Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 65: Sophia Webster

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Sophia Webster is a sought-after British shoe designer whose business took off like a rocket soon after she left college. We sat at the kitchen table in her colourful house in East London and chatted over a cup of tea. Sophia described how her shoe designs have mirrored her own life, with her adding a bridal range and a children’s shoe range along the way. Also how her husband Bobby became her business partner very early on which means there is no work/life balance in their house - but she wouldn't have it any other way!I was struck both by Sophia’s modesty and drivenness, as well as the perfectionism she brings to her shoe designs. I was also impressed that she makes very little of the painful health issues she’s experienced - endometriosis and post-natal foot problems. Alongside her business, she is mum to three girls (including twins) and stepmum to a 16 year old son. And as we spoke she was heavily pregnant with her fourth child  - so I was extra grateful for this chat at such a busy time in Sophia's life. Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis Bextor,produced by Claire Jones, and post-production is by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Ow! Oh, hello. That's annoying. Literally, as I started talking to you, I just stubbed my toe on a stool. That'll learn me to wander around chit-chatting away. How are you? How's your week been? I can't really lie.

I've actually had a really nice week because Richard and I went away. Yeah. We went to Italy for four nights, the two of us we left on Monday we just got back it's Friday Friday afternoon so um we're back for the weekend yeah we had just some time just the two of us so we went there Monday after the kids had gone to school and then had all of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so three whole days there. And there were bits and bobs we were getting on with while we were there, but we were also just chilling and eating spaghetti and drinking nice local wine and enjoying the sun. And I read a whole book. I know. It was really, really nice.

And the reason I'm sharing it with you is not to boast, but to please implore you that sometimes it's okay to go away. It's funny, I've had so many chats along the way through these podcast chats about the guilt you can feel when you go away, whether it be for work, but actually also probably even more so when you're just doing it for fun. But actually, it's so important. And Richard and I have been dealing with a lot around here with doing the tour together and working on the new

album together. So it was actually very important, I think, that we went away and spoke about other stuff that wasn't worky things or family things although obviously we spoke a lot about the kids from our way because that's what you do isn't it anyway it was very very nice and I'm now back in my home and pottering about and the drive home from Stansted was nearly enough to take the holiday relax out of the system but not quite you didn't win Stan's dead so yeah back home pottering uh tidying up sorting things out but thanks so much to all the people who held on the foot when I was gone so that's a combined effort of Carolina, Erin and my mum helping keep my children where they needed to be while I had some time away which is really important and then this weekend what have I got on actually nothing

tomorrow Saturday nothing very quiet and then I've got a gig on Sunday in Bristol a festival called Fugees Festival and I think I might take my 10 year old um the little two have got a party to go to and the elder two will not want to come with me but uh I think the 10 year old Ray he'll have a nice time so we'll do that. And, yeah, everything else is just taking over, really. I'm trying to think what's happened this week. I mean, I came home and the fish tank's still on the side, which made me remember the fish has just died, and that's sad. I think I'm the only person in the house who's sad about the fish.

Maybe everybody else is hiding their grief. I liked having a fish. It was a nice constant. We'd had it for about four years, which I think is pretty good going for a goldfish. Actually, no, I thought it was good going in, and I looked it up, and actually goldfish can live for 15 years, so maybe it wasn't that good at all.

But I did still like the fish, and I'm sorry that it's no longer here. It got some strange infection where it could no longer swim upright. It was swimming on its side and then it became just lying on the floor of the tank. And I googled it and it said it could be a bladder infection to give it mushed up peas. So I did that, but it still died. So I hope I didn't give it the wrong kind of pee. And yeah um i'm excited to share today's podcast chat with you because um i've wanted to speak to sophia webster before i think she she seems really lovely i love her designs they're very um beautiful shoes but also um very characterful you can really tell her shoe designs so I wanted to get to know a little bit the designer behind the shoe and I also didn't I've never met her before and she was

very warm and welcoming and let Claire Jones my producer and I come all the way over to her house and she lives in a beautiful house with stained glass windows and a lovely garden and a lovely colourful home so obviously I liked all that because my house is also colourful. And yeah, it was just really lovely to chat and hear about her creativity, but also about her family because she's a mother of twins. And I don't think, you can correct me here, but I don't think I've spoken to anyone who's had twins so far. And obviously that's a pretty different experience and also as you'll hear I mean nature can be cruel sometimes she has a dark sense of humor because Sophia um when she was pregnant with her twins uh suffered with her feet her feet collapsed and then she had to have both her feet put back together with pins I mean that's a pretty

harsh outcome for anybody but for a shoe designer I mean come on mother nature what are you thinking uh but anyway she's happily the other side of that and now expecting her fourth baby very soon actually um so it's very nice of her to let us come over and yeah so she has three daughters and she has a stepson as well teenage stepson so you'll hear all about that but yeah while you're listening to us chat picture us in a very beautiful kitchen with lots of lovely color pops everywhere including a gorgeous crochet blanket that was slung over our sofa in the kitchen which was from a woman on Etsy called Nana Sue which I immediately found

the shop of after I came home and bought my own crochet blanket for a chair upstairs because I had a blanket on there and it it completely um fall into pieces so I had a very good excuse to buy a nice new blanket I love a blanket anyway I hope you can hear the remains of, I don't know, four days of sunshine and Negroni in my voice. Definitely feeling pretty relaxed at the moment before the weekend will probably put a little bit of stress back in there. But right now, feeling pretty chilled. So enjoy our chat and I will see you on the other side. Ciao.

Grazie mille! Because I'm a fellow colourful home owner. So being here is making my heart very happy. And we've got a really lovely day. So I've got some sunshine. Yeah, it's beautiful today. And it's funny because I have spoken to so many people for the podcast. But actually, you're only the second person I've spoken to who's actually having a baby. Oh, really? While we do the chat.

