Today, I'm going on a sartorial Journey with broadcaster
miquita. Oliver. 38 year old Makita has
been on TV. Since she was 16 when she began
presenting Channel 4's, cult, Sunday morning, pop culture,
show pop world. She went on to present, T4 from
2006 to 2010. She's worked in radio hosting
shows on BBC, Radio, 1 and BBC Radio 1.
Extra in 2022 Makita and her mother TV, share from presenter,
Andy Oliver, featured in a BBC, television series.
The Caribbean with Andy and Makita starting out in Antigua
where they met members of their extended family reconnected with
her Antiguan Heritage, and illuminated the islands, history
and culture. And most recently, and Ian
Makita have appeared on Celebrity gogglebox together.
Hello? And welcome Makita.
Hello Miranda. I would Your voice to read me.
Lullabies, sing me lullabies. That is so kind.
Read me bedtime stories, that's my dog doesn't seem to think
that the same, but I mean hopefully my partner thinks that
very soft and natural as I do, I feel safe.
Now I've loved watching your journey and I love the fact that
you are working so much with your mum.
Yes. How is that feeling?
I love working with mum. I think it's weird.
I guess broadcasting is almost the family business for her and
I And and she's very good at what she does and wasn't
celebrated for it for a long time and sort of did bits and
pieces. And I fell into this very big
career as a teenager. So it's sort of like we did the
reverse way of things, like I became really successful in this
industry, and she wasn't and then it sort of turned around
and my career kind of had a stall.
And I went through a lot and you know everything that happens
after you've been on TV for 15 years, you have a bit of a
nervous breakdown to look at you.
I forget and then my mom's career started to ascend and
then my career came back and so we sort of met in this beautiful
place where we're doing everything.
We've always wanted to do at the same time which I don't think
always happens in life. So I feel really lucky and
people say oh do you do you get on with your mum?
It's not really about that. It's a magical thing to make
television that people love and feel with someone that you love.
So so you've been on this magical journey but 16 years
old, when you started, I mean, how did that happen?
West London, I'd say probably had something to do with it.
I grew up on, in Western park by Portobello and lab at Grove.
And it was a very, you know, there was the late 90s, early
naughties I suppose that it was like 2,000.
It was like just the New Millennium and there was a good
are in West London. There was a lot of creativity
wasn't as wild as 192 kind of brilliant days in the 90s, but
there was, there was Not going on and my mum and I had lived
there for a very long time. So we sort of knew everyone and
a TV producer. Wonderful TV producer, who
changed my life called Tamsin, just an old friend of my mom's
remembered me from a dinner party and they had channel for
her to commissioned a new music show.
They had got Simon amstell but they've been looking for a girl
for a few months and they'd sort of gone.
The stage School wrote and hadn't really found anything
that they wanted but they also didn't really know.
What they were looking for because what pop while became is
not what it was commissioned as. And and my mum said times and
wants to know if you want to audition for this music shows,
absolutely not. It sounds terrifying and really
overwhelming and I'm I was just, I've been to like all these
different schools and I hadn't settled and I was just settled
and just starting to my gcses so I was like, no I don't, I don't
do that, but she was that you'll you can not go to science for
the afternoon. I double science and she was
like, you won't have to go. That is any girls cream?
Not greater science and just do a little addition.
But I just I find auditions. I think I did like one theater
audition as a kid and I got such bad anxiety and I've never, I do
since getting the job, but when I was very young, I didn't deal
with nerves well, and I just didn't want to be nervous.
But of course, the greatest things in life are on the other
side of what were terrified of and I got there and it was just
like, like Good Will Hunting when he says, like Mozart, I
could just play when he's talking about how his muffin.
Petition mind works, I just knew how to do it Amanda and I don't
know why but I just I mean possibly because of mom but it
was deeper than that. I just understood the rhythm of
it very quickly and we left and I was like, I want that job and
when I was I remember your 16, it might not happen and, you
know, it was a good experience. I was like, I want that job how
magical? So did you drop out of school?
That point? Yeah.
Week later, they offered it to me and my mom were a bit like
what? It was going to be on every day
because it was launching E4 as a long.
Yes. And it was gonna be on Channel 4
as well. And they were going to pay me
like this is certain amount of money, and I was just like, I
was very overwhelmed. And then my mom's, like, she's
still in school and they said, okay, so they changed the
filming schedule. So that I would go to school.
Do pop one in the mornings, have lunch and then go to school.
So, I'd like wake up, like interview, like Nelly.
