THE GRANDE DAME OF STYLE

“ I love antique linens - particularly tablecloths and pillowcases,” says Lucia Van der Post on the subject of having a fetish. She has made a living from dispensing advice on style, luxury goods and interior design. You only need to read her column in The Times to understand that this style queen is still as relevant and topical today as she was three decades ago. Her taste, confidence, sublety and witty style has gained her a legion of fans that include the mummy crowd and young girls. Her advice is not just hearsay but is based on years of experience and research.

She admits in her book on impeccable style and grace, that over the years she has had easy access to “beauty gurus, emperors and empresses of the fashion, surgeons specializing in nip and tuck, masters of the art of cobbling and spiritual healing, fine cooks, top-notch designers and decorating fundis.”

Lucia has been around since the arrival of the very first tights, the mini-skirts and the power suit. She is the original fashionista and queen of style. The Resident Magazine’s Amanda Constance describes her as the “undisputed Grande Dame and a Tartar of taste.”

She obsessively collects authentic African artefacts such as sculpture, spears, dolls and embroideries. She reveals: “I have been very lucky in being able to travel to many different places around the world. I love India very much and Africa. As for cities most of the ones I know have their special charms and flavours - New York, Delhi, Mumbai, Cape Town, Paris, St. Petersburg, Florence, Rome... all have their very different charms.”

But don’t be fooled: Van Der Post is not just a Times columnist. She is also an author. Her books include – Celebrate: The Art of Special Occasion and Things I wish my Mother had told me: A guide to Living With Impeccable Grace and Style. She has worked for the Sunday Telegraph, Departures, The Sunday Times and is the founding editor of - How To Spend It Pages of the weekend section of The Financial Times. She elaborates: “I had been editing and mostly writing pages called How To Spend It in the weekend Financial Times for many years and the magazine was an obvious extension of those pages - it allowed us to run features at greater length and to give them much greater artistic treatment and full colour very importantly, it offered a fantastic platform for advertisers for very beautiful, full-colour advertisements.

This seventy-three year old has interviewed beauty and design gurus such as Gianni Versace, Estee Lauder and Giorgio Armani. She is the editorial director of a small publishing house that produces titles such as Quintessentially and Cartier Polo.

“Some fifteen years ago now a young girl working in the beauty department of U.K. Harper’s Bazaar wanted to buy some white sheets for herself. She found that there wasn’t a great deal of choice and so she came up with the idea of selling a range of white-only bed linen. I was the first person to write about it in the pages of the Financial Times, where I was an editor at the time. I thought it was a great little idea, ” says Lucia Van Der Post in her book - Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me. This is one of her anecdotes on how she became the first person to write about the idea behind the White Company. What other ideas or trends has she written about that have gone on to be successful. “I have trouble remembering but lots.... all sorts of small companies often told me I was the first to give them some exposure and help them on their way.”

Her latest book is a compilation of tips on grace and elegance, which grew out of Lucia’s weekly style advice column for the Times, which she has written for the past six years. It covers all aspects of life such as where to buy the perfect jeans, what to wear on a yacht and tips on maintaining a happy marriage. It is also very engaging and easy to read. What made her decide to write this book? “Well it was the idea of two young editors at John Murray (publishing company) who had been reading my columns in the Times and the Financial Times for some years and they came up with the idea and the title.”

She is the daughter of Prince Charles’s mentor - Sir Laurens Van Der Post and has lived in London since she was twenty years old. Lucia is married to Neil Crichton- Miller. Although, her late father was a personal adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Prince William’s godfather and author of many books that include the Admiral’s Baby. She says: “In a funny kind of way my father was more of a hindrance in that one dreaded not being able to write anything that he would approve of BUT with an arts degree and needing to earn a living there wasn't much else I could do.”

She started off as a design correspondent in 1963 for the Sunday Telegraph. This was during the time that the Beatles, Ossie Clark, Mary Quant and the Rolling Stones began to transform the London scene. Van der Post was born in South Africa. Does she recall what it was like growing up in South Africa? “Quite dull actually...though beautiful scenery and fantastic weather. It was very suburban in outlook; in Cape Town and Durban where I grew up. I think Johannesburg was rather edgier and more exciting

This ‘powerhouse granny’ is in the process of finishing her book on entertaining. Her energy is phenomenal and claws very sharp. Richard Chachere who is a friend of Van der Post and a renowned author says: “She reminds me of what the Greeks said of the goddess Athena, "she was her father's daughter!" While Lucia Van der Post, is no lacky! She certainly is her father's daughter in the sense of being a galvanizing writer, with a keen eye and sense of theater that gives her a wonderful perspective on style and fashion and modernity, in the light of history.”