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DTHING
THE
STORY JO BATES
PHOTOGRAPHS DAVID ANTHONY
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P
icture living a life lifted
from the glossy pages of
one of the world’s most
aspirational magazines. It
goes something like this:
your beautiful home in London’s
Notting Hill was designed by your
architect husband, whose client list
includes rock stars. You have a
stimulating job that takes you all
over Europe and into the continent’s
most exclusive fashion houses and
private homes. You have a beautiful
son, a loving family, and your friends
are the rich and famous.
For Angela Dunn, this is reality, yet
there’s no hint of her being affected
by this high-profile existence or the
celebrity circles she moves in. For an
18-year-old who left New Zealand to
launch her modelling career, with
only a few jobs to her portfolio, the
girl has come a very long way.
Angela’s ethereal beauty and timeless look have fired the imagination
of some of the world’s leading fashion
designers, including Yves Saint
Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Nina Ricci
and Giorgio Armani, and has been
captured by photographers such as
David Bailey.
She’s worked in the world’s fashion
capitals and graced the covers of top
fashion magazines. But she makes
her “pretty fabulous” life sound so
normal and everyday.
Of the several occasions on which
we speak, one is a cold ‘summer’
morning in London and Angela is
in tracksuit pants, waiting for her
husband to return with the Sunday
papers. Another time, she’s just
finished an all-day fashion shoot and
is ready for a chat after a dinner of
fish and chips.
We’re just glad she didn’t say life
is “absolutely fabulous”, given that
her best friend is Patsy. Patsy Kensit
– the gorgeous blonde ex to rock
stars Liam Gallagher and Jim Kerr of
Simple Minds fame – is godmother
to Angela’s son, Maximus.
But with an address book that
boasts plenty of famous names,
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Australia might have Nicole
Kidman but our own world-famous
redhead, model and exclusive
personal stylist Angela Dunn,
enjoys a life every bit as fabulous
Above: braving a
‘summer’ day in
London, Angela
looks divine in an
Yvonne Bennetti
halter-neck dress.
Opposite: long
vintage dresses
are a passion,
“whether it’s ’40s
silk tea dresses or
madly patterned
Pucci kaftans”.
Here she wears
her own ’70sinspired Etro
kaftan and Fiona
Knapp jewellery.
Patsy’s is the only one Angela will
give up – and that took prompting.
“I come across celebrities in my
life all the time but I’d feel silly
name-dropping,” she says. “But with
my circle and my husband’s clients,
which are made up of rock stars and
film directors, I guess it does read
as glamorous.”
Her life in London, where she has
lived for the past 17 years, is “busy
and crazy on so many levels,” she
says. “I’m juggling being a mother,
modelling, my husband’s career and
his clients and the dinners that are
a consequence of his work, and a
social life.”
Not that she’s complaining, but
nor is she really giving the full picture
here. There’s the small matter of her
business: shopping for a living.
Angela is a personal shopper to
clients at the top of the UK’s rich list
– a Russian socialite, ‘It’ girls, and
titled and aristocratic women. “Very
high-powered, intellectual women
and then socialites and celebrities,
so it’s a real mixture,” she says.
Then there’s the TV project she’s
just finished working on which goes
to air in the UK in September. Called
Britain’s Next Top Model, it’s a franchise of an American reality show
and Angela was brought in to train
girls for the catwalk and generally act
as an on-screen consultant.
On top of that, there’s the retrospective, conceived by Angela, of her
friend couturier Bruce Oldfield’s
gowns. Renowned for the designs he
created for Diana, Princess of Wales,
his dresses now adorn the likes of
Sienna Miller and Jemima Khan.
More than 100 of them will go up for
auction next May, which Angela
hopes will raise a couple of hundred
thousand pounds for Barnardo’s.
Of course there’s also her family
to care for: husband Colin Radcliffe,
whom she met in London and has
been married to for 13 years, and son
Maximus, who’s two and a bit.
Despite such a hectic schedule,
there is some balance in her life,
insists Angela. “I love being busy.
I love that every day is different,
but I’m definitely not a manic highachiever. It sounds like I’m juggling
a lot but the work is part time. Last
week I worked two days on the retrospective, the rest was with my son
– we went to the park and there was
a play date with a friend.”
Okay, but few mums would have
been invited to the launch of
Christian Dior’s Baby Dior that Angela
and Maximus attended yesterday.
