I looked at myself in the mirror. I was like, not so bad. And it just felt really empowering
to just have me without the makeup, without the big hair, without the crystals and just
me. And I was like, okay, we need to do this now. We've got no hair. We are on this path.
It was the finite moment.
Hi, I'm Jess Rowe and this is the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show, a podcast that skips the small
talk and goes big and deep. From love to loss and everything in between, I want to show
you a different side of people who seem to have it all together in these raw and honest
conversations about the things that matter.
Designer Camilla Franks is a force of nature. She has a global fashion business with her
designs worn from everyone from Robbie Williams, Oprah, Beyonce, JLo and Jennifer Coolidge
in White Lotus. I wanted to have Camilla on the podcast since it started because I love
her strength coupled with exuberance and joy. When you're in Camilla's presence, she has
this incredible power, but it's not in an intimidating way. She has this real earthiness
and warmth. Just wait until you hear how she used her power when she was diagnosed
with breast cancer.
Oh, Camilla, I just love clapping eyes on you. You've been on my wish list since I began
this podcast because I think there's something very, very special about you. You exude flamboyance,
which I'm just drawn to, but you also exude this beautiful warmth and this lovely energy.
You're going to make me cry. It's been a long week. Oh Jess, it's so beautiful to be in
here and I think the words that you're saying about me, I feel like getting that mirror
and turning a light on you, darling girl, you exude all that energy and more.
Oh, thank you. Well, there's something remarkable about you and I love your generosity too.
You're so generous to people with what you do. You're beautiful.
I'm a total caretaker. You are. I love people pleasing.
But where does that come from?
Oh, I don't know. I just think I just get so much joy out of it. You know, when it comes
to Christmas time or gift giving, I get so much more joy with going all out to the point
my husband's like, does it have to be layer upon layer upon layer upon layer? Can we just
not do the small little presents? It's just, I don't know, I just enjoy doing it and it's
tends to be a bit of a ceremony for me. But I think I definitely get it from Mum. Mum's
always been a people pleaser, a caretaker and selfless to her own fault and I think
I definitely get it from that.
But when you say people pleaser, to me that almost diminishes who you are and it's sort
of tying yourself in knots to please other people. Is that really what you do?
I think it's sort of a double edge. So yes, that is part of me. But I think I get so much
joy about seeing people feel loved, seeing people feel joy and empowering people. I mean,
that's sort of the why to my business. The why to my business is empowering women, empowering
men, empowering transgender, empowering anyone that wants to be part of the Camilla world.
You know, it's such an honour to be doing what I do. And so being able to empower and
love people is one of the biggest gifts and one of the biggest honours in the world. So
that is a form of people pleasing, but I think an innocent form of people pleasing.
Well it's a very generous way of I think giving out to the universe. And then as you say,
you get far more then from what comes back at you.
It fills my cup. You know, I think I live this crazy wild world of fashion and sometimes
you want to sort of jump off and sometimes you need to recharge. And for me, recharging
is walking into my office. You know, for me, that is my playground. Even when I was going
through oodles of chemotherapy, I'd find myself crawling through there. That was my escapism
and my people, my tribe, I call them, my Camilla Rami. You know, while I'm the ringmaster conductor
and performer, I'm only one person day to day, they're the heart and soul of the brand
and they fill my cup. They re-energise me. And you know, there's so many things that
I do to sort of recharge myself, whether it's downward dog and turning myself into a pretzel.
Do you do ice baths? I read somewhere you-
Yes, with Wim Hof.
So Wim Hof is this incredible character from the Netherlands and he's actually married
to my cousin. And I'd like to say it's in the genes. It's not in the genes. I've actually
had to work quite hard to hit the five, six minute mark in a four degree bath. But for me,
that's one of those things that I take sort of three times out of a week. I will just put myself
and shock the hell out of myself. You have to come with me one time. It's amazing. And I feel like,
you know, it's anti-inflammatory. It's detoxifying. It gets the endorphins going. It reboots me.
I feel like, you know, we actually don't know how powerful we are as human beings.
Until you really take those risks and make yourself feel uncomfortable, like I believe
you need to get uncomfortable to get comfortable. And so they're the couple of little things that
I do. But I love turning myself into a pretzel of the morning.