Right, okay. So you're a couple of months away from, this is baby number four. Four, yeah. But I suppose five in your family because you're five yeah as well yeah so how's everything been going with that how are you feeling at the moment um yeah I'm feeling good um my last pregnancy was twins so it's it's quite different to that um I didn't think anything could be worse really than carrying twins because that just by the end of it just was like I've got quite small frames so um it was um it was a struggle but um like obviously like you know it was a blessing as well but it was

definitely um an experience that I don't I would wouldn't necessarily want to repeat it um but this pregnancy I thought it'd be a breeze but now I'm finding it I'm finding it pretty similar to be honest so um yeah I don't know I think um sorry I sound like super negative don't I actually I think um I've had a real mixed bag with pregnancies and I think like my third I was in a bad mood for pretty much the entire thing so i think yeah carte blanche too yeah yeah and um with was twin something that was in your family already no no i am so i had my first daughter when i was in my late 20s um and then after i had um at bb my first daughter i um we we tried maybe like four years three three or four years later

and then i found out that i had um stage four endometriosis so it was a bit of a struggle so i had um fertility treatment so i kind of knew that there would be a chance that we'd end up with twins um so yeah no it wasn't they're the first set of twins that are in either of our families so um yeah but then this baby like obviously we didn't think there was like much of a chance that we would um be you know I'd be able to have um children actually but there we go I've had a complete like surprise but we're very happy yeah that's amazing I didn't actually realize that yeah and endometriosis from what I understand that's really chronic and stage four sounds like something that must have been a massive part of your life

without knowing that there was a name for it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I was actually due to have an operation, like, the beginning of this year. So I haven't actually had that sort of tissue, that process where you have it removed yet. So I'll probably have that after I've had the baby. But it's um after after I've had the baby but it's meant to it's meant to when you have a baby it's meant to um like for some people it gets better but for me it got worse so oh wow yeah well it's interesting talking about because I was listening not that long ago to a radio show with someone who had endometriosis and I think for some like for me like my awareness of it has really come up in the last few years and

I look back at some girlfriends at school who had really painful periods and I thought oh my god I wish I could go back in time and say I think I know what's what's causing this but um one of the women speaking about it said that her doctor had actually prescribed pregnancy as a way for as a as pain relief really it's pretty yeah no I can't yeah Yeah, I can see why that might be the case because it does seem to, the symptoms are definitely less when you're pregnant. Yeah, well, I suppose, yeah.

And that's a beautiful thing that you're having your baby naturally, especially after you've had so many twists and turns along the way. Yeah, it was a really a really nice surprise yeah so your other children the twins are the same age as my youngest aren't they so they're three is that right three yeah yeah and that's a really lovely age yeah that's I mean I think that's my favorite age because they get really chatty and their personalities start to kind of really

develop um but they what I love is the way they just say things wrong all the time I don't even like correct them because you know they're gonna find out what things that how things are pronounced and stuff properly in the end so I just like to hear their little the funny funny things that they say like my one of my twins she loves like going going to cafes and restaurants she's like such a diva and but her favorite is I took it we took her to this um new pizza restaurant we went to out with our family to this pizza restaurant and she was like are we going to pizza in spread she means like pizza express I was like no we're going to a different one she's like I love pizza in spread but I just don't correct them because I just I think my

daughter baby said chicken nuggets for it's like till she was like six but I just you know I just don't correct them because I just I think my daughter Bebe said chicken nuggets for it's like till she was like six but I just you know I just love that yeah and then they become part of like the family um dictionary anyway yeah you're right like we still call a computer is still a poot because Sonny used to call it compoutier when he was little and it sort of got shortened to poot so like now even now I'll be like I'm just on my poot and which then you forget that no one actually knows what you're talking about anymore or the studio is two dough and all those little words and i think i think that's what i like about families when like it all gets interwoven with your just everyday yeah chat yeah actually these words don't really exist actually guys um so you said your first daughter she's seven

she's seven yeah seven she'll be eight in august yeah and a little bit like me you've got a teenage boy as well in the house with yeah yeah my stepson yeah stepson so he's 16 did you say yeah he's just about to do his gcses yeah oh wow that's quite a lot big thing but i think um i actually kind of feel like they should prescribe Spending Time With Babies for teenagers, because I think it's a really good mix. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. It's a really nice dynamic when he's here. Well, talking about your work,

so what's happening with you in the world of Sophia Webster? Is it quite strange, actually, that you have, obviously, your name, and then it's also the name of your business do you sometimes feel like it's a bit yeah it is I think I actually think if I was to go back in time I probably wouldn't give it my name I probably would have just you know made up a brand name or something because it definitely complicates everything when it's your name it's like the stakes are just always higher for you and it could be anything like I don't know I don't know like um even down to like the

really like granular details like I don't know an Instagram caption or something and you know then um or something's gone something's gone wrong and someone's like dear Sophia it's like well it's not you know there's like a lot of people that work here I'm not on top of everything um and when things don't turn out quite how I as we have envisaged them as well and um you know I think it's just I definitely feel like I would have had like a maybe a bit more um would be able to look with a bit more perspective a bit give things you know be able to step back a bit more if it wasn't if it wasn't my name yeah a little bit of separation and I think similarly but then again it's so much your baby and if you're a designer it is like the norm isn't it to have it be your

name it's quite unusual to have that force and presumably when you start out you're a designer it is like the norm isn't it to have it be your name it's quite unusual to have that force and presumably when you start out you're not sure where everything's going to end up anyway so you're just about getting awareness and your things out there and I think also there's like an element of like ego you know when you when you're young and you first start and you're like I want to show the world what I can do and then it's kind of you know we're nearly like 10 years on now and well we don't you't I'm not necessarily the same person you know so um but it's nicely it's shoes so it's I think people people like know the name but they're not unless you follow me on Instagram or something you might not necessarily know what I look like so it's it's

like they know my name rather than they know kind of who I am and can you remember the first time you were out and about and saw someone wearing your shoes you know just unrelated yeah it was it was actually amazing it was in um so my studio is in Shoreditch and um I saw a girl I did I think it was my second season I did um some kind of like jelly shoes like they but with heels so the heels were like glitter and the upper was um like a jelly shoe construction and um I saw a girl cycling in them and she just looks so cool and I was like Bobby like said to my husband Bobby look I tried to chase her down the road with my with my iPhone um so that was really cool but I love spotting people wearing them but i don't