It was a celebrity- and society-laden
launch at Eton Square with an
antique merry-go-round, face-painting
and a goodie bag with £400 worth
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of Baby Dior children’s clothes. But
if a PR woman called to invite you,
and all your friends were going to be
there, you’d go – wouldn’t you?
Nor would most of us be nipping
to Paris and Milan on the private
plane of a Russian socialite to go
shopping to do “all her looks” a
couple of times a year.
Angela’s shopping and styling
business began when a couturier
friend asked her to meet with a client
who needed help with accessories.
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high-profile to be traipsing in and
out of shops on Bond Street so it’s
not uncommon for her to fill the car
with a small fortune in clothes, take
them to the client’s home and lay
them out in their salon.
The satisfaction for Angela is
transforming a woman’s style –
something that can change their life.
“I love the challenge of reworking
their look and making them look the
best they can. There’s so much satisfaction if I get it right,” she says.
“I love being busy. I love that every day is
different but I’m definitely not a manic high-achiever”
Quite content with the occasional
modelling job and caring for her son,
Angela took some convincing.
“I really liked this particular
woman and I kind of rose to the challenge,” she says. “She is very
attractive, intelligent and in her early
40s with an amazing wardrobe of
clothes that she didn’t really know
how to wear.
“For a woman of her stature, I was
shocked she didn’t have more clues.
I was very honest with her and got rid
of all the ghastly old things and got
the couture designer to make her
another couple of hundred thousand
pounds’ worth of clothes to boost
her wardrobe.”
For the past year and a half Angela
has cultivated her client’s look –
transforming what was an impressive
collection of clothes into a stylish,
sophisticated, accessorised wardrobe
for all continents and occasions.
There’s everything from swimsuits, shoes and hats (for the house
in Barbados), to English country
shooting, riding and fishing gear (for
the castle in Scotland), to evening
wear and precious jewellery for
occasions in London.
“I know what clients need for
different countries and social occasions, for their boats and planes,
because I’ve tasted all those things,”
says Angela matter-of-factly.
Most of Angela’s clients are too
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BORN TO SHOP
With years of practice under her
Dolce & Gabbana belt, Angela’s
shopping motto is “I’ll buy it if I can
wear it when I’m 50.” (And when
she occasionally culls her wardrobe,
her part-time nanny and cleaner
are well looked after. ) “I like to mix
everything up. I have a rule: I put
something old with something new,
something uptown with something
downtown, something baggy with
something slim. A voluminous top
with a skinny pant, or a punk-rock
T-shirt with a beautiful pair of silk
trousers. I have a hound’s-tooth
coat, but I wouldn’t pair it with
something plain; I’d wear a striped
hat – I like everything to be a bit off,
but still classic.”
Her client list has grown
through word of mouth and
the job requirements have
gradually evolved. Reworking
a look now incorporates
everything from underwear,
makeup and hair to recommending a Pilates instructor.
“I even redo their luggage,” says
Angela. Her unlimited-budget clients
sometimes request her services for
their Christmas shopping: “They are
billionaires so they don’t just buy a
book voucher.” You get the idea.
Clients not only get the impeccable
style of a woman who has been
bestowed with the Harpers & Queen
title of London’s best-dressed for four
consecutive years, they also get
This page and
opposite: dressed
for a day on her
feet in a Peter
Pan day dress by
Karen Walker,
Workshop jeans
and Alexander
McQueen shoes,
Angela squeezes in
a visit to jeweller
Fiona Knapp and a
well-earned coffee.
HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS
Sloane Street and Bond Street are favourite shopping
haunts, along with big-name stores Harrods, Selfridges
and Harvey Nichols, plus Matches, in Notting Hill, with its
hand-picked selection of all the big designers. Dover Street
Market “is less a market than an emporium spanning six
floors of cutting-edge fashion, art, design and very cool
people. Have lunch on the sixth floor, ” says Angela.
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exclusive service. Accrued over her 22
years in fashion, Angela’s impressive
list of contacts has proved invaluable.
Take this example: the waiting list
for a covetable Hermès Birkin or
Kelly bag is two years, but with
Angela’s impeccable connections,
her clients can be toting a tote faster
than you can say “accessorise”. Or,
she can get clients into the celebrity
VIP room at Dolce & Gabbana in
Milan where they’re privy to the oneand two-off gowns that J.Lo or Kylie
Minogue would usually snap up.