You talk about your power. To me, also, you embody power and also this extraordinary,
I think, female energy. You mentioned their chemotherapy and you'd go into work. You'd
still drag yourself into work. It's really hard to think about what that time must have been like
for you. You just had your beautiful Luna. What was she, four weeks old? I think she was eight
weeks old when I was diagnosed. Yeah, it was pretty confronting. I had a lump on my breast.
Everyone thought it was mastitis. JP was heading back to Wales. JP was like, please just get it
checked. I was like, okay. So trudged off to the doctors, got the biopsy and it was, yeah,
you've got stage three breast cancer. So there was all of a sudden deep down into lots of chats
about, you know, whether I was going to live or whether I was going to die. How do you have
those chats though? Because we don't talk about this and because I don't know how I would have
that conversation. Well, for me, it wasn't a chat that I was willing to have. I was like,
I'm surviving. I mean, she was eight weeks old and it gave me every purpose to thrive and survive.
So I just went into it. This is a non-negotiable. This is what's happening. And it's terrifying at
the time. You know, you're bounced around from doctors to surgeons to oncologists and you are
overloaded with information. You're having to come up with your treatment plan that's going
to enable you to live. I mean, it's one of the biggest decisions of your life, right? And you've
just had a baby though. So there's all of that, all of those hormones and everything.
I mean, and it was just so terrifying. It was so overwhelming. I was angry. I was sad. There was
rage. There was every emotion mixed into one. I was like, this is not going to work. This mentality
is not going to get me through this. So I started off, what was really sort of terror based,
all of a sudden shifted into a sense of power. I thought, you know, I got curious about how the
mind could heal the body and I got stuck into all my hippie shit, I like to call it. So with my
oncologist, Dr. Liam and I, you know, I do my meditation in the morning, but then I do a very
aggressive yoga practice, which for me, I believe you can heal your body through movement.
So I went into that mixed with modern medicine and even the doctors couldn't believe how quickly it
was shrinking. So cancer was the catalyst for me to become a student on a whole new self discovery.
And so no matter what I go through in life now, I sort of always tap into that whenever it's,
you know, I'm finding a little bit too hard. Because was there a time though, when I mean,
you talk about the anger when you were thinking, this is not fair. I've had enough thrown at me
in life. Why is this happening? Yeah. I mean, I think you speak to everyone that's gone through
cancer. It's always why me? But then why not me? So it was part of the plan for me. Thank you. I
took it on shoulders and I had to become the CEO of my own body for that amount of time. And I
threw myself into six months of the bazooka of all chemo. Then came the losing of the hair. And
that was a journey on itself. I mean, when you've got these, you know, you had long locks and
everything and shaving. And you were known for those beautiful curly locks. And then so shaving
that off, you know, that was the first step. And that was terrifying. But it was actually one of
the most empowering things that stripped me back to my most raw and authentic. And I had my best
friend there, my hubby, my best friend from India, all around me doing this ceremony. And then they
turned and I looked at myself in the mirror. I was like, not so bad. And it just felt really
empowering to just have me without the makeup, without the big hair, without the crystals and
just me. And I was like, okay, we need to do this now. We've got no hair. We are on this path. It
was the finite moment. So then came the boobs and having to say goodbye to the breasts, which had
served me very well. Thank you, Jess. You know, they were big and buxom and floppy and juicy and
delicious. And they used to drive me insane. And I always say, God, I wish I could take them off
because I used to be a ballet dancer. So I used to gap to take them down before I used to jump on
stage. And then, you know, I just had to say goodbye to them. I just remember standing in
the shower holding them and saying goodbye to them was really painful. And then I found out I had the
brachygein, which meant that the ovaries had to go. And I think that and having to take Luna off
my breast because I was still breastfeeding were two of the hardest things for me. But it was a
real journey. One, I hope I never have to go through it again. You and I do a lot of work for
the National Breast Cancer Foundation and there's still 20,000 women a year being diagnosed with
cancer, one in seven passing away each week. And by 2030, we want zero deaths because I never want
my daughter or anyone going through what I went through because it's shocking, it's traumatic,
not just for me, but everyone that surrounds me. Again, though, your strength in talking about that
and sharing, I think your story is so important, Camilla, because there'll be women listening and
partners and loved ones thinking, oh, there is a way through this or this is how perhaps we can
manage. And you're also a warrior. I think of you as a warrior woman. And I remember this beautiful
post you did when you were, I think it was when you were in hospital and you were having your
ovaries removed and it was a sense of realising I won't be having another baby naturally. And
you shared that in the most raw way. I was so angry. I was so sad. That's what didn't feel
right or fair, you know, but it was a small price to pay to be able to live. And I had one beautiful
girl and there were so many women that I had the opportunity to love and learn from that were going
through chemo with me and a lot of them are much younger than me. And they, you know,
they will never have the opportunity of being a mother. You know, some of these girls are in
their 20s and they've had to have their ovaries removed. That for me is not fair. You know,
I count my blessings for the fact that I was able to have Luna just before I was diagnosed,
because there's so many women out there that that opportunity, that love has been taken away from
them. So I know how lucky I am. And again, what a way to phrase that. You're seeing how lovely
you're seeing how lucky you are as opposed to all the things that you've lost along the way.