um i don't always know what to say or whether to say anything and then sometimes i suppose there's ways you can interpret you're wearing my shoes as well they're definitely mine yeah i find it a bit i don't know you'd think i'd get used to but especially if people come up to me i'm like oh i love your shoes where did you get them and then there's like a bit of an awkward silence i was like what do i say now um and i think if I say oh yeah I'm Sophia Webster I designed them I don't know I feel like general like they might be a bit underwhelmed because I'm kind of not I don't know if they think they're buying this like super glamorous into this like really you know what what you might think someone might be like and I'm probably just a bit ordinary

well it's interesting you say that because I suppose like and I'm probably just a bit ordinary well it's interesting you say that because I suppose like from here I was just listening to you and thinking it's an incredible thing to design anything it's an incredible thing to be able to take a vision from your head and turn it into an actual thing that someone can wear and as you talked about construction and all of these things and you know you mentioned the granular level of things but that's like a key component about making sure the quality of work so that it's all exactly as you want it. But alongside that, you're obviously building a business.

Yeah. So that's, you know, you're a fashion designer, but also a businesswoman. So you kind of are across all of it. Yeah. I don't think that is that ordinary. Yeah, maybe, yeah. I'm always a bit obsessed with business women because I think

there's something incredibly exciting about building something up from the ground up and how do you feel at the moment when you look at where you are you know so it's like 10 years on yeah how is that a bit of a moment for you um yeah definitely because like there's been lots of different kind of stages to the to the business business. Um, I suppose, when did you first realise that you were kind of taking it outside of just, I suppose, how did you get into shoe designing at the beginning? been like really into into art and creating things and making things out of you know like you know crafts and um coloring in like since I was a kid that that was that was probably the only um subject at school that I really like looked forward to um and uh yeah I went went to Camberwell College of Art to do a foundation course. I actually applied to do makeup, like specialist, like special effects makeup for TV and film. Because I thought, I liked sculpture and I liked, I just like, I like the idea of like completely changing what somebody, like with prosthetics and things like that

yeah i love i love all those yeah and i applied um there was like a degree at uh london college of fashion that i applied to and then i didn't get i didn't get on that and then i didn't quite know what to do so i thought so i spoke to my art teacher mr aldi who was big influence um for me and he was like we're, just go and do a foundation, a year's foundation course. And you know, if you still want to do that course, you can apply again. If you want to do something else, you can do something else. So then I, I applied to St. Martin's. I didn't get in. I applied to Chelsea. I didn't get in. And then through clearing, I got placed at Camberwell. And I actually loved Camberwell.

I got placed at Camberwell um and I actually loved Camberwell I was like really like suited to the um to the environment there so um it was a great place to go to do my foundation course and whilst I was there we did a lot of life drawing and they mixed it up a bit it wasn't always just like naked nakedness and stuff so there was a um a model that came in with a big bag of clothes and she kept getting changed every five minutes we would do a different sketch and I just found myself really focused on the shoes and um really enjoyed like drawing them and drawing the different lines and the heels and she had like this pair of boots that was it was just I just wasn't even drawing her I was just drawing the shoes and she had like this pair of boots that was it was just I just wasn't even drawing her I was just drawing the shoes and I was like oh I really like doing that

and then my um tutor there told me about the uh degree course at Cordwainers so Cordwainers is the shoemaking part of London College of Fashion so I started looking into that and they'd had some like amazing people go there, like Jimmy Choo. So it seemed like a great place to go. And you'd learn how to make shoes as well, which appealed to me because I loved being in the workshop and loved sculpture and things like that. So yeah, I applied to get onto that degree and then yeah, that's ended up there. You sparked something.

Yeah, definitely definitely was there ever any looking back after that or was it just like I think I found the thing I've been looking for here that I just love the idea of creating yeah no I literally never looked back like I used to draw a shoe every day since then since from the minute I saw that course I'd become obsessed with that course I'd become obsessed with um shoe designers and sketching and I went to the library and got all of like um Manolo Blahnik books and I found there was a brand um called Sergio Rossi and on their website their creative director um is a a man called uh well he was uh he was the creative director then like 20 years ago he's called Edmundo Castillo and he did the most amazing amazing sketches and I just was like right I

want to draw like that like that was my goal was to just become like the best that like I could possibly be at drawing shoes so I would just practice all the time and um that's my favorite part of the process is the sketching Amazing, is that something you still do regularly? When it was 2020 it kind of took a bit of a step back to just look at everything that we'd done and the beginning of 2021

I started this challenge for myself because the shoes that I did at the start were like super creative and I wasn't necessarily worried about the commerciality of them it was more just like I just wanted to um really like get people's attention and do super colorful super creative things and um when you run a business obviously there becomes an element of you know the the things that that matter to the business like sell through like um making things that introducing styles that are more commercial that are more wearable you know different it become a bit less about um the real kind of joy and um so so what I did was I started looking back at all the shoes that I'd done and um I set

myself this challenge to like draw a shoe illustrate a shoe for my archive every day and in my head it was going to be this like really fun thing to do but I'm such a perfectionist that I ended up spending like two hours like every night sketching these shoes and um it was it was it was fun but then at the end of it I had like 365 sketches of these like super um we call them like the ultimates but like just um you know shoes that I've, like, put everything into, like, that... So now I'm making a book out of those shoes. So, yeah, it was... I can't remember what the question was that you asked me.

