I take my style cue from the mums on the school run these days. A lot of them look really stylish, and I just love their skirt and knee-high boots combination. It looks fantastic. I’ve been really fed up with my look – all scrunched-up hair and old coats. So I thought I’d shock them all by turning up in this really nice brown outfit – a chestnutty cord skirt from Monsoon and suede boots from Selfridges. My only concession to being an Eighties pop star is the top, which is quite saucy with lace-up the front showing off a bit of cleavage.
The problem with this outfit is that it’s so successful I now wear it to everything – the school, work meetings, the lot – so it’s losing its wow factor. I’m now going to have to go out and replicate it but in different colours such as sage green and purple. I love earth colours; I’m an earth mother kind of girl!
I’m just about to convert my bedroom at home, and make it bigger and lighter so I’m in the throes of analysing all my clothes in minute detail. To my utter horror and dismay I’ve decided that 98 per cent of them will be winging their way to the charity shop. They’re all Eighties things, big shoulders, sexy stuff, and two sizes too small. After two kids I’m a size 14, not 10 or 12.
Now I’m lamentably low on half-decent clothes. Sometimes I secretly wish that I could have the Trinny and Susannah What Not to Wear treatment. I could handle everything except their merciless 3D mirror. I couldn’t cope with that. But I do find clothes shopping quite difficult. Sometimes I feel a bit of a blob and I don’t care to have that confirmed by putting on a size 14 and finding it tight. That makes me miserable forever. Occasionally I avoid the whole procedure by buying through mail- order catalogues, but sadly with just a few successes.
I still like a bit of ritz, though. Red is my ritzy colour; it really suits me with my blue eyes and olivey skin. I have three or four favourite red tops that give me a bit of oomph for going out. When I do a photo shoot, I’m really spoilt by the fact that I get the use of a stylist who pitches up with loads of great clothes. Unfortunately, she will then take them away again, unless I bend her arm to sell them to me at a reasonable price.
And I still have my stagewear – the hand-made leather trousers and lace-up tops slashed to the waist – for my Eighties tours. Each outfit costs pounds 1,000 a time – not including the high-heeled stage boots I wear with them – but at the moment they’re just piled on the floor.
I always get my hair done at Toni & Guy in Marylebone High Street before I go on tour. They’re all really good there. Otherwise, I go to the hairdressers only a handful of times a year. But I’m thinking of going back soon as I feel in need of a spring makeover – my hair’s in a real mess at the moment. I do always keep up with my make-up though – that’s one of the hang-overs from my career. I use Mac products predominantly but also anything else that’s good. I really enjoy make-up. When I’m in airports I’m always drawn to the make-up counters. I love the colours and the fact it makes you feel good. If I’m going to treat myself I will buy a really fab lipgloss. I don’t do mascara regularly at all. I can never get it all off again.
Obviously I wear jeans and a T-shirt when I’m doing the gardening. Well, usually – every now and again, like the other day, I rush out in my white towelling robe and these 3in-high creamy platform shoes I’ve always used as slippers. Of course they both got covered in mud. But the sun was out and the lure of the garden was too much. If I’d run upstairs to get dressed the phone would probably have rung and that glorious moment would have been lost.