We talk to the inimitable founder of Trinny London about courage, clothes and skincare for women everywhere …
Trinny Woodall dazzled the room of 1,650 women at THE GLOSS Gala this year, talking with great candour and sincerity about courage in both her work and personal life. The inspirational entrepreneur shared her advice on how to find courage, her favourite looks and products, and her plans for next year …
WHAT DOES COURAGE MEAN TO YOU?
Courage is something that you can either think [comes with] a beer or you think it’s something to do with a man being heroic. But I think courage can be fully owned by women because it allows us to feel that we have limitless possibilities. If you feel you’re armed with courage, you won’t see that there’s something that’s impossible in front of you. So, it opens up your world. I think a part of being courageous is not assuming what is behind the closed door. You never know what’s behind the closed door, which allows you to open up your life to possibilities.
WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE FOR FINDING COURAGE?
I have a theme this year, which is to be more Lila. I have a 22-year-old daughter, and she always looks at the positive before the negative. I think as we go down the path of life, we can bring in the negative due to life circumstance, due to certain disappointments, due to things that happen to us which make us think of worry before we think of excitement. And a part of courage is to think of things that feel exciting because excitement gives us courage.
DO YOU EVER GET NERVOUS?
I think the time I was most nervous was many years ago. I had raised money for a business in 1999. It was an online business before there was even e-commerce. I had to go and talk to the AGM of a big American bank called JH Whitney to about 120 slightly crusty 65-plus-year-old men and talk to them about ‘the internet.’ I thought, how am I going to do it? But what I forgot was what they would be thinking when I walked in the room. Their judgement was, ‘here’s somebody who’s a part of a future we don’t yet know anything about.’ To them, I was that future. So, whatever came out of my mouth to them was fascinating, and just before I went on stage somebody reminded me of that point. It gave me the courage to then say, I do know this, it’s my sweet spot, and these people have got me here and investing in the business because they don’t know about it yet. So, let me tell them more.
“I think a part of being courageous is not assuming what is behind the closed door.”
HOW DO CLOTHES GIVE YOU COURAGE?
I use clothes in a very different way. I never really use them around body image. I use them around what I want to bring into the room. When I was fundraising for Trinny London, I always wore quite strong colours (the colours of the brand) because I knew that I might be going in on a day to pitch when seven other people were going in to pitch. I thought, I want them to remember me. Even if the words out of my mouth aren’t memorable, I thought, they’ll remember the woman in the yellow suit or the sequins. So, I started to wear the colours of the brand, which are yellow, silver and white. I always loved the colour yellow. Yellow to me is joy. If you look at the chakras on our body, it has a really good symbolism around what the chakra is. It is presence. I think if you come into a room and you either feel, I want to slither into the background and be invisible (and we can dress for that some days) or I don’t want to be present, but I need to be present. Then it’s about thinking, what can I put on that will set me up in the room to be visible to other people?
WHAT LOOKS ARE YOU LOVING THIS SEASON?
A.W.A.K.E. MODE is a UK brand that I love. They do things in a way that I feel has some point of difference. Oversized, but elegant, and it’s versatile. I have always loved sequins, but I think now I love more sheen than sequins. I love my sequin underpiece by 16Arlington. I can pull my sleeves up and have a little bit more showing, or I can pull it down. My jacket can be open to show a different style, or I can do it up like a matador for a different mode. I love clothes with versatility. Susannah, my What Not To Wear partner, loved a dress because she didn’t have to think [about it]. But I love thinking about putting things together.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR LATEST PRODUCT …
I’m so proud of it. I think Naked Ambition epitomises solving a problem, which is actually quite a big problem because 60 percent of Irish women suffer from a proportion of redness with their skin. I always ask myself in the Trinny London lab, what problem do we want to solve? For me, I thought, having been a person who had acne for 17 years of my life and always covered everything, what can we do that can be so ambitious that we don’t have to wear foundation if we choose not to? That we don’t have that moment in the mirror, and many of us have this moment, when you take off your make-up and go, ‘oh, there you are’ (in a negative way)? I’ve had that moment. We want to go, ‘there you are’! Then it was about developing something that can reduce redness and pigmentation to get your skin even and bright. A lot goes into development because a lot of brands out there do things on a sort of cult trend-driven production line. They’ll bring out something every month, and it will be this trend and that trend, while I like to solve a problem.
“I think energy is 50 per cent your mental state of mind and 50 per cent how you look after your body.”
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE?
New Year has evolved over the years. For many years it was, ‘do I have somebody to kiss?’! I’ve been in many countries and situations where I’ve had the boy or not, or had a row on New Year’s Eve. But I love nothing more now than being with family and friends. I’ll actually be spending it at a rather rundown little chalet that my family has had for 30 years in the mountains in France.
WHAT ARE THE PLANS FOR TRINNY LONDON IN 2026?
America. We’re slowly growing in America. About 10 per cent of our customers are American, and it’s about doubling that business. It’s a big ask. It’s a huge country. Right now, we have a store in Boston where there’s lots of lovely Irish people. It’s been so exciting going there because, funnily enough, that inheritance of such a strong Irish community into Boston means that we really understand ‘that woman’. She’s a woman who actually wants to look her best and make the most of herself. She doesn’t necessarily go, ‘let me do a treatment or have a facelift’. She wants to actually invest in things that work. She’s slightly more conservative than her New York cousin or her laidback Californian niece, but she will really think hard about what’s going to help her. We love that kind of lady.
HOW DO YOU STAY ENERGETIC?
I made the decision about three years ago to really reduce sugar. I used to have four sugars in my tea, and in the afternoon have chocolate and snacks. My sugar levels went up and down and, as a result, I felt exhausted. When you’re running a business, you can’t have that lethargy of tiredness. You’ve got to have a consistent day.I decided I had to take control. I thought, we can either see things as a punishment that we can’t do them anymore, or we can let go of things and that will give us the freedom to do even more. When I changed that mental mindset from, ‘I can’t do it anymore, I’m being deprived’ to the freedom it’s going to give me to be stronger, it changed. I also take a lot of supplements. I do a lot of strength training. I work out five days a week. And even if I have five and a half hours sleep, I will look and think, what kind of sleep did I have? And make sure the next night I’ll try and go to bed 20 minutes earlier. I also do meditation. On the mornings I do meditation, I see a noticeable difference because, if I’m exhausted, I know I need to go off and have a reset, then come back into the room and bring my better self.
SEE MORE: More Highlights From THE GLOSS GALA 2025