All. I uh sure how does and then go
to like pee? It was really, it was very weird
time but it was exciting, a very exciting, but my body came out
in this huge rash. I so I think a part of me was
freaking out. Well, I'm not surprised.
I'm in 16. Is, you're a kid?
Yes, suppose you are but that and that's a huge, huge job with
huge. Interviewing.
As you were saying, huge names, I was just always around
creative people. People that were in big bands
and were big people in television.
And also the kind of more squally Roughnecks from West
London. So it was a real mixture of
people that had been brought up with.
So I wasn't that fazed by an Atomic Kitten or a member of
blue or even an usher. I would just I was never that
overwhelmed by Fame. I just I just thought it was
quite interesting to be able to talk to all these different
people. So coming back to now.
Any other exciting projects up your sleeves sort of four years
ago I started working. Really hard to get back to a
place that I had previously been.
But actually I knew I wanted to go a lot higher and I have and I
think you have to got, it takes a lot to decide to put yourself
back in the world to say that I'm a broadcast of, this is what
I do. I love it and I want to work
again and I want to do more and I want to do bigger things and I
want to be trusted with big things.
It's really hard. What was the Catalyst that made
you decide that you were ready for that?
I think I was bored. Yeah.
I don't like being bored and I realize it's because I wasn't
using my mind much. And if you're a broadcaster, you
have to be hired to work. You can't just sit around
broadcasting at home. Yeah.
Like a pain to my paint. Yeah.
And I was always too scared to kind of ask for my place in the
industry again and then suddenly I just wasn't suddenly, I just
wasn't scared. I was ready.
Spiritually, and physically. I've been training really hard
and lost a lot of weight. I was really in my body.
Me and my body were very Corrected.
Me and my mind are very close. You know, I started therapy
forgot a crucial crucial part of the story.
I started therapy and I got to talk about everything that had
happened and I'd never really talked about it was just like,
oh yeah, I got really famous noted that show and I became TV
presenter, but actually it was a lot and it was a real, a really
difficult thing to talk about because I never thought I could
have found it for people. Be like, who cares?
If you got more famous, but actually being famous is a very
odd thing. Specially, if you haven't hunted
it out and if you have it from that age right now, I've been
famous longer than I haven't been.
I've never been an adult who hasn't been well known.
Yeah, which is quite a lot and it took a lot of therapy to be
able to explain that every single person down the street
shouting. My name, everyone knowing you
because you're on the Telly. So you everyone thinks and your
16 grow up. Yeah, 16.
That's sort of it was a lot but now it's brilliant because
everyone says to me, I grew up watching you.
I grew up watching You and I feel like I got all these people
through their school, through their unique.
That's what I realized. I thought, hang on.
If people still say thank you, you got me through this or I
loved watching this. Then I know there's a reason for
me to be back in that world and to do it again, mom.
And I also doing a lot more travel after the Caribbean
success. That was such a beautiful
experience to do to do something like that for the BBC was really
special, but it was so loved we Not to go anywhere without many.
Many people talking to us about how much it opened up
conversations in their family. Yeah, about Heritage ancestry.
There's not just a black story. We had Polish Russian Jewish at
mean, Asian everyone just saying thank you.
And we, suddenly realized that this is a really important thing
for us to keep doing to keep traveling and keep showing parts
of the world and talking about ancestry.
So that's what we're doing next. Your Instagram post on
International women's Women's day, I found that so powerful
where you were reflecting on being criticized about your
appearance, your hair, and how you presented yourself.
It was so brave. So raw, what inspired you with
that post? Thank you.
Well, I was asked to do this job for banish a which are huge
production company conglomerate to tell other women's stories
and then they asked me if I had one and I immediately went to So
harassment feeding sexually threatened all those things and
I didn't, I've never had any experience like that.
And I'm very lucky, especially naughties succeed, but people
just too involved with drinks and drugs and alcohol to be
bothered to do anything like that.
It was I felt very protected actually my whole career but
this was a story of a time where I felt like I was torn apart and
broken down and that who I was and how it would affect me.
Me to have that conversation was never thought about or taken
into account. And I realized it in TV at that
time, there wasn't that kind of nurture that what I've liked one
spirit that wouldn't have. I was going to say, would that
happen today? Do you think?
No way. Yeah.
And not even just because people are being careful.
I think we just we just you just wouldn't relate to it.
I was 23, she was 55 and it's quite difficult because she's
sort of family friend, as well. It was just a really difficult.
Duration for me and I thought was really important to say to
say something because the new ones of the negative things
we've been through as women in the workplace, is really
important. It's not just as black and
white. As this happened sec, I was
sexually harassed. I was sexually threatened or I
felt limited. It's like you have to tell the
story if I just said they criticize my hair all right, but
it was just the atmosphere that it created around me.
