Showing posts with label Megan Conner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Megan Conner. Show all posts

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Holly Willoughby /This much I know / ‘I’m definitely the person you see’

Holly Willoughby.
Photograph by Dean Chalkley for the Observer

Holly Willoughby: ‘I’m definitely the person you see’


 This much I know

The TV presenter, 35, on being shy at school, motherhood and her ‘sexist’ Celebrity Juice nickname


‘You can’t do that many hours of live telly 
and be somebody different’
Holly Willoughby
Megan Conner
Saturday 25 June 2016 14.00 BST

I was an imaginative kid. My sister needed entertaining, whereas I was the one under the table playing with a bit of fluff on the carpet. I was the sort of child who would spend time rolling up balls of all different kinds of fluff and that would be my little family.
My friends were amazed that I became a TV presenter. I was not a big talker at school – I never liked people seeing my braces, so I walked around with my sleeves pulled over my hands and my hands over my mouth in case anybody saw me smiling. In a group of people I knew you couldn’t shut me up, but it took quite a long time until I was comfortable enough to speak openly.
I’ve been really crap at my job. In the beginning I was terrible, although I enjoyed doing it, which was kind of more upsetting. I spoke in a posh telephone voice, and I was so unnatural: I fixated on remembering lines rather than just speaking. It took me two years working away from the camera in a TV studio until I went back to presenting.

Being a mum can be utterly overwhelming. When I had my first son, Harry [seven], I felt like everybody had kept a massive secret from me. I kept saying, “Why has nobody told me this?” But even with Belle and Chester [her other children, five and one], there has been so much stuff I’ve got wrong; things that have bitten me on the bum. Every child is completely different.
I can’t stand the assumption that I’m blonde and a bit stupid. In my younger days it was always such an easy option, an easy target, it used to drive me potty. Being known as Holly Willoughbooby now is just a bit of silliness – it’s for a comedy show [Celebrity Juice]. I don’t know that I’d give people an option to be sexist – it does not sit well with me.
I’d do childbirth again tomorrow. I loved all my labours. With Chester, I remember picking him out of the birthing pool, putting him on me and it was the most euphoric feeling. Each time I’ve done it it’s like I’ve realised why I was put on this planet.

TV presenters tend to be who they are on screen. Leigh Francis is very different to Keith Lemon because that’s a character. But Phil [Schofield], Ant and Dec, Fearne [Cotton], Dermot [O’Leary], Davina – you can’t do that many hours of live telly and be somebody different. I’m definitely the person you see.
It took me a long time to realise I was in love with my husband [TV producer Dan Baldwin]. We knew each other for eight years and laughed together a lot – we had a very intense friendship. But there was one specific night – we were cheersing our glasses, and it just hit me over the head. I was falling in love with him. It’s weird, because he says the same – he remembers that moment.
Your happy-ever-after is just appreciating a good thing. I’m a huge Disney fan – I called my daughter Belle, for God’s sake. But for me life is all about enjoying what you have. That’s not putting up with or having low expectations. It’s just being happy, and not constantly seeking.




THIS MUCH I KNOW

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Saturday, April 16, 2016

Erdem Moralioğlu / This much I know / ‘I’ve always been fascinated by the way women look’

‘Erdem Moralioğlu
Photograph by Rick Pushinsky/Eyevine

Erdem Moralioğlu: ‘I’ve always been fascinated by the way women look’

‘ I’m a little bit tense-looking: Erdem Moralioğlu

This much I know

The fashion designer, aged 38, on being an immigrant, body size and his own ‘incredibly boring’ wardrobe


Megan Conner
Saturday 16 April 2016 14.00 BST
I’ve always been fascinated by the way women look. As a young boy, I drew pictures of women – never men. I had a teacher in first grade who would wear long skirts and I could sometimes catch a glimpse of her slips poking out of the bottom of them. I was intrigued by the way women walked, how they sat, the secrets they might have. I’m sure you could have a Freudian field day with that.
My parents met in Geneva. My dad was Turkish, my mother was from Birmingham and they ended up settling in Montreal, so I grew up visiting grandmothers in foreign countries. I remember thinking they couldn’t be further apart culturally, except they both drank tea: one from a mug and one from a glass with sugar cubes on the side. Tea was a universal grandmother thing.
It’s regrettable we aren’t living in a time of openness. I am a product of immigration; not only that, but I’ve moved and settled in London. When we start becoming paranoid and not including certain groups of people based on where they’re from, it’s dangerous – not just for society but creativity.
One of the greatest satisfactions I get from my job is creating collections that work on lots of different bodies. It’s so important to me that people can actually wear my clothes: that they fit. There’s a vilification of the fashion industry when it comes to size, but actually I think it’s an overriding issue that has infiltrated into lots of the images we see.
I came perilously close to death as a child, stepping on to a frozen lake that cracked beneath me. But in reality I’ve probably come much closer at a time I’ve never been aware of. The likelihood is that I’ve been writing an email while crossing the road and was narrowly missed by a taxi.
I’ve always thought that I’m a little bit tense-looking. But really, when I look at myself I see that I’m slowly morphing into my father.
It’s good to be a uniform dresser. I really am an incredibly boring person when it comes to what I wear: I like a T-shirt, navy blue trousers and some Stan Smith trainers. I have a collection of Stan Smiths in various states of decay lined up beside my desk.
The thing with loss is that it never completely fades. I lost both my parents when I was quite young, in my 20s, and though you heal, there’s always a scar.

Being a twin has had a huge effect on my life. From the day you’re born, you do everything with another person: go to school, ride a bike for the first time, learn to swim. My sister and I are very close.
I’m always whistling. In the office, at home. People know I’m coming.
Right now I’m feeling very happy. My partner and I are renovating, so home is a building site full of dust and boxes. We don’t have a kitchen sink and we’re eating takeaways on a makeshift bed, but the other day I woke up among the chaos and thought: “You know, life feels pretty good.”

THE GUARDIAN


THIS MUCH I KNOW


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