Well, no, firstly, I find what you're talking about really interesting because I was thinking about how maybe quite a lot of people can relate to that thing of lockdown being a time when you just go back, you know, to the things that just bring that pure pure happiness yeah yeah and i'm sure there are a lot of people who re-evaluated a lot of things and just looked for the kernel what's like the key bit of this so the idea of you going back you know when you've sort of you've got all these layers to running a business as you say like okay but is this commercial how easy is that to manufacture actually how do you get

that finish it's quicker and easier and cheaper to get this finish do all those extra things that you the the muscles that you grow when you're definitely doing it for real yeah but to go back and just look at all these things you did right at the beginning when you weren't thinking with any of those constraints it's just like yeah design and actually I think your stuff has got such a it's got a very I think I'd know your shoes you know without seeing the inside of the sole you know I think there's a real identifiable look to a lot of what you do and the the palette and obviously the butterflies and all these things so I think that that spirit of doing starting like that like I just want to do the things I love

and not really having that you know coming from like the business side of it in terms of like, you know, the structured manufacturing, but just creativity for its own sake is really lovely. Yeah. Also, I think it was, I was just looking back and thinking like, there's so many like rules when you're a fashion brand or like, so or just like this calendar and I don't know know the processes that you just expected to like follow and fall in to line with and it's like well I really like that shoe that I designed in 2015 why is that old like why is that past season it's not to me like I'd still wear it I still think it's um like a amazing shoe so I started to think like no I don't agree with the the whole idea of

seasons or you know every six months you have to do a new well it's not even every six months because you do pre-collection so it's every three months there's like a new collection new collection it's like the industry's so um focused on newness and it's just it's probably quite similar to to music in a way like when you do an album and then like if i was to do a collection then you have to you sell it then you then you have to promote it so you're going to do like different store visits or whoever's bought the shoe whatever department store wherever in the world you go you do events with their customers and so um but it's like every every six months like a hamster wheel um and and then it's like well what happens to all these shoes from the past that I still love so it was it was sort of like a way for me to um to to give them like a um a place or, like, that, you know,

something that's... I don't want them just, like, in an archive somewhere, you know. And I love, like, when my customers, like, send me pictures of, like, them in, like, styles from... You know, cos I don't think they date. Like, I don't design into trends, so I don't... For me, it's, like, the same I would approach doing a piece so I don't for me it's like the same I would approach doing a piece of art you know it's like yeah if I was to do a painting I'm still going to

have that on my wall um you know or buy a piece of art that I love I'm not going to just put it up on the wall for six months and then and then take it down and replace it so yeah so true and I don't even think people shop like that I think there's like the side of fashion that as you say is like on that hamster wheel and really hungry and thirsty for newness but then there's everybody else who's just kind of getting on with their lives and going I really love these shoes and when they wear out I hope I can get new ones or I hope and I might get them in a second colorway or something and they're kind of just yeah happy with that really something classic and you know we we now do talk a lot more about slow fashion, and that has become more of a thing.

So a lot of your thinking is actually really something that other people are now understanding is important. Yeah, well, we started, like, relaunching a lot of, like, favourite styles from the past. I get so many people like, oh, I love this shoe. Where can I get it? And it's like, you know, it might come up on eBay or, you know, but if it's like, if there's a shoe that so many people still want, then I just and it's like you know if it might come up on ebay or you know but if it's

like if there's a shoe that so many people still want then I just put it back into production and you know put it back in the collection because to me it's still it's still as relevant as it was as it was then I just keep thinking about when you're saying about people seeing people in your shoes and then thinking you're not what they you don't think you're what they would expect do you feel then that within what you do that there's almost like have you always felt a bit like an outsider with what you do do you think um yeah I think I think um yeah I would say I would say yes to that just because the fashion industry is you know I always felt like um as when you're a shoe designer you can kind of sit on the outside like we've I've always tried to just stay in my own

lane really and not worry too much about um about that side of things in a way um and even from when I first very first started I even from like a price positioning of the brand I knew that I didn't want it to you know shoes at the time in what was it 2012 so expensive like for a for a designer luxury designer shoes like 800 pounds something like that so I knew I wanted to position myself um I wanted to be a bit more democratic I think and um and that if there's one thing I hate about the fashion industry it's like the like elitism so it's for me it was really important that the shoes were like felt attainable you know and um so when I started like the entry price but i think was about i think it was about 250 pounds for a pump which like just a plain shoe and then the more elaborate it was it would

go higher but it would still be um 200 300 pounds less than a similar product with that with that much detail and embellishment and things so i know like it's still it's still expensive but it's something that you could maybe someone that's um you know like if I if I imagine myself um in when in my first job like I could save up for that or I could treat myself in the sale or you know something like that not if an 800 pounds shoe goes in the sale it was going to be you know like still 600 pounds so it's like so out of reach to like I don't know ordinary people so um for me that was quite important which is why I went to Brazil rather than Italy to manufacture the shoes it's a bit different now because I'm more focused

on um less about competing with price and more about just making sure that it's like what is being delivered is like a great quality so if I'm doing an espadrille I'll get it made in a factory in Spain it's amazing quality you know we test everything we especially when I added on children's shoes as well which was something that kind of fell in line with when I had my first daughter I was like started to think you know he's thinking in um more of like what I would want her to wear and different things you know so a lot of the a lot of a lot of the journey of the brand has um followed me personally in a way so when I when we got married I introduced a bridal line then I introduced a kid's line but with kids shoes that's you really do have to do a lot of um testing a lot of like safe there's a lot of safety things that you can choose as a brand whether you do that or not but we always

make sure we like follow all the correct um testing because I know myself like if you give a shoe to a two-year-old it's going going, they're going to start chewing on, like, whatever, if there's, like, a big gem on it or a big tassel or something, it's going in their mouth, so you have to make sure that they're safe. That's interesting. You don't actually, that's not illegal. You actually have to do that. You don't have to.

I think for some states in America you do, but globally there's different places that have different rules, so it's, yeah but then you you could and if you don't have that documentation then you you could potentially um be liable if somebody's like you know i can see that so yeah so it's better to just just be be safe and and follow the you know the tests that need to be done so it's interesting you say that the brand is really closely intertwined with what's been going on in your life, which I suppose makes complete sense,

but what a lovely thing that you can kind of have that symbiosis, I suppose. Yeah. So in that regard, how's your relationship with heels changed as you've had more children and pregnancies? Yeah, I think for me personally, I definitely wear like lower heels these days or sneakers. But actually when I had the twins, this is why when I had the twins, it was so, there were so many things that just happened to me like to my body like my um my uh coccyx is now um it's like broken it's like permanently like in like spasm