And it was very quickly after that, I was let go of teeth.
From T4 and I'd given them 10 to 12 years of my life and really
very hard to earn your whole adult life, my whole adult life.
Yeah, and I was very confused and lost and there was no one to
go, you're going to be okay. And I think today there would be
Good. So progress, that.
Exactly. But today, we're going on a
style journey together. So I'd love to know, were you
exposed to Fashion at a very young age and I think of you
growing up in West London and I know how creative West London is
God. It's where all of us designers
go to get inspiration. Were you conscious of style and
fashion at a young age? Absolutely.
I think, but what I was always very and this is why I like
second hand clothes. What?
I was always very interested in is what people wear my
grandmother is Antiguan and when she came over to Britain, you
know, everyone wore their Sunday Best and they came from a
generation of people who were makers, they had to make
everything. Yeah.
And there's a picture of my family from the 1920s, my
grandmother and her six sisters, and her seven, brothers, and my
great-grandmother mama and my Grandmother Eleanor and my
great-grandfather papa and thank God.
We got the picture because they were poor.
So it's quite strange that they have this picture but they all
put on their Sunday Best. Oh, how Charming is beautiful?
And it looks like mini Chanel Armani is just so Chic and the
pride and the pride. Exactly.
So I think that I've always been interested in cuts and details
because I come from a family of makers.
Were you in uniform at school? One of them and it was because I
went to six different schools, absolutely not until then, and
then when I was 14, we had to move out of Portobello because
we lost our Housing, Trust flat. And we moved to it just a little
bit more like Kilbourne maida Vale and I went to st.
George's. Rough school, but it had a
uniform and it was the first time I tried to hide a part of
myself. I was at the time, very into
grunge, and Nirvana, and Smashing, Pumpkins and whole,
and I used to wear dr. Martens and whatever I was on
one and And I was terrified because I was mixed race.
And at that time not very close to my blackness at all.
I was terrified that I'd be found out by all the black kids
that I just basically like, a white kid.
So, I use the uniform in the week to be like them.
And then, at the weekend, I would dress how I wanted, but I
would like be in hiding. I'd be like, if I see one person
school, let you know, the real fear, I was like, it's over for
me and it will probably would have been because I created such
a Persona. So I thought her first I left
High School. I thought uniforms are weird.
They make me hide. You should never run again but
yet any hangover from that other than the hiding.
But do you remember the Fabrics of it?
The cut that I liked it. I liked it was well, cut and I
liked it was Navy and white. I thought Chic, you must be the
only person I've interviewed, who love playing, you know,
really. But actually, the way you
describe it, I think. Oh, that sounds really.
She can see you shrunken. Yes, exactly.
But do you remember your very first memory of when clothes had
an impact on you? Yeah.
And what that was and what what you were wearing?
I think I was for three or four and my cousin Phoebe would have
been three or four weeks to months apart.
My Uncle Sean, my mum's brother who passed away when he was 27.
Had this very big life in. He was a hugely hugely Gifted
musician, everyone in West London, knew him.
Most pretty girls had a night with him.
He was a bit of a Casanova, the most handsome man that ever
lived. He had dreads and he like
wielded. I mean, you remember everyone
was skin, so it wasn't like, everyone was buying.
Second hand clothes at the charity shop was just where you
put your clothes. He'd wear these gray suits that
look like Armani with like beating up old a DDOS, I'll show
you the picture. We did a shoot for i d magazine
and we got to pick what we wore. And I remember being like, okay,
let's go and I was very specific and the outfit is so banging.
I'd wear it today. It's like lovely little Kilt
with a grey jumper with a red stripe here, red tights and then
little black painted Mary Jane's or so go on and did, did you
just feel a million dollars in it?
Yes, I just remembered that I liked putting things together
and I felt proud of what I put together and if you like maybe
Year or two later my auntie nana got married and she said, we
could design our bridesmaid dresses and that's when I was
like, right? Okay.
Because it was with a liar because he'd made her dress.
Oh my God. Yeah so he'd made this beautiful
see-through Navy polkadot Wrapped Little oh my God, it's
beautiful. And then pour a liar.
These sketches from these children, they were like poofy
but I was really specific about the silk and the pink.
I was like it's bubblegum pink. Pink, but it's kind of lighter
than that. And it's got to be like soft
tacos. Like five is like, thought of as
a dean and I bet you, he just created something very
beautiful. They were gorgeous.
And, and that day did you, how did it pan out?
We were night. Did it deliver?
