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- [00:05]
Mary Portas
I love beautiful homes. If I'm in a physical space that I don't feel comfortable in, I actually genuinely feel low. But more than that, a place can call to you. I remember wanting to buy a home in Primrose Hill many, many years ago and it fell through and I couldn't go back there. People say, I'm eating for coffee in Primrose. I said, no, you're not. I don't like it. Never like Primrose, it's full of lovelies. And they'd get really Mary. And that was just me, really not to be there because I wasn't there. And so I found a house and I live in the road that Paddington's filmed in and it's really cute. It's beautiful.
- [00:47]
Matt Gibbard
Hello, welcome to Homing in. My name is Matt Gibbard and this podcast is brought to you by our team at the Modern House. The Modern House is of course a design led estate agency which sells and celebrates the most beautiful homes across the uk. This podcast reflects our complete obsession with the idea of home and its importance in people's lives. My guest today is the wonderful Mary Portis. Most of us know Mary as a swashbuckling TV presenter with a flame red bob, but her career away from the screen has been no less remarkable. She did the window displays for Topshop during its heyday. She was the creative director of Harvey Nichols around the time it was immortalized on the show. Absolutely fabulous, of course. And she's even managed to reinvent the bleak genre of charity retail with her chain of shops for Save the Children. Nowadays she runs her consultancy Portus, which helps brands to create purpose and beauty in everything they do. Today I've come to meet Mary at her office in central London. As is the tradition on this podcast, I've asked her to talk about her childhood home, her current place, plus also a home of the future. What this reveals, I think, is an incredibly rich life story. It starts with being made homeless as a teenager when she lost both of her parents, and culminates with establishing the most amazing sense of community in her 60s. Despite having a more demure blonde hairdo these days, Mary's certainly lost none of her characteristic fire. But she's also a very sensitive and thoughtful soul with a huge amount of wisdom to impart. So we always start with going back to first principles, which is where you grew up and specifically the house that you grew up in. So it was in Watford, am I right? Tell us about it.
- [02:40]
Mary Portas
Well, I thought we were quite glamorous and wealthy, which was Ridiculous. We had a little semi detached, but it was a corner plot and so we had a big garden at the front. And, well, I thought it was a big garden. It was, not at all, but I just loved the place. I didn't know any different. So I was one of five kids. And it was only a three bedroom semi, so it was always busy. And I think probably subsequently I've tried to recreate that my whole life. And it was an old Victorian terrace. It just felt solid. I drove my little son back there last summer, I think it was. I pulled up outside, it had, oh, my God, the tree, silver birch in the front garden. I always used to sit under that silver birch on the wall. It was a very old brick wall. I remember the tiny, tiny little seeds that fell off the silver birch were often on my legs, you know. Anyway, I drove him. I pulled up and this guy was in the front garden and I said, look, I'm really sorry, this is my childhood home. Do you mind if I come in just to show it to my son? He said, are you Mary? And I said, yes, I am Mary. And he said, I was hoping one day you'd come back. And it was so beautiful. And when he bought it and he was doing it up, his brother brought him my autobiography and said, I think Mary Porter's lived here. And so he read it. And I used to talk about sitting in the porch, dreaming and just hanging in the porch at the front, which was so important to me. And he said, when I did this porch up, I thought, I wonder if she'll ever see this again. It was just such a beautiful moment.
- [04:15]
Matt Gibbard
Wow.
- [04:16]
Mary Portas
I actually didn't go back in the house. I stood in the garden and the irises that my mother used to grow, she still had the bulbs for lovely big purple purple irises. I don't know, somehow I didn't want to. It was their space now, and I didn't want them to think I'm in any way coming in and looking at this through my eyes of what I expected it to be. So I didn't go in, but I just had a very lovely time.
- [04:40]
Matt Gibbard
I don't know about you, but I dream about my childhood home quite a lot. Do you?
- [04:45]
Mary Portas
Yes.
- [04:45]
Matt Gibbard
What do you think about then?
- [04:47]
Mary Portas
Well, I'm sure a lot of that has to do with safety. Fundamentally, the role of parents is that we bring children up and we create a safe space. You know, from when you're a baby and you're born and you're wrapped and you're put into a little Crib, you know, I think your home is a space. I mean, just even that line, I'm going home is really important. And I even remember when I divorced first and when my son said, I want to go home. And I just thought, please let it be the home that we're now in and not your father's. But then I thought, no, both can be your home. How do I manage this? You know, so that both places become home for you. But I think dreaming of your home, which I do often, I think maybe is this fact that we all need to feel safe.
- [05:39]
Matt Gibbard
What kind of kid were you?
- [05:40]
Mary Portas
Well, I was fourth out of five. And I just remember feeling I didn't have a place really. You know, I wasn't the eldest, I wasn't the firstborn, I wasn't the youngest.
- [05:49]
Matt Gibbard
So you've got a podcast called Beautiful Misfits, right? Is that you? Were you a Beautiful Misfits?
- [05:54]
Mary Portas
Yes, but I didn't want to be. Really deep down. I spent a lot of time trying to be what I wasn't. And then you realize, actually, it's your gift and it's who you are.
- [06:04]
Matt Gibbard
How did you get on at school as a bit of a misfit?
- [06:07]
Mary Portas
Well, I was very popular and very naughty, but I was also a mimic and a performer. So I always had huge amounts of friends because my mother died when I was 16 and my father when I was 18. And so I wanted to recreate family all the time. But actually, I realized that solitude's a vital, vital part of my life that I need. And actually, I've become quite a lone wolf, or maybe I was, but I didn't allow it before.
