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The What Not To Wear guru on growing older and accepting your body
For most of us, Susannah Constantine is best known for her turn on What Not To Wear in the early noughties, dishing out fashion advice to women across the UK with pal Trinny Woodall.
Now, life is very different for the 61-year-old TV presenter. An author and commentator, Susannah is now more likely to be found wild swimming or travelling the world than dishing out style advice. Alongside husband Sten – who she has been married to for almost 40 years – and their three grown up children Joe, Cece and Esme, Susannah now enjoys a quiet life of writing and occasional TV work.
However, behind the scenes, she has been suffering with hearing loss, and has been open about the struggles it has entailed. We caught up with Susannah to talk wrinkles, her friend Trinny and why Celebrity Big Brother is most definitely not on the cards…
You’ve been in the spotlight a long time and talked about women and the pressures they face – do you think that’s something that’s become easier with time?
Oh, I think it’s got worse. I think it’s much worse. Not for me personally, but for women in general. I think it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see how women are expected to be perfect and that hasn’t changed. It’s the same for the younger generation and social media. It’s a cliché but it’s true. So it’s about helping women change their mindset and, for me, I don’t want to look old, but it’s now more about how healthy and young I am on the inside. It’s more about health span, not life span. If I look like an old rusty Land Rover – which I do on most days – I’ve still got a Ferrari engine inside me that’s working extremely well because I choose to look after myself. And having clarity of hearing makes a huge different to that.
What would your advice be to young women struggling with their self-esteem?
It’s trying to shut out the noise that’s out there and focus on yourself as a person. It’s trying to take away that what you look like is not the be all and end all, and I know I spent 15 years with Trinny saying the reverse. If I wake up and I feel sh*t and my confidence is low, I will always dress up a bit so that I look in the mirror and I go, “OK, you’ll do!”, so it’s kind of understanding your own limitations and making the best of them.
Does that mean you regret any of the work you and Trinny did in the noughties then?
Not at all. It still stands. It’s changing what you can, because you’ve got to accept there are things you can’t change and we can do that with clothing. It was very powerful th
