CAPRICE From babe to businesswoman - Mayfair Times

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interview
Strut
your
stuff
WHY JUST MODEL
LINGERIE WHEN YOU
CAN DESIGN AND
MARKET IT AS YOUR
OWN £2 MILLION
BUSINESS? CAPRICE
TELLS NUALA CALVI
ALL ABOUT IT
Once upon a time, Caprice spent her days being photographed for the
likes of Vogue and GQ and her nights being paid to show up at parties.
Today, she’s up at 7.30am for a 12-hour day that involves driving to
Leeds for a warehouse visit, rushing back to London for a meeting with a
department store, then heading to her Notting Hill office to catch up on
paperwork until late in the evening.
This is the new schedule for the new Caprice – 36-year-old
businesswoman, entrepreneur and head of her own successful lingerie
label. By Caprice – launched in the UK two years ago and now available in
more than 100 stores in five countries – is worn by two million women in
this country alone and is expanding rapidly.
As an international model who has graced more than 250 magazine
covers, Caprice doesn’t really have to do this. She certainly doesn’t need
the money. But she’s determined to prove that blonde and beautiful can
also be brainy.
“I needed to make the transition from FHM babe to businesswoman
and that’s why I’ve been out of the limelight. It doesn’t take an Einstein to
be a model. I was blessed with relatively good looks and I learned to work
a camera but I got bored.
“It’s a big transition from the world of celebrity and entertainment to
going to the office and working 12-hour days – a real transition – but I’m
so much more fulfilled.”
The lingerie line started life as a licensing deal for Debenhams four
years ago, much the same as numerous celebrity-endorsed clothing
ranges. But once that contract ended Caprice did something a bit different:
she decided to buy the label back and run it as her own company.
Uniquely, she now designs, markets and models the clothes herself,
running everything from the logistical and technical to the creative and
financial side of the business.
“I’m responsible for the shipments getting in, negotiating prices
with the warehouses, talking to buyers about packaging – everything,”
she says proudly.
It’s hard to see how a life spent turning up to awards dos in seethrough
Versace dresses would have prepared Caprice for such a role; she
can only explain that she threw herself in at the deep end, and it worked.
“I invested £250,000 of my own money, and when you do that you’ve
got to learn, and you’ve got to learn fast. With my first two collections I
was very naïve. The fits on the clothes weren’t right, and Debenhams
rejected them. That lost me about £310,000. So I went to the factories,
talked to all the people and turned it around. Now I always check all the
fits myself.”
About six months ago, the brand really started to take off. In the first
year, By Caprice was making £350,000; it’s now reached almost £2 million.
The designs are colourful, fun, flirty – adorned with girly bows, ribbons
and charming details – and have the advantage of being modelled by
Caprice herself.
“Why? Because it sells. I tried doing it on another girl, and the sales
slipped 62 per cent. I actually can’t stand it, I get bored, but with my
shoots I am very clinical. I know exactly what I want and it’s very
glamorous. My make-up artist says, ‘Come on, be more modern!’ but I say
no, glam is what my ladies want.”
Her eye for style, she says, is inherited from her mum – an interior
designer based in California.
Watching her mother rebuild her business from scratch after a bout of
depression taught Caprice the value of perseverance.
“She is such an inspiration to me. She had a very successful design
business but then she went bankrupt and lost everything, primarily
because her father died. But she got back into interiors again, and three
years ago her business was worth $8 million.”
The family crisis meant that the young Caprice had to go out and earn
a living.
“That was when I went to New York and started modelling. It was very
difficult – it was sink or swim. No one could pay for college for me – I had
to look after myself.
“Someone spotted me and said, ‘You could make a lot of money’, and
I said, ‘Cool’. I was just excited that someone thought I was pretty enough
to do it.”
With the title Miss Teen California to her name, the small-town girl hit
the big city and was soon on the cover of Mexican Vogue and working for
Calvin Klein.
Moving to Britain, Caprice became the epicentre of the lads’ mag
culture of the Nineties and branched into presenting, hosting TV shows
including the MTV Europe Music Awards, BBC1’s Friday Nights All Wright
and Caprice’s Travels.
She was never, incidentally, a Wonderbra model – contrary to popular
legend.
Linked to a string of famous men, including Rod Stewart, Prince
Andrew and Arsenal footballer Tony Adams, she quickly transformed
herself from Caprice the model into Caprice the celebrity, which opened
doors to the film, music and theatre industries.
A short-lived pop career (“the music was a disaster, in retrospect”) was
followed by good reviews for her role in the West End musical Rent and
parts in movies such as the Vinnie Jones flick Hollywood Flies.
“In today’s world, you have to be multi-dimensional to compete,” she
explains. “That’s what modelling has done for me – it’s opened doors. I
saw it as a business. I didn’t like it, but it was a great business.”
Now, if she were to do another cover shoot, it would only be in her own
label and to promote her brand. She won’t talk about her sex life or her
boyfriend, and she certainly won’t pose for the likes of Playboy again.
“I’d take that back in two seconds. I’m definitely not proud of that. But
at the time I had people representing me who advised me wrongly.”
Life has slowed down in many respects, despite the long working
hours, and Caprice is happier than she’s ever been – sharing her time with
her partner of two years, property tycoon John Hitchcox, and jetting
between her four homes.
But she won’t be out of the media spotlight entirely: after 18 years in
front of a lens, she understands the way the world works too well for that.
And she’s determined to conquer it.
“By Caprice is going to expand, expand, expand. I want to make it one
of the biggest companies in the world, and I’m going to be working my
tush off to make that happen.”
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