“In America, there’s a programme called ‘The Swan.’ They take 12 ugly people and call them ‘ugly ducklings.’ They spend six months and have everything done – plastic surgery, teeth, everything. And then they have this moment where their family is brought in, and they are revealed. It’s scary.”
“Don’t look at your legs and think: ‘They’re fat.’ Think: ‘These things carry me around all day, and I don’t have arthritis. Oh, and I’ve got great ankles.’”
“So many women buy these boxy, shapeless jackets. I always tell them to buy a jacket one size too small to get the right fit.”
“I’m very conscious about putting good food into my body. Years ago, I went to see an amazing healer called Allah, who could read your body. She told me that I can’t absorb vitamins very well, and I have to eat the right things to get my vitamins. I’ve always remembered that.”
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love fashion. As a child, I was always particular about what I’d wear. I remember feeling most aggrieved that I had to put on a dull uniform to go to boarding school.”
“English women would rather go out and buy a washing machine than shop for clothes.”
“You don’t find women with great confidence dressed as if they don’t care.”
“I was a very unconfident teenager. I wanted desperately to fit in.”
“I would advise women not to be shy about admitting they’ve had Botox – it just shows you want to look your best, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I judge when I need a top-up of Botox by looking in the mirror to see if I can move more than half my forehead.”
“I will admit I am quite obsessive about the world of anti-ageing.”
“My pain threshold is quite high when it comes to vanity.”
“If you are heading for 60, people will flirt with you; if you are heading for 70, they won’t.”
“When you’re with a big TV channel, there’s a sense of having to behave in a certain way in order to get audience figures.”
“I think only a woman understands another woman’s body.”
“Classically posh girls like Victoria Hervey are now trying to be Hollywood girls. Hollywood girls are trying to be posh girls. Everything is all mixed up, turned on its head.”
“So many people hide inside their clothes.”
“I’ve been nine stone for 20 years. I always eat what I want; it’s not an issue for me.”
“I think I just took a while to know myself. I went on a journey to find out. I was a bit wild.”
“I’ve had these lips all my life, and I love them.”
“I’d never have a facelift, as I have never seen one that looks good.”
“I had a strong faith that I would, eventually, have a baby.”
“I’m not good at cutting off from work.”
“I’m having to learn to get the balance right, because if you want a full-time career, and you also want to be a mother who is there for your child, then you have to make sure that when you do spend time together, you’re really there for them.”
“I’m a mixture of untidy and anal.”
“I love the idea of cooking, but I don’t like using recipe books, so I’ll put a mish-mash together, and it might be amazing by total accident, or it will be a catastrophe.”
“I am very precise about what food I like. I’m very much a nursery-food person, and really hate chichi dishes.”
“There were times when rehab and the halfway house were very, very tough, but I never felt that I wanted to leave.”
“The idea of what a feminist is has changed so much that there needs to be a new word for it.”
“For me as an individual, it’s important that I have a career as a role model for my children, that I earn my own money, and I spend it prudently and imprudently.”
“It’s very exciting to feel like a different woman with a new identity.”
“I hate trends, but I love fashion.”
“Many women are pear-shaped and tend to wear jeans that are too loose. They need to focus on what jeans will re-proportion their body.”
“Shorts are practically a uniform in every woman’s closet. Tailored shorts are okay for running around, and if you’re 18, you can get away with cut-offs. But it’s very easy to make a mistake with shorts.”
“A Joan Crawford dress looks really good on an hourglass figure.”
“Even my basic, basic wardrobe is still pathetically colour coordinated. It just is. That is just me.”
“I would never go out in track bottoms and a baggy T-shirt.”
“I enjoy waking up in the morning and thinking, ‘Who do I want to be today?’”
“I don’t have a problem with the stories saying I’m skinny at all.”
“Diets are rubbish. I eat healthily, and often have a day when I stuff myself.”
“Every morning, I have a drink of spinach, blueberry, celery, carrot and Gillian McKeith energy food with linseed.”
“To me, it is like a diabetic with insulin. If that diabetic stops taking insulin, they will die, and I believe that if I don’t follow the 12-step programme, I will regress, and that could eventually be the death of me.”
“To me, the word ‘workaholic’ is a negative word.”
“I think I’m very focused and am quite a good multitasker, and I’m quite driven in knowing what my responsibilities are to my family and knowing what I’ve got to do to do that.”
“In some ways, I’m slightly like a single parent, so I need to be able to provide for my family.”
“I grew up in a very normal home.”
“I came to London when I was 16 and lived with my older sister.”
“The first time I was given money to shop for myself, I was 13 and staying with my godmother in New York. I went to Clinique and bought the three-step acne programme and felt so grown-up.”
“I literally change on the shop floor. I just stand there in my knickers sometimes.”
“Perhaps British TV companies don’t want women my age on screen. I don’t know.”
“At school, I was only allowed four sweets every Wednesday, so I’ve developed an addiction.”
“Ottolenghi sells lots of delicious sweet things, but my daily addiction is their unbelievable dark chocolate salted caramel biscuits. They’re the best things in the world – I go through half a packet every night. I bring them out after pudding at dinner parties.”
“I want to feel I have the energy I will need as an older mother having a younger baby. It’s really important that when I’m 51, and my daughter is 10, that I feel I can still run around and do things with her, and feel the energy of a slightly younger woman having their kids at school.”
“To me, a yummy mummy is a mum in her twenties, like Donna Air.”
“My first proper job was as a commodities broker. I went off to work every morning in an ’80s power suit. I couldn’t afford a good one, so I’d buy nice buttons instead and make it look better than it actually was.”
“When I was 18, my mum gave me all the clothes she’d had made at the famous haute couture fashion label, House of Worth, in Paris. Of course, I eventually trashed them all.”
“I’d love to say fashion faux pas differ from country to country, but they don’t.”
“I’ve a big bum and chunky calves. My husband says I’ve got elephantiasis of the legs.”
“I felt so unbelievably ugly for years.”
“I went on Accutane, which is very strong. Your sebaceous glands dry up, you can’t exercise, and you have very dry lips. But it was a miracle, and it worked.”
“I know I am not the worst-dressed person.”
“I find it easy to dress other women, but when it comes to myself, I find it very difficult. I used to have no particular interest in clothes. Now I enjoy it more and pay much more care and attention. But I do get it wrong lots of times, and I’m like every other woman: learning from experience.”
“My grandfather was Scottish, born in the slums of Glasgow.”
“We all know what we don’t like about our bodies.”
“The days of red carpet disasters are kind of over.”
“A marriage can go wrong at any time.”
“Careers, children and homemaking all come above preserving your appearance. Self-preservation is at the bottom of the scale.”
“If you want to make the best of yourself, you don’t necessarily need to diet – you need to wear the right stuff.”
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