Well, I think if you focus on the negative, you know, I think our bodies are pretty powerful,
right? You know, if I can close your eyes right now, Jess, just close your eyes
and think about sucking on a lemon. Are you salivating? No, like it's like, oh no.
So if we put the power to be able to change, you know, what's going on in our biochemistry through
power of thought, then we've got the power within to be able to change it in a positive way or in
a negative way. So it's just something that I've practiced for a long time now. I think
it was about 10 years ago. You know, I've got this energy, a little bit like yours, a little bit like
my mom's a hundred miles an hour, 24 sevens. And when I first launched the brand, I was like,
I did not stop. I was a racehorse running. You know, I was wearing every single hat.
And I worked out pretty fast that working 24 seven, wearing every hat does not serve you
and not delegating does not serve you. So I had what I like to call my physical emotional awakening,
but it was pretty much a breakdown in true Camilla form. And I had to take sort of six to eight weeks
off work because I wasn't functioning. And it started off with Bell's palsy. Like my body was
crying out for me to stop. These were all the warning signs that were saying,
you're not doing the right things here. And I was not. Why weren't she listening?
Because I just love what I do. And I was working in India and I remember my, all of a sudden,
my face just dropped. And before I knew it, I was being raced to emergency. They thought I was
having a stroke, but it was just Bell's palsy, but it was still terrifying. And that's an attack on
the nervous system, the virus, you know, I was just overworked, overstressed, bad relationships,
the lot, just layered it all on. And when I got back from that, I took six to eight weeks out of
work and really rehabilitated myself and learnt about the power of the mind.
And it's not a lot of time though. Did you sort of almost give yourself a limit of time? Because
when you think about all that pressure that you're under, I would sort of think I'd be taking
a year off or six months or, but for you, it was that final time.
I did a very, very tough course out in Arizona. Like I went to one of the hardest rehabs you can
go to for depression and anxiety. I wanted to get A+. I was terrible at school, but I wanted to get
A+, and, you know, nail this whole rehab thing. And so for me, it was a real journey of learning
about how powerful my mind was and how I'd kept hold of this trauma from losing my brother,
at a young age that I thought I dealt with. There was just a lot that I hadn't unpacked.
And so unpacking that gave me the freedom to sort of rebuild myself again. And then you come back
from that sort of six-week program and then you keep those behaviours in place, you know,
that self-love. So 24-7, I'm not going to work 24-7 again. I'm going to give that time to myself
in the morning. I'm going to eat well. I'm not going to hang out with narcissists.
I'm not going to just waste my energy where it's not needed. So there's a lot of
learnings that I just take into my daily practice. Yeah, it was an intense time,
but I think if you can go through something like that, you can go through anything. But
those two moments in my life, the depression and then the breast cancer,
really gave me the tools to be able to go through COVID, have a baby. Even when I was having Luna,
JP in the background is like, please, could she just tap out? I feel like I'm going to lose her.
