Designer Amanda Wakeley on dressing Princess Diana, strange encounters and packing for the Antarctic

Ever since she launched her eponymous label in 1990, simplicity has been the hallmark of Amanda Wakeley’s designs. These ran from slouchy cashmere roll-necks – now collector’s items – to draped evening dresses, worn by the likes of Angelina Jolie. Dubbed ‘clean glam’, her clothes were a masterclass in pared-back style. “I love a little bit of glamour, but for me, it’s all about fabrics, textures and cut: elevating rather than shouting,” she says. Her customers famously included Princess Diana, who resigned from public life in a flurry of flashbulbs and a velvet-lapelled Wakeley suit.

Hit by Covid, Wakeley’s label closed in 2021 – giving her a sabbatical of sorts, after three decades in fashion. With the space to think and travel, what began as an idea for a book (“God knows when I thought I was going to write it!”) gradually evolved into something else: an idea for a podcast called Style DNA. “It would be a life story, told from a different perspective – a conversation about someone’s life through their looks.” The resulting series of interviews are a delight, whether she’s hearing about restaurant reviewer Grace Dent’s dreams of cashmere joggers or Yasmin Le Bon’s disastrous wedding dress.

In a way, she points out, the podcast has been a natural evolution: “For me, the really important thing has always been how clothes make you feel.”

Selected episodes from Style DNA will be available on British Airways’ in-flight entertainment from December

The fashion industry is a tough one. What do you put your success down to?
I’ve always been passionate about what I do, and the harder I worked, the luckier I got – like when Princess Diana wore Wakeley, early in my career. For any entrepreneur, though, failure is part of success. If something doesn’t work, you can’t beat yourself up: you need to learn that lesson, pick yourself up and move on.

It must have been strange when the label came to an end…
Having that enforced slowdown was incredibly healthy for me. It was when I had that pause that I realised I’d been working my socks off for 30 years, and I was shattered. The fashion industry is relentless, a hamster wheel, so to have that moment to reflect and consider the next chapter of my life was amazing.

That was also the beginning of the podcast. How did you go about choosing your interviewees?
It was very important to me that it wasn’t too niche and ‘fashion’. So, while I’ve interviewed people like Lisa Armstrong, fashion editor of The Telegraph, I also wanted people like James Blunt, who is just very funny, and restaurant critic Grace Dent. She’s just brilliant, and it was a fascinating conversation.

The interviews go way beyond your subjects’ wardrobes…
I wanted to delve into the psychology behind what we wear. Even if we’re not interested in clothes, we still have to make a decision in the morning about what we’re putting on. Everyone has those memories and stories – whether it’s Trinny Woodall on the corduroy trouser suit that made her feel a million dollars, or Yasmin Le Bon on getting married to a rock star in a woolly dress from Benetton.

Talking of style DNA, what’s yours?
I’d love to be described as effortlessly chic. Am I? Maybe on my best days, but we all have our insecurities. I’m very much a mood dresser: when I get up in the morning, I ask, “How do I want to feel today, and how do I need to feel?” That might be powerful, in a really well-cut jacket, or it could be cocooned in cashmere.

But it should seem effortless?
Particularly as we get older, I think we need to leave something a little bit undone. Whether it’s your hair, an element of what you’re wearing… just something that makes you look cool rather than too try-hard. If you’re too perfect, it can be quite aging, but you also don’t want to look scruffy. Scruffy at 23 is chic. Scruffy after 50 is just scruffy.

We need to talk about your travels. You’ve been on some extraordinary adventures…
Antarctica was amazing. We were ski touring, based on a ship, so we took Zodiacs to shore in the morning, then would climb up and ski back down. You have ‘skins’ on the bottom of your skis that stop you sliding back as you literally push your way up. It’s exhausting, but also beautifully meditative. 

It must have been a challenge to pack for
As we were packing, Hugh, my partner, saw this stack of cashmere by my bag. We had this long kit list of everything from crampons and ice-axes to avalanche bleepers, and he just looked at my about-to-be luggage and said, “Halve it!”. And he didn’t mean the safety kit.

What’s a moment from your travels you’ll never forget?
Seeing a wolf, high in the Swiss mountains. He ran, and all you saw was this beautiful creature in a cloud of powder. They’re very, very rare, and it was one of the most magical things I’ve ever seen.

Heli-skiing, slalom water-skiing, sailing – is there a daredevil sport you don’t do?
Diving. I’m hugely claustrophobic. I got my PADI, then said, “I’m never, ever putting on a regulator”. Friends invited us to free dive with whales in Costa Rica, but I couldn’t. What an experience that would be, to be in the ocean with those extraordinary creatures! I’m sad, but I just don’t have it in me.

Where’s next on your list?
I would love to go back to the Exumas in the Bahamas, or sail around French Polynesia. We’re going ski-touring in Greenland next year, which will be amazing, but I’m also longing to go to Iceland: it looks incredible.