um and then my feet like the last uh month of my pregnancy I had like really extreme like swelling and basically what happened was the my feet um completely collapsed like all the bones in my feet collapsed because of the because it was a heat wave as well oh my goodness so it was like the pressure of the way I already had to have one of those um bands with the braces that like keeps your belly up right so then after I had the twins I was expecting my feet to go back to normal but they just didn't it was like I couldn't fit any of my shoes on or anything and I went to see a specialist about it and they said that that was um it needs I needed to have operation to basically like pin my feet back together so I had to have that done like on one foot then I had it

done on the other foot because it was so painful and they were like oh you can you can there are specialist shoes that you can wear for this and I was like I'm not sure that's gonna work for me so um so yeah well firstly that's one extraordinary thing to go through. I'm so sorry. That sounds like almost Victorian, the idea of having your feet sort of pinned back together again. Yeah. But also the cruelty of you being an actual person

who literally spends two hours sketching shoes. That's mean, isn't it? Yeah, it's okay, though. I'm sort of just half a size bigger than I was now, so I can still squeeze my feet into my old shoes. But yeah, I think in general, there's still women that love high heels and we've got those customers

that they just want the highest heel. But then also sneakers and mid-heights is a really big market for us as well. So I always make sure I design into all different heel heights. And mid-height is actually the hardest thing to design and get to look, you know, as desirable or comfortable as the high heels. It's actually, like, super easy to design, like, a sexy high heel.

It's, like, the easiest thing to do in the world. But designing a sexy mid-height that's that's the that's where the challenge is yeah yeah I can imagine you you can slip very easily into something that just looks sort of a little orthopedic or something and you don't I love a mid-heel so yeah I do too I think that I think there's the I think it's and and it definitely feels um you know you can tell the difference even even from like a five mil or centimetre difference. It definitely makes a huge difference. Thinking about all the dedication and how much headspace is given over to the brand,

how have you found dealing with all of that and keeping that train in motion alongside raising a young family yeah um yeah I think it's been different at different stages so when when I had BB um I was I think the business was only a year old um and my husband we work together so it's our it's our business so he um I'm more like take care of like creative side and then um anything to do with like digital like comms um social media that kind of thing anything with like communicating the brand and the story and then anything to do with accounts or logistics like you know the business end Bobby um focuses on and then we sort of meet in the middle and like occasionally argue about things but we're good balance um so when the business yeah the business was only a year old when we had uh Biebs so it was like everything

was just getting exciting and taking off and we were travelling here there and everywhere um and I was completely naive to what the impact would be of actually having a baby in tow um so yeah when when she actually arrived I hadn't really planned anything out I hadn't really thought what am I going to do and then I was at home and when when they're newborns that they just suddenly don't know so she was just sleeping all day and I was like I really need to do something like I've gone from being like going at 500 miles an hour to just sit in here and um and we'd moved from uh Walthamstow to Aldersbrook which is like um in East London but it's the only part of London that's completely surrounded by woodland so I felt really isolated and I'd I just wanted to be in the office with my baby. So, yeah, I think I was probably, I think I had,

and I had her by emergency C-section as well. So that was quite traumatic in that I didn't, I just, I felt like I'd, I hadn't properly thought things through, you know. And we were doing London Fashion Week and I'd done the hair and makeup tests in the day and then I went into labor that evening and so yeah it was just I was probably just not really hadn't properly taken in what what might be the reality of that yeah um so what I did was I went to I think she was probably like two weeks old and then I went to Westfield and bought like the best baby carrier I could find and I just took her

into the office with me because I thought I don't want to be at home I want to be in the office I want to be with Bobby like we'd lived in each other's pockets for years and um started this thing this business and it was and it was just gaining momentum and I thought um I don't want to have to choose you know I can do both so we so that's what we did so then every day we would just take take the baby take baby to the office and there was like a little mezzanine level which umby put carpet in and we made it really cute like a little nursery and then that was just where where she grew up and anywhere that we would i mean she came to the parish like i have to when you sell your collection you sell it when it's paris fashion

week so when she was four weeks old we was in par Paris at the showroom and I used to take her to Brazil to the factory with me. So, yeah, I just, because I was breastfeeding as well. So it was like she would just, which I didn't do for the twins because, you know, I don't know why. You know, you read certain things. It's like, right, I must breastfeed. And then you get stuck in this way of thinking like okay this is the best thing to do I need to do this and I even had

once she was six maybe eight months old and then she was getting a bit more mobile I some days she would go to a nursery for half a day near the office in um spitalfields and then my cleaner at the time um she became she was like we became good friends and then she was my she would like look after bb for like a few days um so she would come and collect different work take her home and i'm still trying to like pump in the office and then and then my cleaner Irina who was baby's nanny as well her mum um would come and like collect the milk it was ridiculous like the the pressure I would like put on myself to to to make sure she had like breast milk it was absolutely ridiculous and then I'd be in a

meeting and I'd forget and then um and then she would arrive to my collection then I'm having to like pump under pressure I get like barely nothing out like okay so yeah I just um um I just think I I was just completely clueless and just put too much pressure on myself to kind of do everything yeah so when you had the twins you're like right that's one thing I'm not gonna be doing that again to myself well yeah I just thought with two I'm just not I'm just and also like other people could help me more as well you know Bobby could do a night feed and I'll go to bed early and then I'll do the other you know so it's just yeah I just I think it's whatever whatever suits you is the is the best way yeah I'm doing a big emphatic nothing to that because I think that is the thing that you kind of end up learning is like

you just need the big headlines to be that you're you know giving yourself the things that actually make yourself feel supported and less less pressure yeah it's a hard lesson to learn though and you often do learn it by finding yourself a bit on your knees with everything you're thinking what am I doing yeah why am I pushing myself so much yeah you know you just want to be a happy happier parent so you can have be happy with your baby yeah the bigger bigger aim for someone that hasn't had twins like me what's the biggest difference is it literally just like double of everything did it feel like a huge shock to the system to have two babies next summer yeah it was it it wasn't it wasn't you just do everything twice I mean that I definitely think that is so special to have twins that I feel so lucky to have them, and they have such an amazing bond and real,

you just can't explain it. They're just such a unit, the two of them. The way they support each other is so sweet. But yeah, you do have to do everything, twice of everything. So leaving the house in the early days when they were still, like, in nappies and your bottles and things like that, I just don't think we left the house that much, to be honest. And how did it work?

