Stylish Trudi King may look familiar. She’s married to Cheshire Life food writer Ray King and her photo regularly appears in the magazine. Here, Trudi and daughter, Claudia, talk about each other’s fashion sense
One of the happiest days of my life was during the white Christmas of 1981 when I gave birth to Claudia. Blessed already with a son, our family was complete, and those halcyon days of ribbons, curls and everything pink began.
It was another Christmas when they ended. I was busy with party preparations when she appeared wearing hideous black built-up Moscher boots. My only comment was: ‘If I had time I would cry!’ Enter Miss Sixty mini skirts and combat trousers with a dozen or so pockets (‘your dad will iron those while the footie is on’). But her expensive boned corsets that took forever to lace up provided good practice for the 40 eyelets on her Hollywood Dreams wedding dress.
We chose our dresses together for our joint 21st and 50th birthday party; long and elegant for me, while the bag that contained hers seemed dispoportionate in size to the money spent. When the student became an HR advisor, our shopping excursions yielded chic fitted pencil skirts: ‘You borrow it mum and wear with opaque tights’, in return for appropriating my tailored black suit - she once thought it funereal - for important meetings.
Now 32, Claudia, married with a house of her own, yet looking forever 16, still gets annoyed by requests for ID when she adds sauvignon to the weekly shop. She chose a dazzling nude ‘Forever Unique’ dress - my favourite in her wardrobe - for her 30th birthday party. Unwearable again at friends’ parties, of course, it was perfect for that ‘last holiday before we start a family’ cruise in Florida. Nine months after wearing it for sunset pictures on deck, along came a son of her own - unsurprisingly named Harrison Orlando.
Now the new mum’s back in her jeans, a legacy of years as a gym bunny and keen horserider. Could I borrow them? Well, only as cut-offs as I’m a good bit taller than her. No, the only peron who has, was her brother, Oliver, who went clubbing on Millenium night in her white combats.
Claudia’s story
My first memories of mum’s wardrobe were of the lovely evening dresses she wore to the occasions dad, as a journalist, was invited to, especially one with a metallic gold tiger print which used to cover his black suit in glitter!
As a child I loved to visit Crissan, the fashion shop Mum still manages, look at the clothes and dream of when I could dress up in evening wear, matching shoes and handbags. I remember trying clip-on earrings and everything with shoulder pads. Through her job, mum would snap up model samples and order items at cost so she would grimace at the price of my designer skirts with miniscule amounts of material, the hipster trousers, and four inch heels that raised many a health and safety issue.
This from the lady who travelled to work in hotpants and boots back in the day! And it was mum who had a train reverse out of a station to retrieve a shoe from the track. I like statement handbags; Mum, loves to match shoes and bags...lots of them. Dad recalls paying excess baggage for seven evening bags she took on a special holiday. But we do share a liking for skinny jeans, and the clever brand NYDJ. (Not Your Daughter’s Jeans) says it all. I love Guess jeans, while mum wears brands from the shop like Miracle by Michele and comfy Olsen, which stretch every way and promise to ‘lift and tuck’. We wear them in our individual way: me with fitted tops and mum with a smart blouses...but each with our black leather jackets.
My favourite outfit of Mum’s was the one she wore for my wedding - a Linea Raefelli design she had seen in a magazine. She bought the bodice and bolero top, but ever mindful of the rocketing wedding budget, got Audrey, Crissan’s alteration wizard, to make the skirt.
Four years on she still wears the top with separates. Yes, Mum’s a canny shopper. She’ll accessorise a Primark coat with a belt that probably cost more... and look a million dollars.
