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How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

SPECIAL EPISODE! How to Fail: Henry Holland on business failure in the time of Covid-19

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

Sony Music

Society & Culture

4.79.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2020

⏱️ 67 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the last of four special episodes specifically designed to help you through lockdown and Covid-19 anxiety, I welcome the fashion designer Henry Holland onto the podcast. This week, How To Fail returns to its usual format of discussing three failures but I've chosen to make this a special episode because one of Henry's failures will speak directly to a lot of people right now. It is the failure of his business, House of Holland, a failure linked to the impact of Coronavirus and which has left Henry having to call in the administrators and let beloved members of staff go. It's a failure he is still coming to terms with and I'm so grateful to him for choosing to talk about it. We also discuss growing up in Ramsbottom, with childhood friend (and future supermodel) Agyness Deyn, and going to a school which stifled his individuality and where even the female teachers were called 'sir'. Later, Henry became a fashion journalist on teen magazines in London before he started making slogan t-shirts as a side-hustle. The t-shirts proved so popular they rapidly became a sought-after fashion item, and Henry's future in fashion was assured. It was a life that took him onto the world's catwalks and into some of the most glamorous parties (keep your ears tuned in for the Kanye West anecdote) but, last month, he was forced to acknowledge that his business was no longer financially sustainable.  'The emotional turmoil of closing a business was one that was heavy to bear,' he wrote recently in a piece for British Vogue. 'But now, on the other side, while unemployed in the craziest economic time we’ve experienced in a generation, I can’t help but feel a sense of relief. Relief I am no longer letting people down. Relief I am no longer pretending everything is perfect when in fact it’s not. And relief most of all that I have space and time to think about what it is I want from my working life.'Thank you Henry. We'll be back in June for a brand new season with a truly fabulous line-up of guests. Until then, stay safe and I hope you all enjoy the episode.  *If you really can't get enough How To Fail content and are looking for something to read during lockdown, there is a book! How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong is out now and available to order here* How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and recorded, edited and mixed by Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email howtofailpod@gmail.com* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHenry Holland @henryholland  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Channel 4 is the home of your next TV obsession. As the UK's biggest free streaming service,

0:07.9

they have it all from classic comedy box sets to shocking reality, gripping drama and

0:14.0

mind bending documentaries. They make content that's different from the rest and that

0:18.9

represents a broad cross-section of society. It's the home of unfiltered entertainment.

0:24.4

It's altogether different telling, made for you and happily for me because regular listeners

0:30.7

will know about my married at first sight Australia obsession. Currently on the TV, I cannot

0:37.0

get enough of it. I watch it every single night. I really miss it when it's not on on

0:41.1

the Sunday. And for anyone who doesn't know, it follows Australian singles who tie the

0:46.1

knot with partners selected for them by relationship experts, including male shilling, former

0:51.6

How to Fail podcast guest. They meet for the first time on their wedding day and we watch

0:57.1

to find out whether there will be perfect matches ahead or marriage mayhem. I love it.

1:03.5

So stream now on Channel 4. There is so much on there, including Maffsa and Scared of

1:10.0

the Dark, Danny Dyer hosting as eight celebrities are plunging to complete darkness for eight

1:15.1

days. How will Paul Gasco and Chris Ubank's scarlet

1:18.4

Muffet, Nicola Adams and others cope without light stream all of this now on Channel 4?

1:26.4

Now time for a quick message from Canva. Creating visual content is an essential part of what I do.

1:33.2

Regular listeners will know that before I knew any better, I drew my own logo for How to Fail

1:38.8

with felt-it-pens. The creative process, as you can imagine, hasn't always been easy for me.

1:44.9

And in the past, I used to do this thing where I would really struggle to format visual presentations.

1:53.2

And I would try to put together a mishmash of different fonts and filters from various aspects of

2:00.8

social media and then I would try and save the image and then I would try and repost it.

2:05.0

And it just never looked very good. But here is the answer to all of your problems. It's Canva

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