- [06:33]
Matt Gibbard
So you touched on there, obviously, you know, a real period of grief that you had. Hugely formative. How would you describe that in relation to your home environment?
- [06:43]
Mary Portas
Well, that home that I talked about that was full of life, just became completely and utterly dead. I mean, horrendous. I never had a front door key because my mother was always there. She had five kids, and you'd come home and there was always a smell of cooking. And as we got slightly older, my older siblings, if they were going out, my mother would just leave a list in the kitchen and you had to sign your name if you came in. So she got up and actually checked the list to see that we were in. My mother died, and my elder brother Michael was training in architecture and he was working in Sudan. My sister had just started uch. She was in London studying, and I was the one that was sort of left at home. With my younger brother, who was 14. So my brother Joe was in hairdressing, so he was just always out. And I would come home to an empty house I never had come home to. That was horrendous. Yeah. And to this day with my children, I just don't allow them to come into an empty house. I think it's a horrible feeling. I mean, that's my hang up. It's not that you can still, you know, make children feel secure, but it was horrible. And even talking about it now, I go back there and I traumatized slightly by it.
- [07:58]
Matt Gibbard
Did you have to do the cooking and stuff then? Yeah. So you grew up massively quickly.
- [08:02]
Mary Portas
It's really funny at the moment, my brother. My younger brother Lawrence is with me at the moment. We're living together for a few months and we had a friend for supper last night. My brother was the most extraordinary cook. And she said, when did you learn to cook? And we both started to laugh. But it wasn't funny because he was 14, I was 16, and we would cook the meal because my father was working. We had no idea what we were doing. And so I didn't see cooking as a joy at all, I thought, as a chore. And he's learned to see it take his time over it and has actually, you know, loves it now, but. And I do, but it took a long while to get to that.
- [08:42]
Matt Gibbard
Yeah. I want to ask you about resilience because you've got kids. I've got kids. It's the thing that you want to instill in them. But of course, you must have developed massive resilience just through all those experiences. How do you make sure that they have that?
- [08:57]
Mary Portas
Well, I think if you'd have asked me that when my eldest son, who's now 28, was born, I'd have sort of taught him what I was taught. I think resilience. Resilience comes from a real sense of love for the world. I thought resilience had to be, you get out there and you fight. Actually, I think it's completely the opposite. It's a much softer thing. And understanding that there are people or things that will happen in your life, and often it's because people don't know they're hurting, what they're doing. But if you know what love is and remember those warm times in your life, then you'll be able to walk away or not get involved in a sort of aggressive response. And I think that will give you great resilience and understanding that, you know, that what comes at you in the world is outside all of our control, but it's how we respond to it, which is where we can manage it. You know, if someone was mean to my elder son at school, I'd be saying, you think of a great word back. You know, this is 20 odd. I would never do that today.
- [10:11]
Matt Gibbard
Why wouldn't you?
- [10:13]
Mary Portas
Because I think I would see that whoever's doing that to me now is in pain or whatever reason they're doing it. If you can just stop, just stop and connect back to yourself, then that. That I think is the greatest strength that you can have.
- [10:26]
Matt Gibbard
So those negative experiences that you've had, how. How they manifested themselves in your character over the years, do you think?
- [10:35]
Mary Portas
Well, I was going to be an actress and I got into RADA when I was 18, and so that's where I always thought all my naughtiness and my expression went onto the stage. But my father then died and I was. It's just. It's slightly Dickensian and I still feel embarrassed talking about it even at this age, because my father remarried about 18 months after my mother died and he died nine months later of a heart attack. It was just completely crazy. In his 50s, but he left our family home to his second wife, so we were all homeless and so going to rad or. I had no money and I just. And my younger brother was 16. It was just a terrible time. And so I enrolled in the local Watford College of Art. And part of it was retail store design. And I was like, yeah, that sounds creative. But I was in such trauma and pain that I was just horrible. I used to go in angry. I was angry. And I remember I used to use the footage photo labs, and they'd, you know, just go in and dye my jeans and just. It was all the time. It was post punk, but it was that real anger that was around, you know, I hated it. I hated them. I just thought it was, you know, I was above all this, you know, I just didn't like it at all. And poor tutor, I mean, I was just. And she said, you'll have no future in retail. And I thought, I don't want to bloody go into retail. I don't feel a shit whether I have no future, I don't want it. And I sort of stormed off. And then I was like, what are you going to do? You know, Suddenly I was 21, 22. What are you going to do? You have no money, you have no home. I just remember saying to my friend who'd got a job in Harrods And I thought, well, yeah, well, that's where I want to go. I suddenly just focused and I found out the name of the personnel manager, then the guy who'd interviewed her and I gave the name and every day, and I didn't even have the phone, I would go into the tutor's office, I knew she put the key above the door and she'd go to lunch and I'd ring this guy and he'd say, we haven't got jobs, we've closed. There is no more jobs on the training scheme, the management training scheme. And I just rang him for six weeks. In the end he said, someone's born out coming for an interview. And I remember ringing my sister and her giving me an outfit to wear, this kind of pencil skirt with a white shirt. And I went in and I got the job and I went on the training scheme at Harrods. And part of it was you could do all the visual merchandising and display and it was all, you know, the big studio used to be underground, massive, under heritage like this, another world. So you'd have the place where they made the handmade chocolates. You'd go in there, there'd be all these women making the handmade chocolates going. There'd be another one where they were doing all the fabrics and then there'd be the big display studio with the mannequins and the props and. And you could just create these windows. It was like being in the theatre for me again. And so I found my place and loved it. And one day I was in the windows and Malcolm Clarence knocked on the windows because I was doing these really crazy windows. And he said, I've got some shops on King's Road, do you want to come do? I started doing that and then I'd drive around in my little open top Spitfire. My life started to then take. I think I had sort of like five years of grieving terribly and then my life opened up and I, well, this is good. And then I met my future husband. He was a very sort of a great sort of business chemical engineer. And he said, why aren't you doing something? You've got a clever mind, put it into. You need to be trained.