And so I did 24 hours of natural labour and I went into my shamanic kind of healing state
where I would bring in my bear or my African goddess or whoever it was to get me through those
times. So yeah, just those little tools in my belt. And I'd say they're more than little tools.
They're very powerful. They're very powerful tools. And I'm so sorry about your brother,
Ben. He was 14 when he passed away and you were 17. You'd just finished high school.
Just finished, yeah. I know. It's one of those times when you're sort of meant to go out and
really explore the world. But I was exploring the experiences of grief with my parents and it was
very traumatic. I think when you lose someone that's so young and you're also a young age,
it's something that's very hard to wrap your head around. I don't think in our society,
we really talk about life and death. We're not a very spiritual country, I don't think.
You know, I have the opportunity of spending time in India and all these amazing places and
that's where my spirituality is starting to grow, learning from different cultures. But
yeah, it was very hard to process. And as I said, you know, I had my breakdown,
how many years after, because I hadn't processed it properly. So grief is a really important thing
to lean into and do it properly. It's probably also one of the other reasons for the success
of the brand. You know, when you've lost your best mate and your mum and dad only have you
to lean on and to look for that kind of child-like support and love. I felt a sense of responsibility,
I think, that I needed to live the life of two and really suck the marrow out of it and make them
proud, make them proud. All children want validation off their parents, right? I was
constantly searching for validation off my parents and wanting them to be proud.
It probably wasn't the healthiest way for me to start a brand. You know, I think it's important
to do it for yourself and that's where I'm at at the moment. I do it for my community around me
and for the love of creating. I just love creating. And we grow and change, don't we,
through life. But that's a lot of pressure to put on yourself as a young woman thinking,
I have to now live for two. I know. And it was after he passed away, I didn't take
long until I went straight into the workforce. So mum and dad were really nervous that I'd
go a bit wild and feral. You went into advertising, didn't you? I went into advertising,
but I got bored and I got bored fast. You know, that wasn't my playground. I wanted to be more
creative. You know, I was born on stage as a dancer and in theatre. Because you're an actor,
weren't you, as well? Yeah. I mean, I did everything. But I think I always wanted to
be an actress. You know, at school, it was definitely not at school where I was shown.
You'd never find me in the maths room or the science room. I was either on the theatre floor
at dance rehearsals or at the headmistresses office. I was always in trouble. And it kind
of makes sense to me now. So 10 years ago, I finally got diagnosed with really intense
attention deficit disorder. So I could not focus at school. If I was in maths or science
or biology, I'd just, I start getting woozy and dizzy and I need to stretch and I'm falling asleep
and pretty much like that in my board meetings these days as well. If I've got to work on finance
or legal, I'm gone. It needs to be short and sharp. So when I finished school, I wanted to act. Mum
and dad were like, Benny passed away. And so I threw myself into advertising and then producing.
I was producing music video clips over in the UK, but that wasn't very creative and then came home
and went, this is it. I'm going to do me now. And all those books that I ignored at school,
I didn't read one book at school, I don't think. They weren't your friend, were they? They were
not my friend. Shakespeare and Chekhov and all these amazing writers. I finally understood it
and I finally was passionate about reading because of the acting side of it. And then
this journey, and I think this, it sort of turned a key for me. It's like I found my creative truth
and the real me and my real purpose. I knew I had to be creative. I just didn't know where
that energy needed, to be honest. And so I started traveling around Australia doing pretty bad co-op
theatre and all like really long Shakespeare performances with no intervals. And my poor
friends, my friends would be seeing me going, I'm going to kill her. And unlike the Hugh Sheridans,
you can watch Hugh for hours and hours and hours, not me. But I loved it. It was filling my cup.
And I used to get quite fabulous characters. I'd always get stereotyped as the flamboyant
character. So I used to love getting involved with the costume design. Then I started doing
my own costumes and I started creating my own rehearsal gear. And then I started getting these
random calls from people like Corinne Upton Baker that works for Hermes. People within the fashion
industry saying, look, I heard you've got these amazing costumes and caftans and kimonos that
you've sort of made. Can you come and show us? So all of a sudden I was schlepping the suitcases,
opening them up and showing these very elegant women. These wonderful sort of bohemian sparkly
fabulous caftans. And I only did it because I wasn't making any money in the world of acting.
