My guest today is a woman whose style I have admired for a very long time.

To quote the fashion journalist Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion director, stylist and curator Lucinda Chambers has the kind of style you just can’t buy. And, like many other women, I’ve certainly tried. 

Lucinda has worked in the fashion industry for more than three decades. For 25 years she was fashion director of British Vogue, as well as creative consultant to brands ranging from Prada and Marni to H&M and River Island. 

Five years ago, she left Vogue in the kind of blaze that will be familiar to many midlife women who intentionally or otherwise put a bomb under everything. She went on to co-found Collagerie, a digital platform that curates, frankly, lovely things that range in price from the very affordable to the very much not. TBH I took one look at Collagerie’s site and practically handed over the keys to my bank account.

Lucinda joined me from her beautiful toasty TV room to tell me why being pushed out of Vogue was a blessing and the joy of embracing BIG change in her 50s. We also discussed the difference between drive and ambition, why you can’t be stylish if you’re not comfortable and how to put some colour confidence in your wardrobe.

• If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with India Knight and Times Fashion Director Anna Murphy.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

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• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

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