Because it was just too much effort. Like, getting a baby bag together is like a military operation. Oh, my goodness. I can only imagine. So were you taking them into work as well? No, if it was, like, a big meeting, and it was a day when I was looking after them then I would but um I had like a bit of help with the twins like um so if I was going into work for the day then I'd have a nanny at home that would look after them so a bit more of a balance with them because

yeah I think taking one baby um you can be a bit more adaptable but with the twins there's yeah it's not like they don't just you know it's like the second one just like slots in it wasn't really like that it was like we had to do everything and I had them on such a strict um schedule as well because I'd read that with twins if you don't have a a plan or a schedule it's just it can just be completely chaotic so yeah I tried I tried quite hard to keep them on a on a schedule that's really impressive though to take that on and I I mean hearing everything you're saying you talked a lot about you know your perfectionism and I can hear you know the ambition were you ever worried about your ambition waning with with new motherhood

did that ever cross your mind were you worried about that I think it can be difficult um especially like being a perfectionist and wanting to be on top of everything it um I think it's made me a better leader actually like better manager of people because I'm just I'm not so on every step of things which are which I probably would was like in the early days just just from like protectiveness as well of this this um new business I'd you know that you feel very protective about things because it's quite easy for things to like spiral out in the wrong direction or maybe something's not quite what you thought or so I would um check everything whereas when you've got, you know, three kids

and sometimes I don't even, these days, I don't even like look at the Instagram like at the weekend or just because I haven't got time. So it's like if something is, I don't know. You just have to step back. Yeah, I just let the team, I just have to be, it's made me more like trusting of people and um yeah in that sense it's it's it's definitely better you haven't got time to

micromanage what everybody else is doing yeah I can imagine otherwise you'd be like sorry can I just check what you did sure it's fine but can I just have a quick check yeah I think that was that was quite difficult in the early days because I was only two years out of college and then I started this business and within a year or so we had like 30 employees and I'd never I'd never managed anyone it was that quick so leaving college um well I left college and then I had a job for two years in the industry and then I set up my own line so um and it gained traction really really quickly so it was a it was just a quite a big adjustment in a way um and has that always been with Bobby as well well Bobby came came on board he'd always helped out like in the evenings with like accounts and things as I mean I'm I just like spreadsheets

my like nemesis so um but like six months in he was I was getting some quite big orders and I was it was really I was really panicked um and he he had his own business he was an electrical engineer um so but it was sort of like look we've got an opportunity here like this is this could actually be something really really big so we made a decision that he would come on board and we would like grow this grow it together yeah I mean I work quite a lot with my husband and uh do you find like home life stays home when you're quite good at having work life be separate or is it a bit more kind of? Oh no, it's like a, there's no like home,

like work, home balance. It's like a fluid equilibrium that just rolls in and out. So, but yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way I don't think it is it's our life it's it's and and even with the kids as well you know like Finn even my stepson he was he's been the one child that's been there throughout all of it so we would be like setting up pop-up shops or setting up doing I don't know I did like windows in some of the stores that I was in in London and we would be setting them up we'd do everything ourselves in the early days just to keep the cost down and because Bobby's so he's so good at like building things or um you know like planning things out and he he if we did this we would like design sets

together and build them and you know so. And Finn was there for everything. So it's kind of, and then when Bibi came along, she was there for everything. So it was kind of like, this is what we do. This is how we are, yeah. Do you think every, do you think it's quite normal for fashion designers to have that much involvement in what's going on with their work?

Because it sounds like you're really across everything. I think when you're young, when you're a young brand that is um i think i'm so lucky that i have bobby because i think the reason why some you can be like the most creative person and design the most amazing clothes but if you don't have that balance or someone that's going to say well that's really great but you're not actually going to be able to sell that because it's like super expensive. So do you know what I mean? Or, yeah, I love that, but I think we need one in,

I think you're going to need to do one in black or do one on a, and I think we were, like, five years in, and I was, I was like, oh, wow, what are we going to do for our, like, fifth year anniversary? And Bobby was like, how about you just design, how you do like a plane like a it was like we were like getting carried away by ourselves and Bobby was like can't you just design a shoe like a court shoe a pump like something that is like you know like something simple it'd be great to have like a basic shoe like oh okay well I guess you wouldn't take that from just anybody as well right so um it was a we're a good balance because you can definitely like

get carried away when you when you know it's quite easy for like creative person to get completely carried away with themselves but Bobby always brings it brings me like straight back down to earth and um you know it's not it's like shoes it's not it's not like we're not saving lives you know so um definitely his like logistic like logical pragmatic methodical approach to things is a is a good balance I think a lot of young designers they don't have that um partner that is as equally emotionally invested as you but actually is not looking at it um with the emotion with the emotion of it being there you know it's not it's not his yeah um creation like he's, he's not got that. He's like, okay, we need to work out what price to sell this,

who's going to make it, where we're going to ship it, where we're going to land it, get it to the stores within the delivery time, you know. Yeah. It's like... But then if you've got that foundation, then you can let your mind go with a flight of fancy, can't you? Because you've got those things ticking over.

Yeah. Someone's keeping an eye on all those bottom line things, I suppose yeah and how did you find it being a step mom I've had someone who has step parents I'm always quite interested in that dynamic was that a role that you found you had an instinct of how to take it on well when I met Bobby I was like 25 I think so at the time it didn't I wasn't really that I don't think I was really that phased by it or didn't really feel like oh it wasn't I never questioned that do I want to do I want this responsibility or not I was sort of just like oh you know I'd like fallen in love and they came as a package that that was just sort of how it was um but when I when I look at like 25

olds in my office now and I think wow you know like I don't know if I really I'm the sort of person that just like throws myself into things I don't ever really plan things through to be honest so I don't think I'd ever thought about whether I was ready to to do that or I wanted to do that or not um but I think um it yeah it was just that that was that was the package deal you know yeah um but I think as I mean being a step-parent now for I mean Finn was four when I met him and he's like 16 now so it's like there's no fairy tales where there's like the lovely kind friendly stepmom you know it's always like the evil stepmother or the wicked stepmother so um yeah Cinderella andansel and gretel have definitely got a lot to answer for from like a

reputation and um like stereotype that you have to kind of shake but i've i've always approached that relationship as as um trying to be more than a friend but be more of like a friend and a mate you know because he's got an amazing mum so i don don't, he doesn't need me to be his mum, you know. So, yeah, I just like, I've always tried to be friendly, be his friend and then in the hope that like the love would develop and it has. So, I mean, it's not always been easy, but he's such a special part of our family.

