W I N N E R ! B R I TA I N ’ S B E S T N E W M A G A Z I N E
ISSUE 70 23 MARCH 2011 STYLIST.CO.UK
PURE ESCAPISm The 50 films Sunday afternoons were made for
PLAYING THE PART
AND THE BE ST SUPPORTING ROL E G OE S T O‌
Following the release of Sarah Brown’s memoir about her time at Number 10, Stylist meets four more women who have put their husbands’ careers first n the modern world it doesn’t really make sense: a woman works hard, climbs the career ladder, earns great money and the respect of her peers only to then compromise all her hard work and put her husband’s career before her own. And yet this is exactly what Sarah Brown did in 2007 when her husband Gordon became Prime Minister. Leaving behind an impressive career in PR, she became a ‘WPM’ (wife of the Prime Minister), entering into a life of endless duties and intense scrutiny.
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Throughout her husband’s term, Brown tweeted daily about her life, but it was Brown’s revealing memoir of her time at No 10, Behind The Black Door, released on 3 March, which really exposed the compromises she had made. In it, she reveals the fallout of the expenses scandal, the pressure of meeting wives like Carla Bruni, living with permanent security protection and, of course, quitting her job. But for Brown, swapping her career for a life as WPM didn’t mean simply abandoning all her talents. “Believe me, I’ve heard: ‘So, what’s it like to give
up work?’ many times,� Brown says. “But I don’t think I did. I carried on working. I just applied my skills to a different area. As women I think we make different choices for ourselves at different times in our lives and, at that time, I was choosing to play my part.� But it’s not just the Sarah Browns of this world who are happy to play the supporting role. Stylist meets the wives of successful men in all fields – sport, business, the army – who are supporting their other halves’ success, and putting their own lives and careers second. Could you?
THE AMBASSADOR’S WIFE Celia Gould, 34, is married to Matthew Gould, the British ambassador to Israel. Last September, they moved to the ambassador’s residence in Tel Aviv. Celia is expecting their first child
CELIA HAS LIVED IN TEL AVIV FOR SIX MONTHS SINCE HER HUSBAND WAS POSTED THERE
X W W W ST Y L I ST C O U K
“As the wife of a diplomat, I had to make peace with the fact that major aspects of my life, like what country I live in, how long I stay and where I go next, are – to a very large extent – out of my control. While Matthew and I will decide as a couple which postings we are willing to take, I know it would be unfair of me to stifle his ambition, and dictate that we can only ever live in safe, cosmopolitan, Western capitals. But for now, and the next three years, we are in Tel Aviv. When we moved here in September 2010, it marked my (at times, uneasy) transition from an independent woman to one defined by her husband. Whenever someone used to ask me ‘What do you do?’ I always had a neat answer. I worked in the City and took a Masters in economics. Right now, I am ‘The ambassador’s wife’, financially dependent for the first time in my adult life, and struggling to come to terms with the fact that my identity is tied up in Matthew’s. It conjures up an image of coffee mornings and
trays of Ferrero Rocher, but I am working hard to make the role my own. My job now is to support Matthew and make his life easier while he gives everything to a role that is demanding in every respect. So, unofficially, I like to be his safe sounding-board – a very valuable thing in diplomatic life when you have to be so careful about what you say to whom. Officially, there’s no expectation of me. But in reality, I am expected to appear by Matthew’s side at every important function. I also involve myself in charities and build relationships of my own with the heads of organisations that Matthew and I are keen to support. Today, for example, I had a meeting with a foundation for holocaust survivors, and later will be involved in the reception for Israel’s equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. I remain very conscious
“MY JOB NOW IS TO SUPPORT MATTHEW AND MAKE HIS LIFE EASIER IN HIS DEMANDING ROLE�
that everything I do reflects on Matthew, right down to the way I dress. It’s important to look and act the part for guests. A spouse who offends them could make life very difficult for a diplomat, and even affect their career prospects. Our home, the ambassador’s residence, is not just a house, it’s a hotel, a restaurant, an office, a meeting place and a venue for receptions, all rolled into one. It’s an extraordinary place to live. We have six bedrooms and a swimming pool and we are about to hold a reception for 350 in our ballroom. But it’s also teeming with people I don’t know 24 hours a day. That’s difficult. We have a manager, cooks, cleaners and gardeners buzzing about the place constantly. And while I know every first-time mother would kill for that much support, I am always on show here. We’ve insisted upon making a couple of rooms out-of-bounds to the staff. But when you sign up to life with a diplomat, you have to accept that anything and everything can get in the way of best-laid plans.�
THE CEO’S WIFE Faiza Seth, 33, is married to entrepreneur and global business owner Pallak Seth and runs her own interior design company, Casa Forma (casaforma.co.uk)
FAIZA ARRANGES FOOD, DRINK AND HER HOME TO HOST HER HUSBAND’S ASSOCIATES
“Being a business owner and the wife of an incredibly successful businessman requires you to have two jobs – yours and his. My interior design company has 15 employees but Pallak’s – a fashion manufacturer – has 150 factories in six continents. I regularly host Pallak’s business associates at our house. When we lived in Hong Kong I would do this once a week; at the moment it’s around once a month. We have a housekeeper who cooks but I know what the clients’ dietary requirements are, so I’ll pick the recipes. Some visitors like certain wines or champagnes so I find out what they are, and arrange to have them ready. I make sure the house is clean, has beautiful flowers and the layout looks perfect. Running my own business means there is extra stress on the days I’m hosting. If our guests stay until 4am I still have to get up and work the next day. I call it ‘double duty’. His work also means that Pallak is away up to 50% of the time, visiting his supply bases in countries from India, China, Bangladesh to Sri Lanka and Hong Kong. Sometimes he’ll call me and I won’t even know where he is, and I do get a bit lonely when he’s gone. I am learning Mandarin and Arabic in the evenings and that helps, but if I didn’t have my business it would be much harder. A lot of time when he’s with me Pallak is thinking about work. He’s a little bit like a zombie, his body is there but his mind is somewhere else! So if I could change one thing about our life, I’d throw out his BlackBerry. He’s on it last thing at night and first thing in the morning. But his drive and ambition are amazing, it’s inspired me to push myself so much harder, to set up my business and to work at making it a success.”
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September 28, 2011, 11:49 AM
In a Former Arsenal, a Museum for Ukrainian Art and Culture By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY
Courtesy of the Art Arsenal
“What is the paradox of Ukraine?” asked Natalia Zabolotna, the director general of Mystetskyi Arsenal, a national art and culture museum that opened Sept. 9 in Kiev. “Ukraine gave the world very many geniuses, but they’re not listed as Ukrainian due to Ukraine’s geopolitical situation. Not many people know that Kazimir Malevich was born in Kiev.”
The Mystetskyi Arsenal, housed in a former weapons arsenal built at Catherine the Great’s orders, will go some way toward remedying that situation. When completed — by 2014, at a cost of $250 million — it will have nearly one million square feet of floor space. (A Malevich retrospective is in the works for the 2014 grand opening.) For now it’s a work in progress, with temporary exhibitions. The ART-Kyiv contemporary art fair will run there Nov. 2 to 13., and the first international biennale of contemporary art in Ukraine, ARSENALE, is to open on May 17 and runs through July 30. As a tourist attraction the museum is meant to lure visitors to Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, in tandem with the Kiev Monastery of the Caves next door, founded in the 11th century. The creators of Mystetskyi Arsenal, or Art Arsenal, situated on 25 acres of land, say it will be the largest museum in Europe, and comparable in quality to the Centre Pompidou in Paris or the Tate in London. It will certainly be the largest museum of Ukrainian art, and one of its missions is to educate visitors about the Ukrainian roots of some seminal names in modern art. There are plans to build a hotel on the grounds.