It's a lived in the dress, deliver, the dress is better
than our attitude that day. We were just have nightmares.
It was a five of us and we're not, it was late and we we just
yeah, we were just 5. The idea that as adding a liar
did both knows dress and five in Spades.
Do you think that fashion Mojo can come in and out of your
life? Definitely.
Yes, definitely. And I do also think that it
could come in phases. Yes.
And you know, and I think back to myself in the 80s and then
myself starting my business and I was sort of wearing serious
business stuff. Yes and now I'm definitely
dressing younger now than I probably was 30 years.
Yes, yes, absolutely. I remember turning 30 and
thinking, oh my God, I can't believe I have to give mini
skirts up. And then one day I went, no, I
don't. And I've had my best mini
skirts, wearing life in my thirties.
I had a Real Fashion Mojo, I like five, then again at like
10:00 but then I think the way it came back at 33, 34 was the
kind of deepest it's ever been, I started dressing from the soul
and I never used to wear color and I started being really
interested in tangerines and Greens and purples.
And I realized that I was going back to the kind of like the way
Mall my grandma and her sisters dress in the Caribbean like
church clothes, neat, trousers, meet jumper, good shirt,
tailored jackets, kitten heels, I think our style runs so much
deeper than we really know. You think that you're just
putting something on. But actually, there are all
these reasons but I gravitate to, I think, you know, I call it
your style DNA. I think it's almost it goes
round in these circles and and you evolve.
And then you realize Whoo, I'm back to where I started.
Yes. But a different boat and but it
just sort of newer version of everything you've learned in
between. Yes.
Yeah. So you come at me out on the
other side, a lot more powerful and a lot more trusting of
yourself and your instincts in your gut.
Now, that's something I wanted to talk to you about because I
know you're a genius secondhand Shopper.
And, and know, I know you really are and I think style, and
styling, is a very subjective thing.
And I know that throughout my years as a designer Found women
came to Amanda wakeley because they trusted my style my
aesthetic. They they were, perhaps less
confident in their own aesthetic.
And I what I tried to do was provide them with the solutions,
but secondhand shopping is a whole other challenge.
You don't have the stamp of sort of good taste.
That comes from buying a brand that you trust.
For example, you actually have to trust your own taste and I
think that can be super challenging.
For the majority of people and I just wondered if you there's
consummate secondhand Shopper had any tips.
Yeah, I think it's quite a big question to walk into a shop and
say, who am I and to trust your gut and your instincts, which is
what I honestly think that after I did a lot of therapy and a lot
of work on my ancestry because of the show with Mom, I started
getting even more free and even more excited about what I'm
trying to charity shop. So I think it really is a
question. Where you're at in your head and
how much you trust yourself. But I got bored Amanda.
I just got so bored. I used to love Zara, I just got
so bored of the same. If I let the same conversation
was being had over and over again and I people go at this is
so great that you're so into sustainability.
Honestly, it feels good to wear s and closing to be putting
money in the right place. And for me, that is a good way
of living sustainably when you're doing something for
yourself for other people, the community around you and the
planet. And I think there is a stigma
that chair Tee shots can be dirty or badly organized or have
no knowledge that not knowledgeable staff and they're
all untrue, especially these days.
And it really is just a more exciting ride.
And you always look at individual, yes.
Because there's you know, it's how do we encourage people out
of that? Well, this is the look in the
latest Saint, Laurent add or the latest saline ad or whatever and
people just wanting to reproduce that but it's how we did.
Even to ourselves and say, I'm actually just feels really good
but in terms of the second hand shopping, do you do you ever
take selfies of yourself? I want you two to work out.
Whether something works or not. Yes, I do you take selfies.
Yes. In the to work out whether what
I'm going to actually do. Like, take pins.
I'm going to take it up to this length and because I would you
pin yourself? Yeah.
Just in the dressing rooms just to see if I'm I'm actually going
to bother to do it because sometimes because the skirts
only three quid you're like, I'll just get it.
It's like no still think about whether you want this.
Yeah. But what you were saying earlier
about the saline campaign, like you've seen around people
wanting to I love campaigns and I love fashion magazines and I
love shows. I love my favorite thing to do
is recreate what I see there in a charity shop, but it has been
said about you that you have an encyclopedic.
Knowledge of fashion references, a sweater is very saline 2012.
His season 3 carry falling into the pond when she's surprised by
big everyone. Now goes II know you in like, I
just think popular culture references to close always
really important. And it also I read that, you
know, you've had, you have a commitment to bang exclusively
secondhand although occasionally makes an exception for a posh
shoe. Can we talk about those Posh
shoes and what they might be? Okay.