I mean, I was going from audition to audition to audition. I mean, it should have been like a big,
you know, red light to just get out of the acting world. You know, I wasn't making much money. And
so I did it to support my love of acting. I still, even when I launched, I was still like,
I'm only doing this so I can pay for my acting career. And then you had though, I mean, your
studio in Bondi and didn't you play all sorts of different roles? So, I mean, you kind of had your
acting hat on then, didn't you sort of used to answer the phone and pretend to be different
people because you wanted to say, yes, I've got a huge staff doing all of this work. It was such
smoke and mirrors. So when I launched, I was a one man band. So I wore all the different hats,
especially when I opened that Bondi Beach House, which was my playground to learn everything I
needed to know about the fashion industry. But people would call the line and I'd be like,
hello, Camilla's Beach House. How can I help you? I'd give myself a name, Amy speaking or something.
And then they'd be like, look, we've got these invoices and we're not happy. I used to do all
my own invoices, you know, like manually. Oh, my goodness. All wrong, right? Allwrong.com.
And I'd be like, yes, just transferring you to Sharon. Anyway, hello, this is Sharon speaking
here. You know, like, and this was like, I get myself so confused about which line was what.
Anyway, I was everything from head of retail to head of production, head of design, logistics,
finance. It was just a circus, but it was my little circus that gave me so many great memories.
Could you ever have dreamt as that young woman that you now would be heading up this global fashion
empire? Yes. I didn't know what it'd look like. I just knew it'd be big. I remember jumping on the
plane my first international trip to go and sell my wares. I think I had three suitcases. I've got
two torn shoulders now because my collections are quite large and quite heavy. So I used to
schlep them around the world, season after season, rejection after rejection. And everyone would say
to me, why do you keep going back? I don't get it because that must be humiliating. I'm like,
yeah, it is humiliating, but I believe in my baby with my full heart. And it was just this gut
instinct thing that I knew I was meant to do this. I knew this was my purpose. My purpose is to create
and colour the world in Camilla. And my why is to empower people on a global level. And it was
just something inating me. And I think when I first started, the benchmark was David Jones.
Okay, tick that. Then the next benchmark was global domination. Hmm, starting to tick that.
The next was retail. Tick that. And for me, it becomes a game. It's never been about money.
It's about just this playfulness. Well, you love it. Seeing you talk about it,
you light up. And what I adore is that when I asked you that question about could you imagine
this happening, and you instantly were like, yes. It was weird. I could see it. Even though I had
no idea how I was going to get there, I could see it. And it was, as I said, it was terrifying. But
I love that Brené Brown saying that courage is not without fear, but the willingness just to show
up no matter how you feel inside. It changes you and makes you that little bit stronger and
braver each time. Because I used to rock up in psychedelic prints in the middle of winter,
half snowing in New York and Bergdorf Goodman would be like, here's the crazy Australian again.
You know, and I'd be like, here I am. And they're like, we just like they just loved the the energy,
but they're like, we just don't get your collection. I'm like, okay, tell me why.
So season after season, I'd go back and I'd refine it. And then finally, they went, you know what,
you've been coming to us for five years or four years, we are going to give you the opportunity
and we're going to stock you because we think you're fabulous. We think the collection is
fabulous. We just don't know if we've got the right buyer for it. Fast forward all these years,
we're now their number one brand on their resort floor. So that sort of that persistence and that
resilience that I had back then, that's sort of what got me through. But that was fed by this
knowingness that I could do it and it was going to work. And also not listening to naysayers.
Yeah. Because early on, there was a lot of unfairly kind of snobbery, fashion snobbery.
How did you manage that? Because fashion can be nasty. And there can be people who are like,
oh, there were some nasty characters. I won't mention any names. No. Yeah, no, that was,
I mean, there was so many times I found myself in New York crying myself to sleep because I was
being bullied or judged unfairly. But I think the person that I am is that tends to fuel my fire.
And I think the best, not, I don't like the word revenge, but the best revenge is success.
