Cath Kidston: ‘I never expected to have a big business’

“I had a very cosy life, riding ponies around in a nice garden. I don’t remember much school.”

With a Bentley racing car driver and a Christie’s chairman in the family, hers was almost a paint-by-numbers privileged upbringing. 

Even the family donkey, Beauty, was afforded a place at the table for tea.

Kidston never felt any pressure from her parents to excel in academia and was left to her own devices for hours on end. 

She found herself gravitating towards her father’s mother, Nancy Clifford née Soames, the grandmother she shares with Samantha Cameron.

“My grandmother had a little antique shop at the side of the house. She loved buying and selling things. People would say she would sell sand to the
desert.”

The business of art

Despite the creative chops, business acumen doesn’t necessarily come easy to artistic people but Kidston’s grandmother had both, a rare combination that her granddaughter always admired.

Kidston moved to London to work in shops after completing her A-levels, learning about the retail world without any major desire to own her own business. 

But, when her father unexpectedly died at 50, it was a wake-up call for the then-19-year-old. 

She decided there and then she would harness her talents and invest her £15,000 savings in her own business.

“It was the most natural decision. I thought it would be exciting and fun, to arrange the windows for customers. I just liked the camaraderie of it, everything about that environment.”

Having cut her teeth with interior designer Nicky Haslam, she started up an interior design business with a retail store attached.

“I ‘fell into’ my Cath Kidston business with a single shop with lots of vintage and antique products and began designing.

“I have a very strange memory; I could picture all the prints from my childhood home, which was very traditional. I had little stripey rosebud curtains in my bedroom. We had a guest room with lilac wallpaper.”

Building an empire

These prints and colours left an indelible impression on her.

Little did she know that the store in Holland Park in London would grow from one single unit in 1993 to over 60 stores in Britain alone and multiple franchises around the world.

“Somehow, it’s always been in my DNA. I never expected to have a big business. It grew in a very different way than I imagined. My driving force was my passion and enthusiasm for the ideas. It was never about the money for me.”

The chintzy florals and novelty designs of Kidston went on to become the quintessential English print, as seen on bags, wipe-clean aprons, ironing board covers, a clothing line, and skincare. 

It transcended the impenetrable British class system with everyone from stay-at-home mums to the Royals sporting Kidston’s designs.

But in 2020, the Cath Kidston brand floundered, and all 60 stores in Britain were shut down with some 900 jobs were lost.

At 65, Kidston thought she would be slowing down but she is now adopting a different approach to business in her new venture. Just launched last year, C. Atherley is the British
designer’s newest baby, a brand of geranium-scented natural body care products.

“I definitely felt when when I left Cath Kidston, I’d had an extraordinary ride and an amazing time with that business. But I felt that there was something else I’d like to do,” she says, “something smaller and precious.

“Everybody now is more aware of what they’re consuming. I wanted to make products of really beautiful quality, as pure and as close to home as much as possible.”

The idea for the brand came to her on a long journey.

“I craved being in one of my bubble baths. The reason I chose to make these scents is for the mood they create. It takes me back to that incredibly powerful feeling of security; it’s grounding, it’s intoxicating.”

The effects of scents have long fascinated scientists but Kidston doesn’t make any sweeping claims on the bottle.

“From a personal perspective, scent plays a huge part in my life.”

She firmly believes in its mood-boosting qualities but recognises that it’s an individual thing.

“I would never want to quantify that in any way because it’s more my emotional feeling of it.”

Gratitude is learned

When I ask Kidston what she is most grateful for, she doesn’t mention the multi-million empire, the prestige, or the success.

“I have a lovely husband [four-time Grammy Award winner Hugh Padgham], I’ve been with for 30-odd years. I’m sitting in a very comfortable home, I have security, I have peace of mind. I wake up every day with an enormous amount of friends and family, and I enjoy my life.”

Kidston, who at 37 received a breast cancer diagnosis and has spoken openly about how this scuppered her plans to conceive, lost her own mother to the same cancer, and her father died when she was just 19.

“I discovered a lot through hindsight,” she says now. “Things go wrong.

“I think now I’m at a stage where I feel a lot of gratitude [for] how my life has unfolded.

“If you go through a very difficult time, and you come through it to the other end, there’s a reward for that. It’s extraordinary.”

• Kidston will speak on the power of scents to boost mood and trigger memories at Bullintubbert Gardens & House in Stradbally for the Eco Garden Festival. C. Atherley will be stocked exclusively in Ireland at Howbert & Mays garden stores in Dublin and direct to consumers online at c-atherley.com.