Okay, this actually comes back to ancestry because I love
kitten heels, like from such a deep your place that I don't
even know what it's about. But now I do because I looked at
all the pictures of my ancestors and make and my grandmother and
all her sisters, or my great aunts, and they're all in the
satin like Owens. Beautiful light pink light blue,
kitten heels. And I don't know where that
comes from one back, but maybe to look neat as Black people
coming over here. You want to look your best, I
don't know. But it's in me and so I'm sorry,
but no Mexican here. Let me know.
No Blahnik, welcome it. If someone did, I would buy it.
But I think that they are treasures and they they fill me
up with joy. So honestly, How many pairs of
shoes do you have? I'd say. 60 all designer.
Yeah. Oh dear well my skirts caustic
wit about deserting, the passed away instead of averages
absolutely if you had five minutes to get camera-ready,
what is the outfit that you would reach for, at the moment?
I'd say camera ready? Yeah, I'd say miniskirt neat,
stripy jumpers, although you're not allowed to us, Raps on
camera which was always, so upsetting but very neat little
jumper good Prada. Men's belt, manolos bare legs,
some girls Hoops done. Gorgeous gorgeous, do you think
you message through your clothes?
Yeah, I was always really interested in there was, of
course, the Revenge dress with Diana but I was always really
interested in when Kate had that Scandal and Kate Moss and then
was in New York. The next day new, it knowing
she'd be photographed and she was in a white crocheted
mini-dress and it honestly was the other.
It was like a act of innocence, and I remember thinking, God,
closes a powerful, she's very clever.
And I think that there are times I sort of, if it's deeper than
message, I've used close to, to do everything in my life to, to
make my life bigger to cure, heartbreak, to heal myself to
have No fear. Yeah, to feel the world around
me I don't think there's anything.
I don't use clothes for but that's lovely that you're so
connected to what? You're putting on your body.
Yeah we don't want your hair for a minute.
Mmm. I know that that was talked
about in that horrible interview that you had back in the day,
you spoke very openly about having a weave and how much you
actually really hated that. And so how, how did you move on
from that and evolve to just loving Gorgeous curly locks.
Well I Funny everyone thinks these Lots they're actually just
Platz. Yeah and I this is basically the
hairstyle I have a nose. It's sort of 7 to 13 so it
really took me back to who I was before.
Yeah I got my job and everything changed in my life and I wasn't
visible in the same way. I took a lefty for like ripped
the weave out because it was something that I was told.
To get to be on camera because I had Curly from day one.
They were like, and are you going to get?
We sort of tried but there was a lot of like this is difficult,
this is quite hard and it as a kid you're just like, I'm sorry
it's just my hair. I did have lots of big curly
hair which it was beautiful and then my mom was like, you're not
getting away from never. Let you do that to your hair and
I was like, no, I have to for screen.
They've asked me to, I think maybe there's an awesome but it
was alluded to And then when I got it, they're all very happy.
And then I had it for 10 years and I and it ruined my hair and
I hated it because I'm not really a very like groomed
groomed person. So I'm not one of those girls
who like ties their hair and a scarf at night.
Like no way. I was like ours as well.
Like Groucho's Lily like I was not like yeah just my hair
routine can't suffer so at the end of it, it was rather
lopsided because I didn't want it.
So It's like I didn't even as in even Uninvited games like the
uninvited guests and the interesting thing about
Weaver's, you don't have a connection with your scalp or
the top of your head or your energy, it all feels like it's
going and then being stifled. So when I took it out, I
suddenly was like, oh my God, I haven't like had the energy of
like my thoughts and my ideas, and who I am, just coming out
into the world feeling the sun, we didn't have sun on your
scout, all those things, some women, a lot of women, look
beautiful because they look after To their extensions.
I'm just not like that. And I think one day, I just put
my hair into four Platts. I was like, oh my God, Flats
because I used to always put my own hair from the age of about
six, and then I was like, I was 26, and then I suddenly did 10.
And then I did 20 and I was like, I'm back, it was a really
in spiritual interesting experience.
I was like, oh my God, I this is how my hair always was, and, and
now, I know, I just love it, I sing to it look after it.
And I'm very connected to my hair again and I see a lot of
black girls with plaits now and it means I know what a big deal
that is because we were all stifled by the this pathway of
the only route to your hair being acceptable is a weave.
And now girls have, you know, extension plants but they're
just, I can feel everyone's more connected to life and I love the
craft and patterns and yeah I mean I actually look Some of
those hairstyles and I'm really have Hair Envy.
