Yasmin Sewell: Buying Power

Fashion gun-for-hire Yasmin Sewell talks to Natasha Paulini about Browns, bowling and her beloved Bayswater

Above: Photography by Vincent Star

There’s a top tier of people that know clothes. Really know clothes. We’re not talking the average person and their (okay, my) wardrobe crammed with the flotsam-jetsam of ill thought-out shopping trips. We’re talking those that see a tartan/Wayfarer/Russian folk trend a decade before it filters into whatever high-street store the rest of us get our fashion fixes from. Yasmin Sewell is one of those people.

Tiny, vivacious, with a killer smile and the best hair ever, she turns most fashion stereotypes smack bang on their Agyness-inspired, peroxide-blonde heads. Early for our interview, without a scrap of makeup and casually perched on a cushioned bench at the Electric in jeans and a cotton shirt, Yasmin’s eyes skim over the menu, vacillating between chicken, or fish, or chicken. Or fish. Finally, she settles for the chicken. But it becomes apparent very early on that that sort of indecision is contained to dining choices only.

Owner of Soho cult boutique Yasmin Cho and ex-buying director for Browns, Yasmin shocked a few fashion faces when it was announced earlier this year she was leaving the London style temple to start her own fashion consultancy business. “I loved what I had access to in Browns,” she says earnestly. “It’s an incredible institution and the respect that people have in the industry for that store is like nothing else, but I love working for myself and I knew that I could do more.”

Born to Lebanese parents and bred on Australia’s Sydney beaches, Yasmin’s always harboured a love of fashion. “My first memory is my mum. Not in a ‘borrow Mummy’s Chanel handbag’ way – that wasn’t my life at all. She went through a stage of making her own clothes, and they were fabulous: pink strapless gowns, lots of shoulder pads...”

School played the kind of role educational institutions often do for creative souls – “I would say I was the strongest on dress-down day; I really went for it” – so Yasmin left, at the worldly age of 15. “I was offered a job in a small estate agency McGrath Partners – a young, dynamic under-30 crew working for a psychotically ambitious man [John McGrath]. I spent two or three years with him as his PA, and it was the best higher education I could have had. But when I got ambitious, I thought, ‘No, no, no – fashion, babes.’ Not corporate: don’t tie my hair back, don’t tell me to wear a suit. I wanted to work in a creative field, but a young girl from a corporate industry, people didn’t want to give me a chance.”

Yasmin ended up moving to London, not for the lure of the bigger industry, but for the lure of a bigger (English)man. Things didn’t work out, but a career in retail did, starting – interestingly enough – as a window dresser at Browns. The real buying buzz, though, bit in New York. “I was 21, but I didn’t really know what to do,” Yasmin says. “Some people with a store in Australia asked me to buy some collections for them and I remember going in to my first appointments. I loved the process behind it: you fall in love with something, buy it, and six months’ time it’ll be on a shop floor and some lady’s going to walk in who’ll fall in love with it too, and it’ll be put it in a little bag with tissue paper and she’ll go home and be happy.”

The love of “predicting; of looking to the future” led to a fortuitous phone call from Joan Burstein, affectionately known in fashion circles as Mrs B, legendary owner of Browns. “Seven in the morning: ‘Would you come back to London? Would you come back to work for me?’ Straight into the conversation; no messing around.”

Three and a half years on, what was Browns’ loss is Yasmin’s growing client base’s gain. “I was nervous about getting it off the ground, but I had some savings,” she smiles ruefully. “As soon as I put it out there, though, within about four weeks I was at full capacity. I took on a six-month contract with Australian brand Saba. And then there’s Liberty, which is a massive, massive one, because it’s a revitalisation of the entire store.”

Changes are clearly afoot at what Oscar Wilde once described as “the chosen resort of the artistic shopper”. Geoffroy de La Bourdonnaye, ex-president of LVMH’s Christian Lacroix subsidiary, joined Liberty as CEO mid last year, and has been shaking things up at the luxury department store ever since. “That’s what I want to go back to,” says Yasmin. “Liberty is a specialty store – it was always about the avant-garde, about service, about artistic beauty. But I think the fashion’s gone astray. The issues I have with Liberty, which most people would get, is that it’s quite cluttered.”

Not to worry, the clean-up is underway, with a revamped shoe section launched last July, and an all-new women’s floor due in February. But I get the feeling Liberty’s makeover has only just begun. “I don’t believe in a bag room – I think that’s really outdated,” says Yasmin. “I do believe, though, in a room full of scarves. It’s a fast-growing accessory, everyone’s wearing them – from 18 to 80 year olds.”

A little more close to home, the brains behind Le Café Anglais and Food Inc are turning their attention to the Whiteleys fashion floor, and have sniffed out Yasmin’s talents already. “We’re in talks about a full retail strategy; something quite radical and wonderful. I love the idea of working with Whiteleys. It’s like a boutique shopping mall, with a great location – and it’s my local. It could be something really special, and kind of the opposite to what Westfields are doing.”

Ensconced on Queens Gardens – “my favourite street of all time” – Yasmin is a self-confessed west London stalwart. “I want to live here forever. I love the orange blossom tree in March and my little balcony that I can sunbake on. I love that I can turn left and be in Hyde Park in one minute, walk through the park and be in the West End in 15 or turn right and be in Notting Hill in five minutes. Everything I need is right here. It feels like my place – even more than where I was growing up in Australia. I don’t know why, it’s just my hood.”
Mandarin Kitchen on Queensway gets a mention – “great steamed fish and a lobster-noodle thing which is brilliant” – as does Halepi on Leinster Terrace: “The best Greek food in London without a doubt; I go there maybe three times a week.” Rose’s Dining Room on Westbourne Park Road is also a favourite. “In the last three years, I’ve maybe spent 100 hours in there, and always order the Sunday roast. A good friend of mine works there so I used to often hang out with her while she was serving, just sit there for four, five hours.”
Surprisingly it’s not a swanky fashionista bar, awash with beautiful people, that earns the number-one spot: that title goes to All Star Lanes. Yep, flailing limbs, bowling shoes and disco tunes are more Yasmin’s thing. “I’m quite good!” she exclaims. “Well, I want to be good.” Industry insiders would have it, she already is.



YASMIN'S HIT LIST

Myla
I love lingerie; hot and sexy.
77 Lonsdale Road, W11 2DF; 020 7221 9222

Diptyque
I stock up on their beautiful candles all the time.
195 Westbourne Grove, W11 2SB; 020 7727 8673

Heidi Klein
Before I go back to Australia, or on holidays, I always go to Heidi Klein and grab two or three bikinis.
174 Westbourne Grove, W11 2RW; 020 7243 5665

Una Brennan
She is one of the best facialists in the country. Two hours of bliss; doesn’t look at the time; she just loves what she does.
020 7313 9835

Planet Organic
I go every Sunday to get all my groceries.
42 Westbourne Grove, W2 5SH; 020 7727 2227