- [13:58]
Matt Gibbard
This.
- [13:58]
Mary Portas
You could go into management, online management. And we found this job ad for Topshop Oxford Circus. I was 26 and he helped me apply for it. And I remember turning up and met this woman who interviewed me, Jenny Greenshields, and she said, I'm getting a job. And I was given Topshop Oxford Circus. To all their visuals on Windows. Team of five. And it was crazy. It was a time of Boy George and all the bands I just had. There were the huge windows and I would just install live music and these. Fashion was just taking off. It was just, you know, crazy time. And that's how it all started. And then I got sort of recognized for that. And then. Harvey Nicks.
- [14:43]
Matt Gibbard
Yes. You're creative director at Harvey Nichols. What was that experience like? Because you've talked about how difficult that was as a woman in that environment. Can you. Can you touch on that?
- [14:55]
Mary Portas
Well, the weird thing, it's still bloody weird to the state. And those boards and businesses are run by men. And when you get into fashion, most designers, most businesses, if you look at even all the luxury brands today, heading them up, men, men. And they're selling to women. And there's no two ways about it. There is this sort of, you know, acceptance. Well, we've been. We've been. All of us are part of the patriarchy that has to fall or has to shift. And I'm in there in the 90s. It was absolutely right then. Still, I mean, someone said to me, say, oh, my God, Mary. You know, it's an amazing stat that there's a lot more CEOs, women are in retail now. And then you look at the stat and it's like 30% more this year, but they are still below 40% of chief execs. I'm going, oh, well, I meant to go, wow, this is great. No, this is shit. But I didn't think any of that when I went in. So when I was at Topshop, it was owned by the Burton Group and Sir Ralph Halpin. And he was very sort of ahead of his time, but he realized that so much of great retail was experienced and it was all happening in the States. And he used to send me. I was, what, 27. Go off and see these stores in New York or go over. It was amazing. And because I was the only one that did that job, all the senior managers and the men who were running the businesses couldn't quite get their head around how to deal with it. He did. He was a real visionary. So he would ask me to come up to his offices. I used to nearly wet myself. I was this kid going up to the chairman who ran the biggest businesses because he couldn't speak to any. The sales director, who I reported to, because what the hell did the sales director know about retail experience, which was really starting to happen, where stores were becoming this incredible place. Places where you Wanted to hang and be, you know, it was fantastic. So. And scary at the same time, but boy did I learn. And they owned Harvey Nicks at the time. And then he said to me, I want to move you across to Harvey Nichols. And I was like, I don't want to go to Harvey Nicks. I was looking after 400 top shops, you know, and I was. My hair was a different colour every bloody week. It was fashion. I don't want to go to some party dry store in Knightsbridge. I'm like this kid from, you know, fashion. And I remember turning up and I had this green streak at the bottom of my hair. It was all the time the fluorescent fan and meeting the buying director and she was just sitting totally head to toe in a lyre. And I'm like, in this, oh, shit, I'm in the wrong world here. And it was just. Work was just the best journey I've ever had. It was just fantastic. But what I did, it was loss making. I just instinctively did stuff that I just thought was creative and would inspire me. I didn't think about selling, I didn't think of it as a marketing job. I just. And so I did with the windows. Started off with the windows, doing what I did, had done at Topshop, but on a bigger scale and getting artists in, it just became its playground. So I went to Wendy Dagworthy at the Royal College in Louise Wilson. I said, right, you tell me who you think are going to be the future big decision and I'll give them their shows. And of course, no one had put catwalk shows on in a department store. And so I started doing that, gave Philip Tracy his first show and I got Izzy Blow to style them. It was crazy, you know. And so we would get the world, the fashion world would be coming to Harvey Nicks to see who the next young designers were. And so once we started doing that, the designers wanted to be in our store because we were the caller. So it all started to come together and it was just. And the more you did this, the crazier it got, the more you became just you. You naturally responded to the rhythm rather than strategically creating the path. And it was magical. Magical, you know, and. Cause all these women would come in and go, this is crazy. I'm not quite sure I understand it, but I love it. And so therefore the byproduct was that they bought from there. And that's been always, to this day, my belief in what great commerce is. If you make people feel fantastic about this and joyful and want to be in space, whether it's a home or a physical store. But what happened was, and the reason why I left is that when it became very successful and I became a board member and was promoted, actually what they then did lost what actually was the magic which was the risk and the instinct and you had to go in and see the money men and sell your idea in and in the end you go, oh shit, you've taken soul out of this. We've lost the magic. The magic was instinctive. The magic was culturally resonating with a mood. When you do that, ah, that one's going to work. So you know when I ab fab I was on a shoot, a photo shoot and Betty Jackson was on the phone to Jennifer Saunders and I said, and she was laughing, she said, oh my God, Jennifer Saunders is doing a series and it's going to be a send up on fashion. I said oh God, give me a call if she wants to film. Give me a number, will you? So I rang her and said look, if you ever want to film in Harvey Knicks you can free, I'll lend you any clothes. And of course we got name checked the whole time. It was just like going to Harvey Knucks darling. And then the Hab Fab went global and we were, it just was imagine now I couldn't have put that in a strategy. Where was that going to come? Oh, I'm thinking of is what do you think? Do you think, do you think it's going to be risky? This is what's killed retail today. Boards of boring second guessers and really why the luxury brands do so well. There's a creative director who's there going, there's a feeling I'm going to take it and I'm going to create and people are going to be magnetized as opposed to sold to.
