My East Finchley: Fashion tycoon Wendy Hallett calls for more high street clothes stores
Wendy Hallett. - Credit: Archant
Mother-of-two Wendy Hallett, 49, set up multi-million pound fashion business, Hallett Retail, from an office at her East Finchley home in 1999 and now employs more than 1,000 people nationwide. She still lives in the area and received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to diversity in the retail sector.
What brought you to East Finchley?
I bought a flat with a friend in the Great North Road in 1986, having got a job at Topshop in Oxford Circus. I have moved three times but always stayed in the area.
You have a day off to spend as you wish in the area, what would you get up to?
Walk my two dogs (King Charles Spaniels) in Kenwood and have breakfast in the café there or lunch at the Spaniards Inn pub. Or I would have a massage at Oxygene in Muswell Hill.
What is the single best thing about being an East Finchley resident?
It is a very friendly area through every life cycle – it was great when I didn’t have children, great when they were little and still great now they are teenagers. The restaurants are really good, particularly Tosa.
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Is there anything about East Finchley which you would like to see changed or improved?
Though it is a lovely High Street with great restaurants and food shops, it would be good to have a greater variety of shops, like some clothes shops.
You have achieved great success in business, what do you put that down to?
A passion for what I do, hard work and a good sense of humour!
In a dream world, if you had done something else with your life and not set up a business, what would you have become?
An actress, but as I cannot sing or dance it would have to be speaking parts only!
If you had to write your own epitaph, what would it say?
Life is for living and you certainly did that!
Wendy Hallett was in conversation with Tim Lamden.