Yeah, because the, they're like pieces of art.
I don't know, a friend of mine the other day.
I looked at her plaits and it was honestly she looked like the
back of her head. Look like a sculpture.
Yeah, absolutely beautiful. And it brings us sort of
regality black. Yes.
Who. But Back to Black Beauty?
That's a really good word. I think that's what's happening.
I think there's a lot of Pride. Yeah, in black hair again.
Yeah, and there and we've Eve's allude to hiding a part of
himself and super creativity to. I mean it's a real adornment.
Yes, absolutely. You know, Todd hats.
I know we're talking about being connected to yourself.
Would you say your weight or your perception of your body has
affected your choices and what to wear, I think, I mean, yeah,
there was a listen putting Wait on camera is not fun and I was
always a very skinny kid and then at about 23 I put on a lot
of weight and I couldn't really get it off.
Yeah, I just couldn't get it off.
So I think 23 to 27 on screen, I was about two and a half three
stone heavier than ever known before.
So there's a lot of weight to put on and be on TV.
I think I Stevie so brutal, any how tall I think it was that
kind of a went down and up but I just was in Turmoil with it and
I started to only wear dresses and I don't really love dresses.
I mean I do but not like a skirt, a top but I decided that
dresses would be where I'd hide and it completely changed the
way. I wanted to dress, which was
really frustrating, because I still knew how I wanted to
dress, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't get there, I couldn't
get the body, I wanted to wear the things I wanted.
So I felt quite trapped and it's very difficult to lose weight
and start focusing on yourself. And Do all the things that it
took for me to get into shape. Now, when you're on screen three
times a week and you're tired and it's been ten years of your
life and I just was not in the right head space to look after
myself. How does it feel to have the
press permanently talking about your way wearable?
So horrible and again, now be that cruel.
I don't know, but like, Lily's wedding.
Oh my God, they were so awful to me.
I think they call me her, big fat bridesmaid because of that.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding and come out.
And that was like a big day for us as a family and I was Lily's
head bridesmaid. But I knew I didn't feel good
and to have it it was all over the papers the next day.
And Lily was really a sort of, I don't know.
I don't know. It's kind of hard to discuss
with each other as friends. We, I just felt like I didn't
barest her own. Oh yeah, it was.
I'm sure she would not feel that at all.
No, I think she probably felt devastated.
Yeah, yeah. It was really in good shape.
Now we look great is that we don't go through a silver lining
is silver lining. It is it.
Actually, our thirties would be a hell of a lot better than I
was when he's a better investor. No, no, it's no lie.
It is no lie. I promise you.
Would you say you have a style icon.
I don't think there's only one person.
Maybe share in the 70s. Oh God, yeah, sure.
But if I asked you to sum up your style in three, Words, or
how you would want someone to describe you, in three words, if
that makes it easier, I guess neat.
Hmm. Because my hair's always like,
you know, plaits and curly. So I like to counteract that
with being quite neat Sharp. and, True.
I like that. I like that.
Okay. Good.
Do you have one item of clothing?
That means the most to you. Yeah.
Yeah it was this wasn't the Alaia bridesmaid in Euro.
It's not what you really should. Do you know what?
It was a dress. That looks very similar to that
that's so weird. That's so I think maybe I was
that's why I was drawn to this dress, it's quite recent in my
life but it means so much to me. And when we were in the
Caribbean, we interviewed this artist called Sheena Rose.
And she makes all this beautiful art and she had made one Dress
just one and it's bubblegum pink and it's silk and it's kind of
avant-garde shaped with these kind of, not Ruffles, but just
shapes. And I was like, can I have that
dress? I will wear it to something
important for you in England and she was out, would you actually
and I wore it to the British fashion Awards and was in all
these lovely lists and showed her and she was so moved that I
had taken a piece of her work to this important place and it was
But these fashion eyes, which was important to her and change
what she wants to do. And I felt like I'd taken this
dress on this journey, which is probably why I like second hand
clothes when journey is just journey and story and people are
just within them. So I think that dress is and now
looking at every time I think and also is my first ever
professional terraforming. Oh my God.
Scariest very copper ever. It is quite scary, wasn't it?
And it took a lot of like come on let's do this.
And so I was very proud of myself for Kind of doing it.
And so funny. Because this year, I was not
then working on it and I was like, well, it's just like if
when you're scared of something, you must do it because the other
side is just like it does get rid of that fear.
And suddenly, it completely just just turning sort of to Fashion
moments. Do you have a fashion moment
that you look back on and think? Oh my God, terrible one.