- [20:54]
Matt Gibbard
Just a quick one. I'm really pleased to say that this podcast is sponsored by one of my all time favorite brands, Vitsu. Over the past 25 years or so I've been very lucky to visit hundreds of beautifully designed living spaces. And if I could name one product that I've seen more than any other, it it would have to be the 606 universal shelving system from Vitsu. I think the reason that so many people from the creative industries live with Vitsu shelving is because it's so incredibly versatile both functionally and visually. It works in big spaces and small ones, modern places, traditional places, townhouses and country houses. And the key to its success I think is that it's been paired back to its absolute essentials. Dis Dieter Rams, who conceived it back in 1960, famously said that good design is as little design as possible. And I couldn't agree more with that. To find out more about this brilliant product, you can visit vitsu.com that's V I T S O E dot com. Right, back to the podcast. Well, let's talk about your current home, which is in Primrose Hill in North London. Tell us about it. Presumably, it's a Victorian terraced house, right?
- [22:06]
Mary Portas
Yeah. A bit different Victorian terrace to my land. Groffing.
- [22:08]
Matt Gibbard
Exactly. So why that house and not another house? Why did you buy it?
- [22:12]
Mary Portas
Well, you see, I also have this thing that it's. It's less. It isn't. It's not less about the house. I love beautiful homes. I mean, I love it. If I'm in a physical space I don't feel comfortable in, I actually, genuinely feel low. So it really is vital, me. But more than that, I also. A place can call to you. I remember wanting to buy a home in Primrose Hill many, many years ago, and it fell through and I couldn't go back there. People say, I'll meet you for coffee in Primmer's. I said, no, you're not. I don't like it. Never like Primrose. It's full of lovelies. And they'd go, really, Mary. And it was just me really not wanting to be there because I wasn't there. And so I found a house, an old Regency house. I live in the road that Paddington's filmed in, you know, and it's really cute. It's beautiful and they're beautiful and they're solid and there's a. There's a view. They're white, they're tall. But I. It's my home. A. It's in Primrose Hill, which I adore. And I'm, you know. You know, everybody. And it just is that. It's a wonderful little ecosystem of great community, but it's my home. And there was a beautiful poem. I should read it to you by David White. Can I read you my poem?
- [23:29]
Matt Gibbard
Please?
- [23:30]
Mary Portas
It's called the House of Belonging. And this is what I think about my London home. This is the bright home in which I live. This is where I ask my friends to come. This is where I want to love. All the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. Love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness, and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of Belonging.
- [23:58]
Matt Gibbard
Beauty.
- [24:00]
Mary Portas
That is just wonderful, isn't it? It's my home. As a woman of 60 who. It's my home on my own. Even though my children come there, it's my home. It's the first time I've created my home. I haven't had to be with any partner or go that colour. No, it's that colour. It's softer than where I've been before. And maybe that's the time of my, you know, life where I'm feeling softer. I don't know.
- [24:29]
Matt Gibbard
When you say softer, what do you mean?
- [24:31]
Mary Portas
Maybe the palette that I've chosen, the art that's in it. I used to be very bold colors. Apart from the loo, which is House of Hackney. Crazy wallpaper. And it's a big loo. I almost like. I can't bear tiny. I like a warm, good sized loo. That's my old sort of cup. The rest is soft. Very wood. Soft woods. Beautiful, Beautiful. I love wood. So I had all the kitchen made, cabinets all made all the way through the whole basement. And the floorings all went in there and they're just so soft. And even the little brass. Soft, soft, tiny handles that I love touching, you know, and interacting with. So there is a soft. It's not just the palette, it's the materials. I've never been a glass and metal girl. And sort of the paint that I've chosen has a body to it, you know, it's a real creaminess.
- [25:26]
Matt Gibbard
Yeah. So if it's a house just for you, you've come to terms with solitude now then, and that's. Is that now a positive thing for you?
- [25:34]
Mary Portas
Yeah, I crave it. It's where I actually become. I mean, they'll laugh here because I'll go, right, don't disturb. I'm doing. I'm taking time out, but I need that. I need to know there's nothing in my diary. Whereas that's completely different from how I was. I mean, look, my children all come there, so they'll be like, this weekend they'll have a full house. But it's my house on my own when they're not there. And it's mainly my place of solitude, which I also create from that place of solitude. And I'd never given that expanse to my life before.
- [26:09]
Matt Gibbard
So it's made you more creative.
- [26:12]
Mary Portas
Yes, and I think it's made me more connected to the universe in a greater way.
- [26:17]
Matt Gibbard
Describe that. What do you mean by that?
