Interviews
Female Voices | Tiffanie Darke on Confidence + Considered Consumption
Writer, author, editor and activist Tiffanie Darke shares her wisdom on confidence + considered consumption. Read more.
Mar 19, 2025
FEMALE VOICES
Self-care + Stolen Clothes With Mother-Daughter Models Rose Ferguson
Who doesn't love hearing from inspiring women? Launching this International Women's Day, our Female Voices campaign, in support of Smart Works, spotlights intelligent women from across industries with plenty of wisdom to share, on everything from careers to clothing heroes.
To round off our campaign and mark Mother’s Day, we spent an uncharacteristically sunny day in the Cotswolds with Rose Ferguson and her daughter Elfie Reigate. After a career as a leading member of the iconic 90s lineup of Brit models, Ferguson traded in haute couture for holistic health and is now a nutritionist and functional medicine practitioner. Clearly apples don’t fall far from the tree, as Reigate has taken after her mother in the beauty + brains department, working as a model while she studies for her PhD.
Chatting at home over a giant puzzle, against a backdrop of the Great British Countryside (the wholesomeness), the conversation was exactly as you’d expect of a close mother-daughter duo: teasing but affectionate, relaxed but a quick back-and-forth, as we covered self-care, stealing clothes and being study partners.
Elfie, do you steal from your mum’s exceptional wardrobe?
Elfie: Actually I don't steal that much, but what is outrageous is that Bliss and Blythe [Elfie’s younger sisters] steal loads and for some reason, I've got the reputation of being a thief.
Rose: What happens is, I have a clear out, and Elfie as the oldest, used to get the first [look]. Now I have no idea which [pieces] I've given and which have been stolen. So now she just says, you gave it to me and I have to say, okay. But actually, I think Bliss is the worst culprit. Because I don’t think Blythe steals that much, does she? This is the problem with having three girls. I'm going to spend hours looking for stuff and it's not there because they took it.
E: You're so paranoid now because every time your kids come home you just think you’re getting fleeced.
R: I get fleeced for everything: make-up, skincare. clothes.
E: You are actually very generous. It causes a lot of arguments amongst me, Bliss and Blythe when we see when someone's got something that everybody wants.
What do you think you have taught each other about personal style?
E: Your style’s quite androgynous a lot of the time and I definitely think that I've taken after that.
R: Do you think? You wear much more colour than I do. I feel like I'm always in black.
E: You wear quite a lot of colour! I think you wear, like, creams. Maybe that's not colour…
Rose, you’ve been a longtime advocate for healthy living. Were there habits that you picked up through childhood that still resonate with you?
R: They were homeopaths, my parents. My mum just cooked really balanced food - it was nothing faddy, you know, just stew and veg or whatever.
E: You did try and swap sugar once for bee pollen balls. I think even for you that was too much. But now that I'm grown up I really appreciate how you cooked for us, because you got so much stick for all the avocado cakes and the bee pollen and the lentils. Now I really like it because that's how I cook at home; I'm really healthy because I like it. We were very lucky.
Do you have a favourite self-care activity?
Rose: Sleep.
Elfie: I think I go for a lot of walks. I quite like going walking and getting coffee or a croissant - I love a croissant.
R: For me, self-care is taking a bit of time out. I work all the time, which is great, but I think this year I was like, I've got to start balancing out otherwise I'm just going to end up burning out. Just taking a bit of time to slow things down is really important to me.
What do you think is the most valuable thing that you've learned from one another?
R: I think patience, probably.
E: Patience?! That is such a backhanded compliment.
R: No, no. I can be really impatient and like things done really, really quickly. And you have to learn to be patient [when you have children]. I also learnt how to comb nits out of really thick, curly hair.
Do you know what I did learn from Elfie, actually? I did my masters at the same time she did hers, and you were really bloody helpful for me in how to do research properly. I came from a non-academic background - I’d done my nutrition and my functional medicine - but suddenly I was having to write dissertations and proper papers, and you were super helpful.
E: It was fun doing that, like, calling each other and being like, oh my God, I can't wait for this to be over. Pulling our hair out at the same time. It was nice to go through that together.
It’s really unique to have gone through so many similar experiences together as adults.
E: I think the reason that we have so many dual experiences [like that] is partly because you had me when you were my age, or younger than me. So it makes us quite good friends as well.
R: I think when you're young, having kids, you don't know what the hell you’re doing. You write the rules yourself rather than planning it and you have that confidence of a 24 year old that nothing's going to go wrong. It was just me and you.
In Support of Smart Works
We’re proud to launch our Female Voices campaign on International Women’s Day in support of Smart Works.
Smart Works is a UK charity that dresses and coaches unemployed women for interview and job success. Since 2013, Smart Works has supported over 45,000 women across 11 centres. In 2025, they will open their 12th centre in Bristol, an evidenced area of need, and by April will be supporting 10,000 women across the UK each year.
To mark our campaign, ME+EM will be donating to Smart Works to support and encourage their incredible work. To learn more about the charity, visit smartworks.org.uk.
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