And it just pushed me to be a better designer. It pushed me to be a better leader. It pushed me
to be a better business owner. But I didn't lean so much into the negative noise that it debilitated
me. I leant into it so it could fire me up and God, it fired me up. Oh, didn't it fire you up?
But how do you do that? Even now, I try not to buy into negativity and I'm pretty good,
but there are still moments when I will listen. But where are you listening? Like,
are you looking at social and all of that kind of stuff? I try not to. And then I very much try
and teach my daughters, don't buy into that. So I don't have a computer and I don't really
use my phone for social media. My team do it. So I don't read anything. I don't read the papers.
I just don't because I know the effects that that has had on me in the past.
And it's just not welcome in this little abyss here. Well, it's too precious, isn't it?
Your energy, who you are. But I think that's really important. I mean, you're able not to use
a computer, but for many people, they're there using their computers. If you can't not read that,
what's another way? I think it's having boundaries. If you do have a computer or
social media is in your face, turn it off. When I was at rehab, they take your phones away from you,
right? And there was a lot of people that were addicted to, it becomes an addiction too, right?
Self-love is not eight hours on Instagram. Self-love might be 30 minutes on Instagram.
Like lean into the good stuff, not just, yeah, the negative noise. Because it does hurt,
it does eat you up. And I remember having conversations with Charlotte Dawson before
she passed away. And that was the key catalyst, right? It's very dangerous. And Erin Mullen,
it's so dangerous. And I understand those dangers. And I just, I'm too busy. I'm literally too busy
to kind of want to give that the energy. Yeah, it doesn't deserve it. You've said in the past that
you were a workaholic. Would you still describe yourself as that?
Totally. I'm a workaholic, but in a more healthier way. I think because I'm not driven
through fear of failure or fear of having to be validated. I'm a workaholic because it fills my
cup now. You know, it's my playground. It's my happy place. And a child is curious, right?
And that's why they've got these endorphins running through there. You know, I look at Luna,
it's like, I want what she's on. But that's the feeling I get when I get to get off the beaten
path and work in remote communities. It's that endorphin, that curiosity that's going through my
blood and veins. Let's though talk about how you were diagnosed with attention deficit.
And how for you, it then made sense of school, why school was tricky. But I think almost the
superpower of having attention deficit is once you find your thing, you're unstoppable.
Yeah. Well, once I was diagnosed, I had all these light bulb moments. I was like,
oh, now I get it. Now I get it. You know, and so if you put me in my design studio,
so sometimes Jenna and I, well, we used to back in the day go and just live in India for a couple
of months. And we would go in at eight o'clock in the morning and probably leave sometimes at
one a.m., two a.m. in the morning. I wouldn't stop for a break. I wouldn't stop. That for me,
I've got the energy to keep going on, going on. When I've got board meetings, which are very-
Boring, dare I say.
Not boring. They're just-
You know, I am so visionary. I am red and yellow brain and flying 100 miles an hour.
Then you've got your blue and your green brain. I have to live in the blue and green
brain quite a bit to be able to run the business, but it's not my natural habitat.
I prefer to be over here. So when I'm in the green and blue brain, I find it very draining
and very tiring. So I know I have to limit myself to probably a six hour board meeting.
When they go above that, it's time out.
Well, you know your boundaries. You know what's going to work and how long you can be. Would
you ever take medication for it or have you?
Actually, I'm going to look into that because it's sort of struggling at the moment. We're
about to do our five year strategy at the moment and I've got new investors involved.
I've got to be really focused to make the right decisions because we're talking about a lot of
money and rolling out stores throughout America and I need to be making the right decisions at
the right time. Sometimes when you are fogging out and you get really blurry, you get dizzy and
I get nauseous. So I'm actually seeing a doctor next week about it. So potentially, yeah, I'm
not against it, but it'd be something that I'd just take for those particular moments.
A lot of my really close friends, it's like we all gravitate towards one another.
They've all got attention deficit disorder.
Well, because creative souls, that's the thing.
I took the team away one time for a weekend retreat to learn about each other,
because there's certain energies that don't quite connect and I thought,
let's just take them up to Milton Park in Bowral. We had to all make dream catchers.
So all these very corporate people are going, what have I signed up for?
