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I have to say, I grew up with fashion because my mother was a seamstress, and she had an atelier. She would cut the first pattern, and then she had people working for her. So I grew up in an atelier, watching people all around me sewing. I was fascinated.

I have been interested in fashion since I was a kid. Then I lived in London, where it was more about costume and a personal statement of who you are than about fashion.

I grew up in the countryside in the middle of nowhere in England and got out as soon as I could!

My uncle was the first brown person to have a market stall on Petticoat Lane in the 1960s. He worked his way up from the street. He was homeless, but eventually he got a car so he could sell from the boot. And by the 1980s, he was a millionaire wholesaling to companies like Topshop. So in a way, fashion put me in England.

I grew up in a small town about 40 miles outside London, but it was a fairly cosmopolitan household.

My mum was very conscious about fashion and my dad was born into the tailoring tradition, so fashion has always been my life, although now, really, I wear the same thing - just in different weights - light and heavy cashmere in winter and cotton in summer.

I am no fashion diva - I grew up on the beaches in South Africa and am a nature girl that spends a lot of time outdoors. Fashion speaks to me through an occasion.