- [26:19]
Mary Portas
In that we are all completely interconnected and by being still and by having solitude, I am able to, through the physicality of that home, whether it's sitting on my chair or actually being in my garden or even sitting on my doorstep, I actually put my shoes on. I think my neighbours think I'm a bit mad outside on my doorstep. There's something about sitting on the stoop, which I just love and put my shoes on out there, just to sort of embrace this physical space. And you realize when you do that, that we are not transient. We are part of this wonderful ecosystem, not only of nature, but of those people and the energy around. And it's given me the time to do that and feel that.
- [27:05]
Matt Gibbard
So are you someone that gets anxious?
- [27:10]
Mary Portas
No.
- [27:10]
Matt Gibbard
No.
- [27:11]
Mary Portas
Why did you ask if I get anxious?
- [27:13]
Matt Gibbard
Because I suspected the answer would be no. Only because I think a home for a lot of people is a place for them to retreat from their anxieties.
- [27:24]
Mary Portas
Yeah, yeah. Not anxious. Although I do get times where I find myself. Yeah, yeah. You know, that is my nature. So I have to make my home tidy. I cannot bear mess. I think space when you've created it and chosen what's to be in there. And I just don't want that mess. Also, my mind's too busy. I need calm. My desk, my books, where they go, where my pen is, where my plug for my iPhone is. And I know when they've been. I say, who's moved the iPhone? And they know, God, just don't use my home. Be in my home as the same my country. Don't move my stuff, you know, And I'm allowed to say that now.
- [28:11]
Matt Gibbard
How old are your kids now?
- [28:13]
Mary Portas
Milo's 28, Verity's 26 and Horatio's 10.
- [28:16]
Matt Gibbard
So you're on the telly. People will recognise you when you go out and about.
- [28:20]
Mary Portas
Not so much anymore. It's fantastic.
- [28:22]
Matt Gibbard
Because of the hair. Has it made a big difference?
- [28:26]
Mary Portas
Huge. Really funny. Really. There's a shop around the corner. Mostly all it is. And she always used to jump out and say, oh, Mary, if you have any five minutes, please, I'd love time with your coffee and pick your brains. And I came back after not having my hair in orange bob. And my dog did a poo outside her shop. And she came out, she said, could you mind removing that poo? I'm like, you don't know it's me. But I saw the person. I'm like, all right, that's interesting. Yeah. I said, no, don't worry, I will remove the poo. She said, no, I didn't. It's hilarious.
- [28:58]
Matt Gibbard
As someone that is in the public eye, what does that do for your sense of home? Does that, does the home assume greater meaning somehow?
- [29:08]
Mary Portas
I don't know. I don't. I've never thought of it in that way. Each person's home, whether they're known, in the public eye or not, is a place that we. That should be loved and also shared. I love sharing my home.
- [29:25]
Matt Gibbard
That's a very generous statement that you made there because a lot of people don't think like that.
- [29:29]
Mary Portas
What was generous? That I share it. Yeah, I'm actually a very. That sounds really. But I am very generous. I am. If I do say that, some people have said that if I do say someone I know I am, I will give away what I have, you know.
- [29:42]
Matt Gibbard
Yeah.
- [29:42]
Mary Portas
That is a part I like of myself. I will give. I'm very generous in that. But I'm also. How would I describe it? Because it's difficult. I find it difficult caring for myself and putting myself first and I think that's just years of, of you know, doing so and that doesn't maybe balance with what I've said about solitude. But I do find it. I'm not very good at that and I do sort of extend myself because I feel I'm very privileged. I've had a privileged life. I had a huge amount of trauma I think where I've been like on the floor. But I've had massive privilege and joy. So I'm sort of like those graphs going like that. I'm hoping I'm on that one. I think I'm on that one. I just don't want to go back down.
- [30:31]
Matt Gibbard
Just a quick aside, I wanted to tell you briefly about my day job. So I'm the co founder of a pair of design led estate agencies, one called the Modern House and the other called Inigo. The Modern House is dedicated to the best examples of modernist and contemporary architecture and Inigo on the other hand represents pre modern housing. So everything from a Victorian workers cottage in town to a Georgian rectory in the country. The idea is that via those two platforms we are able to provide a pre filtered selection of the most beautiful and well designed homes for sale in the UK at any1 time. Alongside the sales listings there's all sorts of inspirational content as well. So there's house tours of amazing spaces, area guides, exhibition guides, cultural recommendations and things like that. So if you're looking to buy or sell a place or you want some inspiration for your own home, do take a look at our two websites. Themodernhouse.com and inigo.com right, back to the podcast. Do you think that that vertical townhouse works well for modern living? Because actually, we sort of moved away from that a lot, haven't we? What do you think?
- [31:42]
Mary Portas
I don't know what it does. Maybe if I get old and I'm running up these bloody stairs. But, yeah, I just. I just. I don't know, I just love the house. Modern living. What is modern living? I'm living in it. I'm modern, aren't I? I don't know what is modern living. And sometimes it annoys me. A basement kitchen, because you actually spend a lot of time down there.
- [32:03]
Matt Gibbard
It's often the way in Victorian houses.
- [32:04]
Mary Portas
Yeah.
- [32:05]
Matt Gibbard
It does mean you can sort of deliberately go upstairs to work or deliberately go upstairs to sleep. And there is that sense of separation, isn't there?
- [32:14]
Mary Portas
Guy across the road from me, he has his sitting room on the same floor as my bedroom.
- [32:20]
Matt Gibbard
Right.