And my life wouldn't be the same without him. And we've all tried very hard to make sure that we have created an environment for him where he doesn't feel any animosity between anybody, and there isn't. We actually get on really well. That sounds really really lovely and I love that take as well of being like a friend and just letting the love develop because I think that's a really I think that is a very instinctive and that means you're you have a very sort of honest exchange in your

relationship that it's their own thing and I love that idea as well of you know it's not like you fell for your husband and then there's this kid you've also it's like that was that that was the deal that's yeah yeah how they how they came into your life definitely I think that's really um really positive I'm always interested in that because I think you're right it doesn't have a great reputation but also I think it can be really tricky and I think you know for lots of people if they find themselves in that situation I think they probably feel like it's I don't think it gets spoken about like all the time really that that because like being a step parent is still a bit you're still raising like I feel like I was raised by yeah four people because I have a step-mom step-dad they're all in there yeah the good the good bad and ugly all of it it's all in there so

I think you know you've got to take it all as that's that's family do you come from a big family actually I wondered is that um no it's just I've got an older sister so it's just the two of us and was your mum a working mum yeah my mum um so my mum was when I was younger she was a a teacher and then I sort of saw her kind of go up through the ranks I guess as a as a teacher she was in a deputy um head of head of English when I was little then deputy head and then um when I was a teenager she got a headship of a school in in South London so of a big secondary school so um yeah definitely seen um had that uh seen her like work ethic you know she's like I'd say she's a workaholic she was she would I could count on one hand the amount of days that she'd she'd had off of school like

she was like if she didn't go in then the world would stop you know that's her teachers though isn't it I think you're right so yeah um but that that was a she was a great influence um to to kind of see the effort that it takes to to get to where you want to get to um so yeah I'm quite fortunate I've had a lot of like strong women um my grandma was a refugee in the Holocaust from Czechoslovakia. So she's always had, like, lots of, so many stories and taught me so much about, you know, how brave she had to be and everything. Wow. So do you remember hearing those when you were little?

Yeah. And when I was little and then as I grew up, I kind of probably took more of an interest in it, I guess. Like when you're little, you know, it's just if you don't really know the magnitude of things, I think. But she was an educator at the Imperial War Museum in South London. in South London and she used to teach so every week she would go there and teach different schools about um school kids about her story and then take them through the the holocaust galleries there which now only now I realize that how like draining that must have been like every week to do that but it was so important to her to um to to tell that story and make sure that you know it's never forgotten how old was she then when she was a refugee you know um seven i think yeah wow wow you're right that is really i think that's a really um perceptive thing so it must have been draining for her to go

to have to keep that so alive but it's so important yeah yeah i follow a few there's a twitter account actually where they have um the people who were involved in the holocaust like the people who died in the in the camps and also people who survived and they just show a picture and just tell that story of that one person and I think they do one every day my mum started showing them to me so I started following them and she's like it's so important to remember, you know, history is keeping those stories and those names out there and keeping it going. Yeah, definitely.

I think it is, especially at this time where there's not very many people from that generation still around to tell their stories. No. It must have been quite a big deal to have that as part of your childhood, actually. Even if you weren't really aware of it in the same, as you say, you didn't understand the magnitude, but to have something like that that's got that real, I that's a survivor's story yeah you know a really really young child having to I mean to survive something horrific I think that's um that's an incredible thing to

have in your family actually and do you have creatives in your family or was that just you yeah no not really I mean my my grandparents were butch, I think. They were butchers in Peckham. I'm sure there's an art to it, but I wouldn't describe it as a creative thing. And then, yeah, my mum was a teacher and my dad was a DJ and he used to manage betting shops as well. Oh, cool. Yeah. That's so best. Yeah, I mean, he could do really good bubble writing.

He used to write all the races out in bubble writing. I remember being quite impressed by that when I was little. We used to spend a lot of time in betting shops, actually. I remember my sister had a birthday party, her, like, eighth birthday party in my dad's betting shop. Really? Which seemed completely normal at the time, but thinking about it now, it's pretty unorthodox.

I can't imagine myself giving that, like, birthday party. You've got a birthday coming up later this year. Have you considered that? Into a little spot of gambling? Give them all some chips? Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it was... That was normal to us, yeah.

Does the creativity that you have in you, is that a part of your kids' life all the time? Are they always crafting and drawing? Or are you not really that? I think where there's so much colour and so much, I don't know, like details and even like the clothes that I would buy for Bebe when she was little, like so many prints and colours and things like that, that I found that she has actually like rebelled against that in a way.

And obviously my mini collection, like, I fit everything. So, you know, the most important thing with kids' shoes is for them to be comfortable. So the factory will always make me things in whatever sizes the girls are, and then I'll fit them on them. But with, yeah, with my eldest daughter now, she's, like, she's had so much like colorful shoes and

butterflies and everything that I brought home I was sampling this new espadrille factory and I think um it was it so for like a prototype they would just make it out of any spare leather or spare fabric in the in the factory so it was like a cream leather espadrille like super plain no detail and I was like baby can I just try this on you and just and she was like oh okay and then and she's like mummy I think this is the best she's ever done like I'm so offended because it was just completely not it wasn't on my design and it was like the plainest simplest shoe she was like can i keep these i was like oh my gosh yeah that's like yeah she just wants to wear like super super plain like or just like big

long you know she's she watches like all on youtube and things like that so she just she's got her own style now she's not um she's not super colorful anymore she's like a bit cooler she'll come back to it yeah yeah i remember my monochrome days you come back to the color for sure i just let them do i just kind of i think if you if you've got a strong feeling of how you want you know i I wouldn't fight that. I'd just, like, let her wear what she wants. Well, if you're someone that's quite, you know, you've got your perfectionism, and do you find it easy to just let them be?

