they've added a further two to the clan.

She says her life is like "juggling and dancing while having one arm and one eye at the same time".

Producer: Alison Hughes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.
0:06.0	For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
0:10.0	For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.
0:17.0	Radio 4. My cast away this week is the fashion designer and businesswoman Anya Hindmarsh.
0:38.0	Her name is synonymous with handbags and her creations are seen dangling from the arms of the discerning woman and the
0:45.0	savvy glitterati.
0:46.8	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 over use of
0:55.0	plastic bags went down a storm people cued for hours worldwide to get their well
1:00.9	manicured hands on one.
1:03.0	The business she started from her little kitchen table now has more than 50 shops around the world.
1:09.0	She's also a mother of five.
1:11.0	Perhaps it's no wonder that she says her life's like juggling and dancing whilst having a one arm and one eye at the same time.
1:18.0	So you are good at circus skills then, are you?
1:20.0	Not terribly, that's the problem, if only and you were awarded just this year the prestigious Vervco
1:26.6	Business Woman of the Year for 2012 award back in 2007 you got the designer
1:30.8	brand of the year at the British Fashion Awards and I'm wondering
1:33.6	Businesswoman or designer which one takes centre stage? That there and lies the
1:37.8	problem in some respects or perhaps the nice aspect because I love both.
1:42.1	Recently actually I took the brave
1:43.8	decision I think to demote myself and go back to just purely the creative role.
1:47.0	But obviously I'm still very involved in business decisions but I'm equally
1:50.3	attractive to both roles and that's been a real advantage actually in
	...

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