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How To Bring A Sense Of Fun To Work?
Anya Hindmarch explains how she maintains her positive attitude with self-care, ruthless organisation and good humour
When I tell Anya Hindmarch that by the end of our interview, I’d like to know how it’s possible to be as fantastically successful as she is without losing your marbles, soul or sense of humour, she lets out a peal of laughter. Followed by a low “Oh God…”
This, then, is lesson number one. Hindmarch has a great line in self-deprecation: while always extremely chic, switched-on and articulate, she is never much further than five seconds away from an eye-roll or a snort of amusement. After all, her eponymous business, despite its multi-million-dirham turnover, global influence and customers ranging from the Duchess of Cambridge to Solange Knowles, is rooted in irreverence. The label’s greatest hits include a clutch resembling a packet of crisps, a googly-eyed rucksack, Tony the Tiger totes and (a Hindmarch favourite) a bag depicting a dog poo, complete with crystal fly, specially commissioned by Grayson Perry.
So it makes sense that, 34 years on since selling her first bucket bag, Hindmarch herself cherishes a certain light-heartedness at work. “Personally, the idea of achingly serious fashion doesn’t float my boat,” she says. “I’m very serious about the important things, but I do think life is too short not be a bit ridiculous every so often. It also keeps you sane.”
The value she places on having fun and being kind permeates her new book, which, part-memoir, part-manual, is called If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair. The title reflects Hindmarch’s belief that taking care of yourself – in a non-precious way – is something you have to prioritise in order to excel at, and enjoy, life and work. “If I’m in a conference and haven’t washed my hair, it undermines my confidence, my output suffers and the whole day just slides from there,” she explains.
Viewing life as a fast-flowing, often turbulent river, Hindmarch installs what she calls ‘stepping stones’ into her calendar: a weekend, or an hour of time off, to refresh herself before plunging back in. She’s honest about how, looking at her diary and seeing three non-stop months, she starts to feel schedule-fatigue, followed by resentment, and can “go into victim mode” – so she has learnt how to plan against it.
Her point is that self-care – even just going for a brisk walk – is both a selfish and generous act. “Mood matters: what people need, in a parent or a boss, is someone feeling upbeat, with a twinkle in their eye. Positive energy flows down.” (Hindmarch, it seems, practises what she preaches: when we speak, having herself been heartened by some narcissi delivered by a friend, she had just sent everyone in the company a little bunch of daffodils to cheer up their working-from-home desks.)
This applies to the hard times as well as the good. She endorses being open and frank, not glossing over difficulty with a ‘business-as-usual’ forced smile but instead, as she puts it, adopting an “it’s crap, what are we going to do about it?” policy. “Obviously as a leader, there are times to be a bit stiff-upper-lip, but these days it’s all about community – people aren’t stupid, and they respond to being told the truth.”
Hindmarch believes that sharing highs and lows is a strength. “Emotion is a female superpower. I think we should be emotionally intuitive and authentic – that way, you get much more traction out of people, and we all have more fun.” As in her handbags – where a satchel jingling with charms including a pearl penguin, life-size Wrigley’s Spearmint packet and tomato ketchup sachet belies an immaculate wallet system within – humour and organisation go hand in hand in making Hindmarch’s life happy and efficient. She is an organisation enthusiast – she loves to label, is “hooked on highlighting” and is a practitioner of the Getting Things Done list-making method masterminded by the task-management guru David Allen.
“There is a nerdy thread throughout my style of working, but I quite like nerdy,” she says. “It’s partly my way of coping. When you feel out of control, you want to take some elements in hand, to have something to cling to. And if I can do it with colour-coding, then, great.” The idea that order and creativity are mutually exclusive doesn’t wash with Hindmarch: “Mess is distracting; when everything is as it should be, I can be most creative.” After all, she’s in the business of dreaming up beautiful accessories whose first purpose is to, literally, compartmentalise our lives.
Finally, gaining and retaining a sense of perspective is key, the designer says. Her own epiphany came 10 years ago, when her son was diagnosed with cancer (he has since been given the all clear). “We run around, thinking we’re incredibly important and it’s all so serious, and out of nowhere, you realise that none of it matters, really,” she says. “Suddenly seeing the bigger picture was a huge help for me – though I hope it doesn’t take a horrible experience like that for everyone else to see it too.”
Towards the end of the book, its author references a sentence stating that “there’s nothing cooler than a person who is just happy in their own skin”. Hindmarch insists that she’s far from there herself – but if her idiosyncratic style of designing and leading are anything to go by, you might beg to differ. In any case, surely there’s something excellent about a woman whose enduring advice is to “not care about all the noise, listen to what matters for you – and have fun doing it”.
If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair: A Manual for Life’ by Anya Hindmarch (Dhs100, Bloomsbury)
Image courtesy Shutterstock/Rex
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s September 2021 issue