- [32:21]
Mary Portas
And I did say to his wife, I said, does David ever see me naked opening the curtain? She said, he doesn't even look at me naked, Mary. I said, all right, there you go, love. Sometimes. And actually, lately, what I've been doing, I don't know why I'm doing it. It's insane. I don't draw the curtains. I love looking across at the lovely white, you know, it's a beautiful sweet crescent. And I love looking at those houses. Going to finish with my curtains, which are divine. And so I fall asleep with the curtains open, but I put a lavender eye mask on because I don't know what it is. I just don't draw the curtains. Haven't done it for the last two months. Maybe it's because I was ill with flu and I didn't. I just wanted to keep that look out, you know.
- [33:03]
Matt Gibbard
But you're. You are. And that comes back to generosity again. You're amazingly comfortable with. With sort of putting yourself on show, aren't you?
- [33:12]
Mary Portas
Well, the neighbor seeing me pull the curtains back and my boobs out. I did think about it, actually, because I do sleep naked. But I. Sorry, this is far too much information. But I did think about when I was designing the house, which actually put the cupboard. I've got the cupboards alongside, but my knicker drawers right by the window. Not a good one. I should have moved that around. My shoes are at the other end. You see, that was. Was not a good movie job for tonight. No. Because drawers. And it's a lovely system and it's all got it all a bit wrong.
- [33:41]
Matt Gibbard
You put this great picture of you on Instagram, out in your pajamas, in the street.
- [33:44]
Mary Portas
I did.
- [33:45]
Matt Gibbard
Picking up litter.
- [33:46]
Mary Portas
Well, and, you know, I think I started a little bit of a campaign on it. Everything we read in the news is just so horrible. And, you know, once you realize that the news is about instant stuff and negativity works better as headlines, you actually have to go away from that and say, what else is happening in the world. And when you scrape a bit deeper, there's so many beautiful things being done, so many incredible things. I mean, so real. You know, humanity's creativity has come to the fore through this trauma for sure. And I think we need to shine more of a light on that. And so for January, we just said, well, let's do a bit of joy. Let's small acts that you could do that just make the world a little bit better. Once you start from yourself, within yourself, it goes out into the world and then that just gets bigger. And one of them was pick up the rubbish that's not yours.
- [34:40]
Matt Gibbard
This is all about what you call the kindness economy, right?
- [34:43]
Mary Portas
I've got lots of words for it. It's, look, the only way that we're going to make this world better, the only way we're going to be able to live on this planet is by changing. That is fundamental. So I did a TED talk a couple of years ago, and all my life in business, I can even take it back to my Harvey Nichols days of why I wanted to leave is I'm having to sit with you guys and explain a beautiful idea why it will make you money, as opposed to, this is a beautiful idea. Money will come. The right money. Do you see the balance that I'm talking about? I didn't know it then, but something stuck in me when they would make me structure and you had to talk in a business way. And I remember I was doing this talk and I'd just written my book Work Like a Woman Looking at all the Time. I had changed my Persona to fit in business. You know, she's got balls. I don't want balls. So balls makes me strong and clever. No, but we fell for that. Women. You know, even Sheryl Sandberg wrote a book called Lean In. Lean in to a system that quite frankly, is fucked. That's what we have. That is what's done this to society. Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly. Elon Musk knows how to make money. Jeff Bezos knows how to make money. Sir Philip Green knew how to make money. What are they doing for society? What are they doing for the world? My young son used to say to me when I walked him to school, who would you rather be? Do Jeff Bezos, Mama? Or. I said, stop asking me that question. Whether I'd like to be Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. Please stop asking me that now, Horatio, because we're going to have a really long talk on why you shouldn't be asking me that. But we know that the tenets of society, and particularly my age group that grew up in it, power, fame, and money, you achieve those, and we go back to the. The greatest spiritual teachers, the oldest tribes in the universe, and they will talk the opposite of what life and what love is and how to create. So I kept thinking, what if we did it another way? What if we actually put that into business? What would it be like? What? Imagine if I put into business the love that I have for my children to make them safe and secure in their homes. What would that be? If I did that in work? How would that be if someone was low that they felt so able to say to me, I'm really struggling here, Mary. I know I should be showing you a different face, and I know you're paying me, but I'm struggling. I'm paying you because actually, you're good. It's a symbiotic thing. So I wrote a book called Work Like a Woman. And even. And because I wanted to work like me as a woman and all the core behaviors or who I am as a woman, why could that not work in business? And so I did a TED talk and I talked about kindness. And then I'm like, well, hang on a minute. What if we looked at the economy, as opposed to profit first over anything, and actually looked at how we put kindness and decency and humanity? Kindness was the word I chose. I just, you know, it could be anything. You know, humanity could be the humane economy, you know, conscious economy.
- [38:40]
Matt Gibbard
Do you have a sort of mission statement for your business?
- [38:44]
Mary Portas
Yes. We are in the business of beautiful business.
- [38:47]
Matt Gibbard
Okay.