Requests for her help are coming
in from all over Europe and Angela
now works with her sister Genevieve
to ease the load. Genevieve, who is
also a long-time Londoner, used to
run her own events company.
“A Lady lady,” says the perpetually
discreet Angela, “phoned the other
day to say she wants her wardrobe in
Venice pruned and she’d heard about
what Genevieve and I do. She wanted
us to sell all her jewellery and clothes
that she’s sick of, and God knows
why, because she doesn’t need the
money. I guess you can be really rich
and still want to make money. Please
give it to charity!”
Angela credits coming from New
Zealand, a close-knit family and a
happy childhood with maintaining
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her firm grip on reality. When she
started out in her career, being a bit
naive ensured she didn’t get caught
by all “the flash trappings, which
definitely exist in the industry”.
“I’ve been really fortunate and
I know that. I’ve travelled the world
and have become very international
with friends all over the world. I’ve
learned a lot about different languages and food – it was a crash
Above: Angela
and husband Colin
Radcliffe enjoy
their London life.
Since arriving as a
“naive” 18-yearold, she has made
the city her own,
four times being
voted London’s
best-dressed.
A FEW OF HER FAVOURITE THINGS…
Dining: “The Wolsley is the new hot favourite. I also love
The Ivy, and Eastern & Oriental for eastern food.” Nobu
at the Metropolitan Hotel has “some of the best Japanese
in the world”. Fortnum & Mason’s food hall in Piccadilly
is where Angela gets her fix of tamarillo chutney. For
an aperitif or afternoon tea with a girlfriend, she heads
straight for the chic and classy Claridge’s.
Art and design: Angela is a regular at art galleries and,
for anyone travelling to London before next February, she
recommends the Chihuly (the glass sculptor) exhibition
at Kew.The Tate Modern is her favourite, and the Saatchi
Gallery’s modern art is also well worth a visit. If you go
to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, have lunch at the
Orangery, behind Kensington Palace, says Angela.
She and Colin collect 20th-century art and furniture,
attending auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Alfie’s
Antique Market, off Marylebone’s Lisson Grove, is also
“brilliant if you are looking for really great furniture or art”.
Holidays: Capri, St Tropez,Tuscany and New York.
course in world knowledge,” she says.
Funny and modest, without being
self-deprecating, she hesitates for a
moment when asked her age. “I’m
41,” she says with mock despair.
“I had to think about that. Yep, I’m
41, 41. And I don’t feel it at all.”
She believes her non-commercial
look has ensured her longevity as a
model and she continues to do
advertising work, high-end catalogues
and the occasional editorial job and
fashion show.
“I’m definitely not a typical-looking
model,” she says. “I’m not gorgeous
or pretty – I have a timeless look,
classic and strong. In a way, it’s quite
ageless. Even though I’m 41 and look
older than when I was 25 or 30, I sort
of have that same look. It wasn’t like
I was booked because I was young
and fresh, whereas some girls are just
so pretty and gorgeous that when
they’re 30 or 35 their time is up.”
Although Angela mixes in a world
where youth is the focus, she’s too
down-to-earth to be caught up in it.
“I have friends who are a lot younger
than I am – models, actresses and
people in the fashion and beauty
business who are very young-minded
– and I want to make sure I don’t get
too carried away! I know that I can’t
wear miniskirts, that’s for sure – they
went out long ago.”
A queen of the jet-set, at ease with
the world’s rich and famous, Angela
admits she was unprepared for
motherhood and reckons it’s the
hardest job she’s ever done:
“It was a lot of hard work in the
beginning, getting him into a routine,
but it’s really paid off,” she says.
“He’s very contented and independent. I love motherhood because
it’s such a challenge and so different
to anything I’ve ever done. Obviously
it’s also incredibly rewarding. As
soon as they start developing their
personalities it’s fantastic.
“I find it hard and so does my husband – I can’t think of anyone who
doesn’t. It’s a dramatic change of life
but something I was ready for.” N
STYLING KAREN LEWIS AT CAPE LONDON; HAIR HEIDI STANTON AT JOHN FRIEDA; MAKEUP TERRY B AT PEARLE MANAGEMENT.
PHOTO ON P59: HAIR & MAKEUP CARL STANLEY AT CAROL HAYES MANAGEMENT. ALL JEWELLERY FIONA KNAPP WWW.FIONAKNAPP.COM
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