Yeah, Katya. I went to the Where the Wild
Things Are premiere. I was like 24 and I thought it
would be okay and like a good idea to wear a trilby stroke for
Dora which is like not a look that works for me.
I don't look good in hats, not that hat.
And I also dressed of it like I don't know.
It was like, I think in Libertines time or something.
No, it wasn't that time was more like Indy was big and it's just
hideous and it's because I did a red carpet.
I see occasion. I'm like, okay well on a more
positive note, one that you just go back to and think yes I think
it was that first British national.
Yeah. Dress sounds like it.
Yeah, it was the biggest red carpet of ever done in and I
loved that I had Done something special with the moment and not
just what? Type of red carpet in address
linked to me? Yeah, that's what I was too
magical. Yeah, that you were wearing a
piece of art piece of art and doing something for someone
else. But she never thought she could
see. She never thought she could see
her work somewhere, like, that credible generous Spirit up,
let's talk about travel for a moment.
Do you think about your airport? Look yeah, I'm going away
tomorrow for a workshop very much.
Think about my airport look what's it going to be?
I have this is it that my The side like this is me kind of
smart, casual, but my other sighs.
I love baggy, jogging bottoms and big baggy.
Plain jumpers. I get them in like the men's
parts of Charity shops like blue.
The men's part of a charity shop, I just got the most
brilliant and a jacket. Yes, the jackets are better
because they're not nipped in the kind of big oversized.
So tomorrow, I'll be in like a massive blue, Lacoste jumper and
big old cap. A Navy, jogging bottoms and
trainers. My very cozy puffer jacket I'm
wearing. So I like to be cozy when I'm
not on. Are you on a long-haul flight?
I'm going to Barbados so seven hours.
Yeah, long enough? Yeah, long enough.
Obviously they're doing more with your mum.
Do you have opinions on what she wears and does she have opinions
on what you wear? I don't know about having, you
know what I wear but I am obsessed with the story of my
Mom stole. My mom was never Too close.
She was when she was younger. Her Nana, when they were in a
band called rig and panic. Very stylish, creative Maniacs.
Just like dancing around. Like, African tribal wear and
will, so just like charity shop closed, they looked banging.
But then my mom was really overweight for a long time in
the middle of her life, and just hit from clothes and decided,
they want something for her. And then five years ago, lost
weight got this huge mainstream job as, as a judge on Great
British menu, which then morphed into her taking over as being
the Center and is now like my mother's show and to watch has
style evolved into what it is. Now is just been extraordinary,
she's a black bald woman in her late 50s on mainstream BBC TV,
wearing color and style and you know jumpsuits and sequins and
pattern print her and her fantastic style is Shara they
you know that wasn't the side as the BBC we're gonna give her and
I said, Mom just like to keep it down.
Take this Because you've got to feel at home and your yes.
And she said, no, I won't wear what they think is, right and I
think that's a real conditioning of our industry.
I'm like, she's lucky enough to have got the job, don't rustle
any feathers, but because she was Brave and listen to her gut
and worked with this young girl, they've now evolved into her
style being like the secondary thing about the show.
So I'm so proud of my mom for stepping into this whole new
part of herself and the amount of love we get from Women of all
ages and men men, like, I love what you wear, it's
extraordinary to show, what? How you can feel beautiful
without all the things that people assume our beautii hair.
Yeah, youth, yeah, whiteness. So yeah.
It's been beautiful. Do you have a particular charity
shop? That you always find great
things in? Yes, there's you're not going to
share the name. I am who I am.
Like it's more of a jumble sale. Like it's, I like a really
Cherry a real charity shop. I don't like a sort of vintage
shop masquerading as a charity shop.
I like it to be almost a jumble sale and there's a sue Ryder on
A6 road which is lovely. Clean smells great.
Everything's washed and like steamed and they just have all
the best mini skirts. I think I've got maybe six or
seven of my favorite miniskirts from there.
I think it's because of the all the great Islington chicks
around the area. I'm donating.
And then there's also a jumble sale place on ches Knob Road in
Stoke, Newington, which is I don't know.
But it's I mean it's pretty nondescript but I found these
brilliant Paul Smith men's jeans in there, for a pound.
But so guilty, secret, you're talking about all these
Fantastic Finds and three pounds for this and a pound for that.
What is the most expensive item of clothing that you've ever
bought? I think I have one pair of
manolos. That's about 1,200 quid it and I
felt Kind of weird spending that much money on a pair of shoes.
But I am obsessed with them and I adore them.
And I see them as a piece of art, but that's why I've started
trying to buy art now because I'm like, it's lovely that you
shouldn't be fashioned are not actually are so, do I have this
thing actually? I think the way we hang our
clothes store our clothes. It's part of our lives.
