Anya Hindmarch - If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair

ANYA HINDMARCH founded her company as a teenager in 1987. She has since grown it into an award-winning global brand known for its craftsmanship, creativity and sense of humour, including the hugely successful Im Not A Plastic Bag campaign. An advocate of British design and arts, Anya is NED of the British Fashion Council and Emeritus Trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts and the Design Museum. She was appointed Governor of the University of the Arts in 2010 and a Prime Ministers Business Ambassador in 2011, holds both an MBE and a CBE and is a Trustee of the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. She has honorary doctorates from the Universities of East Anglia and Essex but lives in London, where her proudest achievement is hosting a sleepover in the bed department of Peter Jones.

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First published in Great Britain 2021

This edition published 2022

Copyright Anya Hindmarch, 2021

Anya Hindmarch has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work

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ISBN: HB: 978-1-5266-2974-6; PB: 978-1-5266-2973-9; EBOOK: 978-1-5266-2972-2; EPDF: 978-1-5266-4365-0

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I dedicate this book to the women in my life:

To my family: my sister, my sisters-in-law, my mother-in-law (and hopefully one day my daughters-in-law), my god-daughters and my other daughters.

To my girlfriends, the Women I Admire, the brilliant women I work with every day, the Walkie Talkies and the Hormonal Voyagers (dont ask).

Also, importantly, to the real mother of my oldest three children, her very supportive family, and to the incredible women who have helped me raise my children especially the legend that is Mia.

But above all, I would like to dedicate this to my mother, Susan, and my daughter, Tia. If life is a relay race then my mother gave me a truly great handoff, and I am doing my very best to pass the baton as smoothly as I can to someone I know to be a very strong runner indeed. This is a bad analogy running was never my strength but I truly believe this baton pass to be the only really meaningful measure of my success.

Contents

I am often asked what my best piece of advice would be for a busy woman and I nearly always reply with: If in doubt , wash your hair. Its an answer that almost every woman seems to understand at least, it usually elicits a lot of knowing smiles. On the one hand it is flippant, trivial. It literally sums up how much better I feel about myself how much more confident, how much glintier-eyed, how much better able to cope and respond if I have freshly washed hair. But on the other hand, I think my quip also speaks to the fact that we are all, and possibly women more than others, plagued by doubt. I suppose everyone who smiles knowingly at my silly piece of advice must also in some way relate to this doubt Im referring to. I am fascinated by where it comes from, fascinated by how we can help ourselves to live our most doubt-free lives, and curious as to why it often takes until fifty to get there. If I were to summarise what the rest of this book is about, it is quite simply that.

I never imagined that I would write a book. I am by nature an intensely private person and there were so many reasons not to put my head above the parapet and commit to paper for all eternity the jumble of thoughts that passes between my ears.

But, having hit fifty, I suddenly felt that I had a lot to say. Not because I have always got it right, but mostly, actually, because I havent. And now I realise that that is OK too.

Turning fifty was a moment for me: time to reflect and take stock. I had started a business aged eighteen, built it up until it had fifty-eight stores in ten countries, sold part of it, realised that that had been a mistake, and managed to buy it back again. I had come to a better-late-than-never understanding of the necessity (and surprisingly even pleasure?) of keeping my body and mind fit and healthy. I had, with lots of help, many missteps and much making it up as I went along, brought up five children in a modern blended family not altogether unsuccessfully (I hope).

So I decided I was going to feel lucky, not resentful, to be getting older. And I realised how much I had learnt in my first half-century, and how much better it would have been if I had learnt it all earlier. I also realised that there are two issues on which the younger generation are shaming the rest of us right now. The first is the environment and sustainable living (more of that later) and the second is being honest about what goes on inside our heads.

Its funny, but when people first started speaking out about the importance of mental health, I remember wondering how it would ever be OK to talk about self-doubt, or to be openly vulnerable. And yet, quite quickly, the perception and understanding of the various voices washing around our heads has been transformed. From being something draining, misunderstood, unspoken of, its now for the majority of us simply about remembering to look after our minds just as we do our bodies. Good days, bad days. A constant tension, some aches and pains, a continuing work in progress, a continuing inner dialogue.

But however good the younger generation are at talking honestly and sharing their feelings, they dont have the years of experience. And experience counts. I have noticed, when I give talks to groups of women, which I do from time to time, that the bits that resonate most strongly always seem to be the honest advice when I share what I have worried about and how I have dealt with it, or not.

Covid-19 swept through our lives while I was writing this book. It changed so much, while at the same time reinforcing all the things I already knew. It emphasised the fragility of our planet. It made us stop and consider our core values and what was really important to us. It made horribly clear the overriding importance of looking after our physical and mental health and our families. It brought home to me how much good fortune I have had in my life so far.

Having reached this halfway mark, I thought I would put my fears to one side and share as a mother to a daughter, as a friend to a friend what I have learnt, what I worry about, what I think (rightly or wrongly) and the advice I have gathered, borrowed and stolen along the way. This advice covers thoughts on being a woman, a mother, a stepmother, a wife, a woman in business and an entrepreneur, and on dealing with the challenges that come with trying to keep them all going at the same time. I give it openly and, I hope, kindly.

At fifty I still feel the same as I did at eighteen. My father once said to me when he was about seventy, I dont feel any different apart from when I play squash or look in the mirror. I think that is true. Except that also, I care less about the unimportant things. I have learnt to trust my judgement. And I have learnt to accept.