And then we had a tribal drum circle. Then we had to burn our feelings into the fire,
into the cauldron. And then we had to walk Milton Park with the drums. Anyway, we did mind mapping.
I love it. I think that sounds wonderful, but I can imagine some people cringing through it.
Oh my God. And I was like, this is my business and you're going to do it my way. Anyway,
I wanted to shake them up a bit, you know, and get them to learn about each other.
I wanted the green and blue brains to really understand the red and yellow brains and vice
versa. So then there was this whole workshop day about mind mapping and that's the way that
he described it. And he got all our papers in and he explained what each of our personalities meant
and he told me I was the weirdest. I was like, have I just paid you to tell my whole team
that I'm the weirdest? He goes, I've never actually come across this makeup.
And I'm like, what do you mean? So for the whole 24 hours, I felt less than, I felt so.
But I think where that is a badge of honour, because it's great.
After the whole team left, because he was really kind of giving it to me that I was weird
with the way that my brain was mapped out. And it was hard not to take that personally,
because he's talking about you as a person and in front of my whole team. As soon as the team went,
I had a moment on my own. I went up to him, I said, you know, I really didn't feel comfortable
about you telling me that all the way that you have articulated it, that I was kind of unique
and weird and it was unusual. And he goes, Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. No, probably what I should
have said. The only other person I've seen like this is Richard Branson. I was like, he could have
said that in front of the brain team. But yeah, it's that very, I mean, Richard Branson's got
dyslexia, very open about it, very creative, very visionary ideas. Ideas are constantly coming out
and I'm definitely not as talented as Richard Branson, but it does make sense if you read his
books. It's all over the shop. There's just a billion ideas and that's why it's so good to
have my green and blue brain harness all that. To have, yeah, the people around you to do those
particular roles. Yeah. Tell me now about the role of being a mum. What's that like? The best job
in the world. The best job in the world. Like even this morning, I woke up at 5am,
started working on design and then my little creature comes down at 7.30 and I'm trying to
work on design. Then she's in my arms and then she just falls asleep again. And I just grabbed her
and like lay down on the couch and I just went, life is beautiful. Like just watching her inhale
and exhale, the simplicity of just breathing her in. It was just magical. And it's the greatest,
I mean, I wouldn't even call it, it's not a job, the greatest gift of just being in her presence.
I feel like it's triggered my inner child even more so. Like I'm already childlike anyway,
but it's triggered my inner child, which I think sometimes we forget to explore as life gets serious
and I think it's so important to and that releases endorphins and positive energy.
But those moments in the morning of the hugging and the moments at night time,
that is just, it's like the world slows down, right? I'm thinking about it now, my heart rates
just softened. But it does, it makes you just, oh, and you marvel, I think, at the miracle of them.
I know, I want more. Would you maybe go through surrogacy or? 100%.
Yeah, just getting the husband over the line. Oh, is that where you're at? Yeah, yeah. But I mean,
I wish I'd started earlier, you know, but I didn't and I started at 41 and there's still time for me.
Like I still feel like surrogacy, a few of my friends have got children through,
Robbie Williams and Ida have got two surrogate children and I've spoken to them about it and
yeah, it's just a beautiful thing. So the ovaries have been taken out. It's my only option and
adoption. So looking at both. And if anyone could do it, I reckon you could. I would love to. I
would, I mean, I just didn't realise how much I loved being a parent. You know, it was always
something that I didn't know that I needed and now that I've got it, I want more of it. Yeah.
Let's just finish off by talking about, so you mentioned there Robbie Williams. Yes. And his
wife. I just love that, how you just go, well, you know, I was chatting with Robbie and because
you did a fabulous collaboration with him too. Yeah. So you have mates with them, also recently
White Lotus, Jennifer Coolidge. She's so cool. Oh man. You would love her. Tell me, I want to
hear about her. She's exactly the same in real life. Is she? Yeah, yeah. So obviously White Lotus
is the brainchild of incredible writers and artists and directors and then there's Jennifer.