And so actually, it should be celebrated and should be rather
beautiful. Yes.
And our personal histories are in our wardrobes.
You know that my water I didn't just build because it's nice
place for the clothes. It's because everything I've
ever been through in my life is in that room.
And talking to me and reminding me and showing me who I've been
in, who I am, it's like so much conversation in your wardrobe.
It is so true. And part of this podcast is
talking about that Journey that conversation and I love delving
into those Journeys. Yeah, I always ask this
question. What is your approach to
sustainable fashion? Now, I know that you're
passionate about secondhand but what do you have any other
approaches to sustainability? I mean I do agree clear out
every six months and we have to because there's so many clothes
that needs to be bought for TV shows where you didn't.
So what do you do with taken back and taken back to the
charity jobs? Or they go into our storage
space. We have said we are building our
archive archive mums, worse, because mum, we, as in you and
Mum minimum. Yeah, mums worse, because mum,
every series of Great British menu needs like 35 new looks or
maybe even more. And do you, do you have to
retain your key looks to be part of your archive?
Is that does that thinking? Yes, I think that's I think more
with mum because they're also I just got 10, really, beautiful?
Cashmere Navy jumpers. That I want to be looked after,
but if I see that, I have 10, I take six back to the charity
shops. And I do not need this amount
because also, because I only really shop in charity shops.
If I suddenly run out of navy, blue jumpers I can just get
another one for a fiver, any charity shop.
I also like the idea of new stories for these clothes, you
know, I like that. I'll be on Sunday brunch,
wearing a dress that could have been someone water like a
wedding, their sisters wedding in whole in like the 70s.
And now I'm wearing it's resent TV.
Really like being part of that story.
Okay, onto some quick, fire questions.
Okay. What fashion advice would you
give to your 20 year old self? I'd say stop cutting your tights
and wearing them as leggings under skirts.
It doesn't look good. Which fashion trend would you
like to see? Make a comeback?
Grant Mitchell all at the Mitchell Brothers leather
jacket. Like leather coats, you know,
they're like straight to the knee and everyone says I look
like a security guy but I haven't met Sheikh.
I think it was like Prada I meant.
I love the fact that you have these references to these very
specific reference amateur leather jackets.
He actually knew what was up? What fashion or beauty Trend?
Would you consign to Room 101? A playsuit like the denim ones
they were everywhere at one point.
Ain't like the girl, I love dungarees but the cutoff they
were called something. Everyone has to wear them to
festivals and wet themselves because I'm here with me.
I'll say, thanks for the detail. I don't like those.
They can they can go. I've never liked those 101.
Your last impulse buy. Oh I love it.
It was a big lavender. I mean, lavender Amanda like
lavender. Oh yeah, you're in love and he's
dead, looks fantastic, feeling loved and a big lavender men's
sports jumper cause I was going to visit my That in Scotland, he
went by the way, it is so cold here but I was like, but it's
always called he wouldn't even Scottish people are cold.
So I went nuts. I've walked like thermals I got
there really wasn't that cold but I love the jumper.
What are your views on tattoos? I have one mistake tattoo that
my friend Grimmy did for me which I hate.
I was thinking all day. Do I fancy boys with tattoos?
Beauty treatment, you couldn't give up.
Moisturizing with almond oil. My whole body.
Every after, every shower or almond or delicious high-end or
High Street, high-end lingo, bear, bear, minimalism or
maximalism. Minimalism.
I love minimalism culture or charity, shop, charity shop, but
I do love to gaze at culture and the shapes 104 bog off.
Oh God, one off, Crocs cute, or puke cute sneakers, or stilettos
sneakers. I can't walk as does is that's
the other reason. I'm not really feels.
I cannot walk until he also don't know how people do it
party. Wearing PJs.
PJ's Trend or Style Style experimental or uniform.
Experimental shapewear or sexy, lingerie sexy.
Lingerie title stockings tights, but they have to be 10 10 year.
Bikini on One Piece. One Piece.
I love a speedo beanie or Barry. I think a beanie.
And finally Nikita, one last question at the end of the day.
What do you or don't you wear in bed?
I wear men's boxers and nothing else.
Seven, sexy. Super sex is everywhere.
I wish I could. I love men's boxers, Nikita.
It has been such a pleasure chatting with you about all
things fashion style, secondhand just brilliant.
Thank you for making the time to be with me here today.
Thank you so much. I enjoyed it so much, and thank
you for this view. I'm going to take some pictures,
it's okay if you go ahead,