Home is…
The top end of Portobello Road, near Golborne, with my boyfriend Matty and our daughter Peggy. It’s been almost three years. I love it there.
Which shops do you rely on?
Rellik, under the Trellick Tower, for beautiful vintage finds. The pieces I’ve got there I just keep and keep and keep. They’re timeless. I love that feeling of never knowing what you’re going to come across, and that no one else can buy it. Then I love Speciale, on my doorstep, for bespoke tailoring.
Where was your first flat and what was it like?
I shared my first flat in London with my best friends at the Royal Ballet School at Barons Court. It was on Edith Road. I think we were with two boys as well, which was quite controversial. The two ballet dancers that shared the flat with the boys…
Best meal you’ve had?
I’m a dancer, so after a show is usually when I have a lovely collection of friends and family together. Balthazar is amazing, and open to me piling in there with quite a few people and shoving tables together. There was one really memorable one, just before lockdown that sticks in my memory. It was after a performance of The Cellist I did at the Opera House and we were a group of almost 30. We marched down to Balthazar afterwards and it all sort of flowed — like it did in the good old days.
Where do you go to let your hair down?
Wherever the party is! Laylow is local to me. We don’t lay low there, but we frequent it.
Ever had a run-in with a police officer?
I have! It was quite innocent really. I had this lovely Pashley bicycle and I had cycled into the Opera House. As I was leaving, cycling down Floral Street, a police van happened to come up the correct way — it’s a one-way street — and I got a telling off. The reason I remember it so well is because Darcey Bussell was walking past. I was about 19 and she was my biggest inspiration at the time. So it was quite embarrassing.
Biggest extravagance?
My boyfriend would say handbags, but that makes me sound superficial. I’m literally clutching on to my most recent acquisition right now, a lovely Bottega weave. It’s big enough to fit nappies, wet wipes and a dummy inside. Keep mama life chic!
Best place for a first date?
Oh, Dukes Bar, 100 per cent. That’s where I had my first date with Matty, actually, and the rest is history. We had a lovely time and Alessandro [the head bartender] is the perfect host. He actually gave us some lemons as we left [to see] who could lob them the furthest down Savile Row! Then onto the The Wolseley for a bite to eat, to try and absorb the lethal Martinis at Dukes.
What’s your London secret?
I would say AJC Townhouse, an antique jewellers on Maddox Street. You wouldn’t really know walking by because it’s on the first floor, but they have the most amazing collection. Obviously because it’s antique, it is one of kind and always changing. That’s my most beautiful secret, a little piece of treasure in London.
What do you collect?
I don’t know if it’s more collecting or hoarding, but all my ballet shoes from all my performances and rehearsals are just piling up in my room.