So on the first season of White Lotus, we were working on her costumes and Alexander Bouviard,
who's the costume designer. We were chatting for the second White Lotus and she wanted to shift it
up a notch and work on menswear with me. And then we were coming to the end of the chats for the
menswear and we worked out our diaries. I was going to be in Italy working and they were going
to be shooting in Sicily. She's like, Jennifer wants to meet you. Got to get over here. And the
timing just worked out serendipitous. And so I flew over with my team and they said, come on,
you've got to jump on set. Gosh, the performer. I know. The frustrated actress finally got her moment.
I should have been there at the Golden Globes getting that award. And so next minute I found
myself on set with the whole team. I said, if I'm on set, the rest of my team are on set. So we had
the most amazing night dancing in this incredible Sicilian villa from four o'clock in the afternoon
to I think four o'clock in the morning, having an absolute ball with them. So that was fun.
That was the ticket off the bucket list. And yeah, working with Robbie was definitely a journey.
He's one beautiful human being. He's definitely got attention deficit disorder. And my first zoom
with him after we were all together in Ibiza. And when he called me and said, I really want to do
this collection with you. But then we couldn't connect. So we did it via zoom and I pressed go
and there he was just with a do not over his crotch. And I didn't know where to look. And I
was quite nervous because it's still Robbie Williams, right? Anyway, then trying to like
get him to stick to the path of the print design world. He's like, I'm thinking UFOs and astronauts.
And I'm like, Robbie, people want to know about your life. So we finally got there where we sort
of celebrated his life through print, whether it's his tattoos, his children's names, Ida's names.
He wrote some specific lyrics for me to embed into the prints. So yeah, I've been working on
some really fun things and you're wearing Disney today. Yes, because Disney, a collaboration,
the biggest sort of brand really in the world. And for them to say, we want Camilla. We all grew
up with Disney, right? I mean, I remember being wrapped in my mom's arms or cuddled up to my
brother watching Mickey and Minnie from such a young age. And, you know, that's where I guess
my first introduction to storytelling, you know, where magic was real, anything was possible and
love and friendship triumphed above all else. And I got the opportunity to go through all of Disney's
iconography for the last hundred years. I'd still be in it if I could. I wouldn't want to leave it.
I've got it. It's amazing. And so it was such an honor that they wanted to join forces. And so
I had the opportunity to work on these prints for months and months and months and months and months
and sort of explore that inner child, you know. And so this Disney collection is really honoring
Walt Disney and what he stood for that, you know, anything's possible if you want to see things a
little bit differently. And differently I do. But that could apply to you. Yeah. Couldn't it?
Because you sprinkle fairy dust and magic wherever you go. I hope so, Jess.
I hope so. You do. You do. Well, I have so loved talking with you. Loved talking to you too.
And thank you for sprinkling that amazing sort of fairy dust. But not only that, the power
that you embody. And I think that is really something that we can harness. And you're a
very, very special woman, Camilla. Thank you. Oh, Jess. Thank you so much for having me.
Love you. Love you. Oh, isn't she just phenomenal? I love how unapologetic she is,
how she stands in her power and owns it. There's so much that we can learn from her.
And oh, I just love that privilege of being able to talk with her and to share that conversation
with you. And not surprisingly, travel is back on the cards for Camilla and she's back to business
exploring and finding inspiration for her extraordinary designs. Now to add a Camilla
piece to your closet, I've got just a handful, maybe more than a handful. You can visit
www.camilla.com for her amazing caftans, embellished pieces and celebrity favourites.
Now for more big conversations like this, follow the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show podcast.
It means you will never ever miss an episode. And if there's someone in your life who you
think will love this conversation, go on, share it with them. And if you enjoyed this chat with
Camilla, I reckon you will love my chat with Trinney Woodall. I think you've got to think,
how would I feel at 60 if I hadn't tried? That's the first question I ask myself.
How would I feel that I might've let myself down, that I maybe didn't reach my full potential,
that maybe at 50 I was thinking, even though I've done so much in my life,
in my mind, I hadn't reached the place of what I wanted to be as a person doing what I was doing.
The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show was presented by me, Jess Rowe, Executive Producer Nick McClure,
Supervising Producer Sam Cavanaugh. Until next time, remember to live big.
Life is just too crazy and glorious to waste time on the stuff that doesn't matter.