You can almost hear the hushed, Hanoverian tones, the delicate clink of porcelain teacups, the firm, thoughtful mastication of cucumber sandwiches. And you can imagine the quivvering excitement: Anya Hindmarch, the Essex-born self-made Tory millionaire, 40 ravishing years young, meeting her idol, inspiration and fantasy head mistress, Lady Thatcher for afternoon tea.
Arranged by Hindmarch’s friends to celebrate her birthday in 2008, I wonder what it would have been like to bare witness to this legendary conference?
If Andrews’ Queen Renaldi found grooming her new cohort rather challenging – cue hilarious results, etc – Thatcher would have found Hindmarch instantly princess-like, even though she likes to been seen as a little Essex around the edges. Educated at the palatial, fee paying New Hall School in Chelmsford (founded in 1642, and once Henry VIII’s Palace of Beaulieu), Hindmarch's beginnings weren't really that humble at all. Born into comfortable wealth – with social connections that would springboard her into success.
Anyway, back to The Princess Diaries where, amongst its many important life lessons, from teen esteem to the importance of plucking your eyebrows, etc, it also underlines the sheer thrill of being part of the ruling elite. In that sense, it’s a wonderfully Tory-like parable (only with a chick rock soundtrack and Mandy Moore in a supporting role) and suits the Hindmarch brand's story perfectly.
Close friends with David Cameron, Hindmarch cites Thatcher as the true inspiration behind her life's work. When her friends left New Hall to go to university, Anya summered in Florence and toyed with the idea of being an opera singer, but soon returned home with her first entrepreneurial idea. Inspired by the popular leather duffle bags she saw in Italy, she made her own – which she then eeked onto the pages of Harper’s and Queen (with help from a well connected friend). The bags sold out and the Hindmarch brand was born. Just over a decade later, Anya Hindmarch Ltd has an estimated turnover of £20million.
Opera, private schooling, a summer in Florence, and friends at Harper's and Queen – it's an Essex that few of us know: where's the fake tan, tit jobs, Dean Gaffney falling out of mega-club Hollywood?
“I’m a Thatcher child through and through,” said Hindmarch to writer Kate Reardon in her September 2009 Vanity Fair profile. “The reason I started up my business was because she was telling people to stop putting their hand up and asking the government for help…" That's right, because the government'll just say no, anyway.
Dividing the Battersea Park venue into a series of English gardens, complete with a potting shed, gazebo and gypsy caravan, Anya created her mythical Albion, a Willy Wonka-like realisation of the Torys' perfect Britain, with a guest list peppered with polished celebs. It was ‘fantastically British, stylish, and an odd combination of cozy and cool – brand values which the Conservatives seem to have embraced enthusiastically’, notes Kate Reardon. But there’s something about this dreamlike vision of Britain that feels completely out of touch. Where was the boarded up youth centre, the disabled residents who can't afford carers, and the shelter so bureaucratic it turned away a pregnant woman in need of help? Where were the cartoon tramps, representing the huge increase in homeless people – all facets of British life in a Conservative borough like Hammersmith and Fulham? To me, the ball's creepy perfection for the upper classes sounds less like The Princess Diaries and more like Masque of the Red Death.
Hindmarch has been a Magus to the Conservatives, working to turn around their painful, ruddy-faced image into something clean, clipped and marketable (they’re real people, you see - not just privileged). She’s even helping Boris Johnson revamping 'how London looks' for the Olympics – the Black and White Ball on a citywide scale. Standby for vintage bunting fluttering on the BT Tower, a cricket green on Trafalgar Square, and Met police force handing out homemade jams – and just about every other facet of true British life clinically removed: a beautiful hackneyed theme park vision of a land that never was.