- [38:48]
Mary Portas
And beauty today isn't what I tell you I am. Beauty isn't glamour. It's not skin. It's inside. And if I come from a place of truth and love, the world will take care of me. I'm telling you, it happens. And we. I rebuilt my business. We collapsed in Covid. And I was working with businesses, very big businesses, advising them on their retail. 56 staff, they all closed down. What they were doing. They were retailers. So from New York to Australia to Sydney, Melbourne, London, all stopped. Literally. We were losing money. We went from very profitable Only one of those businesses asked me how I'm doing with my team. So we rebuilt, we went right down. We lost 150,000. I was like divorcing, turned 60, literally low life. And I went, right, I'm going to follow this truth. I'm going to do. And it was scary because I had a young child to pay for maintenance. I lost my business. Go with the truth, go with what you believe. And so we, me and my. She was my MD and I said, whatever. We rebuild, you take 25. Going to build this back together. Because I love her. She's an amazing, amazing human. And we share the same light. I might be 20 years older, but we're under that same light. And I said, let's build this back. And we will go with the truth. And so we built back and we work with businesses who want to create social progress, give back to society and do better. Doesn't mean they won't be selling stuff. They will, but they'll be doing it from a place of consciousness, place of respect, on how they do business. And that's what we started.
- [40:39]
Matt Gibbard
Is it also commercially viable? Like that's important?
- [40:43]
Mary Portas
Totally. I suppose we will be making sort of what I was making before the crash and that's turned that around very quick, two years. It's saying, I know that this is the way business has to be in the future. And I know that we will want to, as part people, buy or be with these businesses to actually reflect our societal values. That's going to happen. It has to happen. And I've been talking to very, very big companies that are now on this journey.
- [41:10]
Matt Gibbard
You mentioned the future, so that's a nice segue. Your home of the future. You have chosen your house in the Cotswolds. That's also a home of the present. But why would you see living in the Cotswold as part of your future?
- [41:24]
Mary Portas
Because I think the future is going to be in the country. Everything that we will be doing, it will be around farming, regrowing back from the Earth. Whether that's fabrics, you know, the fabrics that are grown from mushroom pulp or beetroot, or I think that the Earth and our planet, if we look after well enough, will always and has always been our source. And I think we need that more. More to actually feed the soul, to be connected to the Earth, to nature. That doesn't mean we won't be living in urban spaces, the mix. But it's going to be heightened and more important. And for me, it called to me, it's in Stroud. It's the Slab Valley, where Lori Lee wrote Cider With Rosie. And it's full of just these incredible activists who are going, there's another way. And I love them, you know, Stroudies. They're just brilliant people. They're brilliant. And I'm most proud, Stroudie. Because they're all people that. There was a beautiful woman who started the ecocide movement, Polly Higgins, who lived across my valley. She sadly died of cancer a few years back, age 50. Incredible. But she was a lawyer who started this whole movement where basically all these big companies are just killing our planet by putting shit into the earth. You know, your oil companies. Where's the law? We let the mythical, we let the earth, we let the divine feminine go. In our search through the Industrial Revolution, through the patriarchy, we created structures, when I think of it, structures that weren't malleable or beautiful or natural. And we have to go back to that. That's the way we have to go back and understand it and love it and nurture it and know that that will feed our souls and our world.
- [43:11]
Matt Gibbard
What's the landscape like there?
- [43:13]
Mary Portas
It's wonderful. It's hilly, it's stunning. I think it is the most beautiful space. I never went to Gloucestershire. I wasn't even looking in this area at all. At all. In fact, I was in Australia on business and a friend said to me, why don't you look in the Cotswolds? I said, bugger off. I don't want to be out there with the pinks trouser brigade and Cameron and all that. My worst place to be. And they went, no, no, no, Mary, look at the Gloucestershire pit. And this house got sent to me, this old Jacobean 17th, 1660s. Yeah. And Mullion windows. Anyway, I went to see it and I was like, this is my house. I had no idea where it was, no idea about the area, nothing. Just called to me and I've become. It's become a vital part of my life.
- [44:01]
Matt Gibbard
So what would your perfect weekend in the country look like?
- [44:06]
Mary Portas
Well, it depends. So if it's a gang of pals coming down, it's brilliant. Yeah. Sometimes it might be me. Yeah. Which is really lovely.
- [44:16]
Matt Gibbard
Just on your own.
- [44:17]
Mary Portas
Yeah, yeah. In this. I love that because then I become. Have you ever read the Sea? The Sea, by Iris Murdoch? Well, how he creates the meal. I become that person. I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to get that from the garden. I'm going to cut. You know, it's Wonderful. The kale. And I make this on my own. I don't have to worry anyone else. And I might eat at four and have a glass of wine without four and it's really totally freeing. Or I just can do anything and I just will keep the same old dungarees and I've got an old Land Rover and I might just drive off to market and do that on my own and, you know, and I'll make it totally organic and you'll always bump into. Someone says, oh, come round and have a drink. Or I go, I might do. I know, doesn't that sound terrible? I love that because I really want to follow my feeling rather than that. But if it's a gang of friends. So, for example, next weekend Verity's going to go down and run. She's writing from there and then I will join her and then my little son's going to come down with my brother. So that'll be planned. Planned or what should we eat? That's fun. It's a gang of friends, which is great. So they'll come down. I'll go down on a Thursday night and I always do supper for them to arrive on a Friday. And then after that I say, you. They all know to organise, so they'll go, right, we're thinking of doing Mira Sodal and they'll come up with what they're going to cook. And then Saturday morning we go to Stroud market, which is the best market there is in the country. It's incredible. And buy all the food that. And that's fantastic. And stop off. Off a coffee, go around the market and then we might. Then we'll come back, have lunch or have a great walk. Long, long walk, beautiful walks. And then cook. And they will invariably cook. So I say, I'll get the beds ready, I'll get the wine in, but don't. And I'm sort of a bit. I call myself the kitchen bitch. I'll run around clearing or whatever and. And that's fantastic. And then Sunday we have the best pub meals as well. The Wool Pack, which actually has had two brilliant reviews this weekend. So getting a table is difficult sometimes if I'm on my own, I'll just go up and have a pint and just order kidneys. Devil kidneys on taste. Oh, my God. It's insane. It's just easy and fabulous.
