Mary Portas on Anita Roddick

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Dame Anita Roddick started The Body Shop in Brighton as a way to earn a living while her husband was travelling the Americas by horseback. Her idea for ethically-sourced beauty products which were initially sold in urine sample bottles soon flew. The first shop that she began with a £4,000 loan and painted green to disguise the damp on the walls then developed into a global empire which was eventually sold to L'Oreal for £652m in 2006.

Retail consultant and broadcaster Mary Portas has chosen Anita Roddick as her Great Life for her extraordinary creativity, her playfulness and her innovation. She is joined by Anita Roddick's daughter Sam who now works with the Roddick Foundation which distributes some of her fortune to charitable causes. They reflect on how Anita Roddick put principles ahead of profit. She championed cruelty-free beauty and drew inspiration from her international travels to bring exotic-sounding products to the High Street. She pioneered the introduction of creches at work and used her shop windows to promote the environmental campaigns she believed in, leading her to be dubbed the "Queen of Green". They discuss her legacy and ask whether there is still a place for The Body Shop today.

Archive includes Anita Roddick talking on the Nine O' Clock News on 16th April 1984 and from the BBC Life And Times television programme from 2000. It also features Peter Kyle MP talking about his time working for Anita Roddick on the Political Thinking Podcast from 2003.

Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Robin Markwell for BBC Studios Audio in Bristol

Transcript

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0:00.0	Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of
0:07.0	Happiness Podcast.
0:08.0	For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want
0:14.4	to share that science with you.
0:16.1	And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.
0:19.4	I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that
0:25.5	calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.6	The founder of the body Shop, Dame Anita Rodick, blazed the brightest of trails,
0:37.0	a businesswoman who put principles ahead of profit, a creative genius who turned a brightened shop selling lotions out of
0:44.8	urine sample bottles into a retail empire of 2,000 stores across 53 countries.
0:51.5	Her exotic product ranges, banana shampoo, mango body butters,
0:56.9	kiwee fruit lip balms, were inspired by the faraway cultures she encountered on her travels. They were sold as cruelty free, fair trade,
1:06.8	and environmentally responsible at a time when the whole idea was new. Anita Rodick is the choice of another Queen of Shops, the retail consultant and broadcaster Mary Portas.
1:19.2	And before we begin, here's Anita on the day the body shop floated for 80 million pounds on the London stock exchange.
1:27.0	The timing was incredible and any success story is the element of luck. The name was wonderful. I mean the body shop. Can you believe it?
1:35.2	They all thought in Bryan it was a sex shop to start with. And then we had the publicity because we opened
1:40.8	next to a funeral parlor and they sent me a solicitor's letter saying you know you can't call this a body shop you know with the coffins passing
1:47.6	So that gave us a lot of publicity and I think really from there on we broke we broke so many rules and they expect us to break rules. We don't package,
1:55.8	we have refills. But hasn't it all grown a bit too big now? I mean, hasn't a lot of the fun
2:00.5	gone out of the business? Are you kidding? It's just starting. That was
2:05.5	Anita Rodick on the 9 o'clock news in April 1984. Mary Portas, why have you chosen
2:11.8	her? Oh just listening to that I think we know the answer.
	...

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