Because I find aspects of that quite hard, with, like, you know, the fact you've just got all these individuals and you've just got to let them do what they do. Yeah, I do I've thought I I probably did go for a stage of of of being just like oh my god like because when my husband takes if he takes them to the park they they just wear whatever they put on so they just look completely like crazy and um so one of my twins um she doesn't she only likes to dress as as in the batman costume and then the other twin is um proper princess girly everything needs she wants to wear a different tutu every day so they're completely opposite and um when they get themselves dressed or she's like no i want that top with that that skirt and that top

and in my head i'm like they just don't go i just i try and like persuade her against it but no she's like no that's what i want to wear I'm like okay sometimes you're kind of rooting for them though when they do yeah yeah yeah so I've I just yeah turn a blind eye to to these um yeah I'm sure when they're older and they see pictures of themselves they'll be like why did you let me go out like that I'm like because you wanted to like that was your choice you know um so yeah we look like a bit of a motley crew when we're out and about. It's all good. You haven't seen my kids. Motley crew is what we do. So I always ask everybody if they're the kind of mother that they thought they'd be. So do you think you're the sort of mother you thought you'd be before you had kids? Yeah, I don't know. I guess you have this like picture of how things might be and then the reality of that it's like super different like we do a lot of like drawing and painting

and things but then I'll just get frustrated because it's like the amount of times you know like you've got like a thing of felt tips and pencils it's like the amount of times I have to like sort that out again or just sort out it's just it's just complete chaos I wonder as well if you'll look back at this time in your life with all these many children around you and your business literally running completely almost like and sink alongside it because it sounds like you know you had your steps on prayer and pretty much get going then it was like baby baby baby and another baby and it's like gonna look back on this period of like whoa that was very busy yeah it does it

does definitely feel busy and then I don't think I think what I wouldn't have predicted with the amount of like organization and planning from like a social calendar like for the kids do you know what I mean so party invites and this that and the other it's like every admin yeah the admin yeah because I hate admin so so yeah that that bit I find really quite difficult and like navigating all different clubs and emails and WhatsApp groups, I find that really hard. It's quite a noise in your head, actually, as well, isn't it? A lot of that stuff, I find.

It's like, stop it, get out of there. A lot of it's not that important. No. And it kind of takes up more space than I need. I find it sometimes like a sort of latent stress, that sort of hum of all those things and what you've forgotten to reply to and what you've got to keep up with and all of that but I think that's something that a lot of people experience I think

it's quite normal but it's just that feeling of like ah all those things those things yeah if they if your kids end up wanting to get into their own business have you got what would be the advice you give people doing what you've done and setting up on your own just follow what it is that they've really got like real sort of passion for like hunger for like sometimes I feel sometimes I worry that they might not have that in the same way that like me and their dad did because obviously they've grown up differently you know and um I think when you grow up, when I started, I had nothing to lose. I didn't, it was like everything was for the taking. And yeah, I think they probably would have grown up a bit differently.

But then when I see them, when I see my daughter and how she loves like um she loves performing arts and she loves gymnastics and she'll like be out and doing like a tumbling and stuff and she'll just want to get it right and it's like and I think oh no she does have that like tenacity and hunger and you know I think you really do need that like fire in your belly to be able to go out and like grab the thing that you want um and I think like teaching teaching them that was I was worried about teaching that but I just think that's like that's like instinctive anyway um so so yeah I would just always encourage them to to like follow that the way that that my mum and my dad um encouraged me and my sister to to just go out and like grab grab opportunities with both hands yeah I think that's wonderful

I think actually that's probably like one of the most important things really because I think as you say if you've got that fire in you that that thing in you that hunger for it you just you just find the way to make things you just keep pushing on don't you yeah you just keep banging on doors until they open for you yeah exactly well I wish you all the best with your new baby oh thank you

thanks so much for talking to me thank you for having me and congratulations with all you've achieved honestly I think it's brilliant it's no small feat what you've done with everything and building such a big successful business so congratulations thank you so much oh thank you so much Sophia that was a lovely chat I really enjoyed talking to to her and um the serendipity if I'm going to art college and drawing that model with

the shoes and then thinking hang on a minute this is really resonating with me shoes is it and shoes is such a specific side of fashion isn't it it's got such um resonance with people you know obviously clothes do but shoes in particular you know you sort of everybody you know probably has got a sort of shoe personality if you know what I mean I mean I know even if you don't like shoes and you just wear quite sort of um basic uh hard-working shoes that becomes part of a shoe personality if you know what I mean like basically how you express yourself that way like I know when I think of my mum and I think of my mum's shoes I I can immediately picture things she wore when I was a child. Summer shoes she would have had, things she wears now. In fact, it's a nice coincidence. She has a pair of Sophia Webster

sliders that she wears on holiday that she had for absolutely ages. And yeah, I've got tons of shoes. So maybe they've got a special thing for me because I still remember the first heels I ever bought they were from Shelly's and they were like sort of Gucci platform style um sorry Gucci loafer but with a platform and a heel which weirdly seemed to come back in fashion I saw them in the shop the other day very similar thing but yeah I think shoes and what shoes you've worn at different times in your life and it's always been something I've taken pleasure in anyway and yeah I've got way too many shoes upstairs blimey I don't know what I'm waiting for I probably only wear about 10% my gig shoes and now they take a pounding I wear them till they fall apart stamp stamp stamp to the disco beat um but yes thank you sofia thank you to you obviously and i said in the intro

ciao grazie mille and that might have given you the idea that i can speak some italian and actually i can't i've just started learning again i bought one of those uh apps with the year subscription to learn italian and i've been paying for it for two years now and I haven't learned much and now I've just bought a different language app and again paid for a year subscription in the hope that I will get back on that little language horse but really I think I've only learned to say things like, Arigatou. Mongelele mela. Una mela.

Got distracted by the doorbell. That means my kids are home. It's about to get very noisy in here. Listen, love you lots. See you next week. And, oh golly, I'm a bit scared. When I open the door, all that relax is going to go. Anyway, speak to you soon.

Thank you for listening. Arrivederci. Thank you.