- [46:23]
Matt Gibbard
Do you think you'll continue working right to the bitter end?
- [46:28]
Mary Portas
I mean, I'm lucky enough that, you know, I don't work for a corporation and all, you know, What?
- [46:33]
Matt Gibbard
I mean, you're in control?
- [46:34]
Mary Portas
I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean, would I stop working? It is me. It is part of me, what I do. It's part of. In the way that putting my son to bed last night and reading a book is part of me. And then, you know, that will evolve and it will go that way and this will go this way, and who knows, you know?
- [46:52]
Matt Gibbard
Yeah. You've achieved a massive amount already. How would you describe the chip in you that drives you on to do all this stuff?
- [47:02]
Mary Portas
Don't know. I actually said it today. I just have ideas that come into my head. But I think I get so stimulated by brilliant minds and ideas, and I think, how can I make that work? So, you know, I was reading today that there's been a department store that's opened up a charity department store. And I was like, oh, I Talked about that 10 years ago, but I just couldn't fit it in in time, you know, or I want to do this department. Department store. I know I want to call it Haggle. And everything has got no price in it, but you haggle. But it's fun and it's joyous. It's fabulous democratic. And you kind of know if someone can only afford so much, you go, okay, you know, or someone will be able to pay that bit more. I just think it's such a beautiful. Let's not put a price on it.
- [47:42]
Matt Gibbard
But for all those people out there, and this is probably the majority that have ideas and stuff, but they actually, unlike you, they don't have the wherewithal. Put these things into action often. I mean, what. What. What advice would you give them?
- [47:56]
Mary Portas
Well, that's. That is the big question, because we do all have it, but we are fearful. And I was fearful at 60 with a big, you know, divorce payout and a child that I had to pay maintenance for and education. So what. How. How can I do that and not lose this beauty that I've got in my me? You know, people go, I can't do that. I've got a mortgage. So I always say, look at this. What's the least I can get by on? And with that, I've lived literally with a tin. I had a telephone box with money in it. When I started my business, I left Harvey Nick's. I drove a Merc back in. I was earning a lot of money and said, I'm out. I literally. I lost about a stone in weight. I had two young children. But I knew in my heart I couldn't keep doing this. It was going against my energy, my frequency, my flow. And when that happens, you are not the soul and energy and creativity you can be. So if you're feeling that and you keep feeding that because you have to, because you've got this look what you can live on, really, truly look at your life and go, okay. And part of it might be doing, you know, two at once, doing what I call the hospice and the midwife and the hospice work and the midwife and the hospice. This was dying. I don't need it anymore. But I'm going to look after it while I. It's just given me enough to be the midwife and bring in the baby.
- [49:26]
Matt Gibbard
That is a good way.
- [49:28]
Mary Portas
Listen, I'm not a biblical religious person, having grown up in the Catholic faith, which is enough to put most people off anything like that. But the most repeated word in the Bible sentence in the Bible is, do not be afraid. We spend our life being afraid. I had a lot of fear. Didn't have anxiety, but I had a lot of fear.
- [49:50]
Matt Gibbard
But not anymore.
- [49:54]
Mary Portas
Only my last fear. And I speak to the great divine and go, you touch that one and I'm not coming up there. You can put me in. I don't care, but don't touch my kids.
- [50:02]
Matt Gibbard
So my very last question for you, you know, your form of trauma was being very young and being on your own without a parent. How often do you think about them and what do you think that they would make of Mary now and what you've done?
- [50:17]
Mary Portas
That's such a good question. I mean, there was a lot of anger towards my father. How could you do that? You know, like, how could you just put yourself before us, you know, go off and marry this woman, then leave our family home to her? So there was that. We had to get a lot of that out, which I've worked over the years, and realized that he knew no better and that my mother was the backbone. And to have lost this incredible woman, the fiery redhead was, you know, I just think he felt completely discomfort. I just think he was at sea. So. And my mother, a deep, devout Catholic, you know, she left me as I was 16. So, like, what a life, you know, as a gay woman. Made a lot of money over the years, lost a lot, given a lot of weight. I went into a shaman in the woods and she said, you know, the spirit of your mother is here, and she is not the mother she was on earth. And suddenly it was like, of course she's not. I can talk to her without the Catholic guilt or her belief system, of course, she hasn't got that. Of course she hasn't got that. That's just so not. It would be love and pureness. It was so freeing to say, this is me, this is me, and I know this is you, and not. She wasn't the Catholic, you know, guilt that was thrown upon us all. Bless her.
- [51:57]
Matt Gibbard
Thank you so much. It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you all very much for listening. We really do appreciate you being here. If you've been enjoying Homing in and you can find a second to rate or review the show, that will be massively appreciated, just because it helps other people to find it as well, do check out our website where you'll find some photographs of some of the homes that we talked about today. The web address, of course, is themodernhouse.com but you will also find a link in the show notes. Homing in is produced by the Modern House and the executive producer is Kate Taylor of Feast Collective. The music is by Father. Thanks again for listening. Fingers firmly crossed for some sunshine to end this most British of summers, and I hope to see you next time.