“Founded in 2009, the label loved by Nicole Kidman, Sienna Miller, the Countess of Wessex and the Duchess of Cambridge has carved a special place in busy women’s lives by delivering the sort of wardrobe solutions they need, but don’t have time to hunt for. Hornby calls it “the three Fs”: flattering, functional and forever.”

Our founder, Clare Hornby, sat down with The Daily Telegraph’s Laura Craik to talk about building ME+EM, weathering the storm of the pandemic and being a working mother.

CLARE ON WEATHERING THE PANDEMIC

“We were very lucky with the weather. We try to make clothes that you will wear a lot."

"We wouldn’t make a dress that you could only wear on vacation – it would be for hot days and vacations…We obviously didn’t anticipate that we were going to get everybody sitting on Zoom. So our pretty tops took off.”

CLARE ON POST-PANDEMIC TRENDS
 

“We couldn’t sell a blazer for love nor money, and now we can’t sell enough blazers. Blazers have just gone crazy.”

So has yellow, which Hornby attributes to it being “the most optimistic color when you’re coming out of a pandemic. Women just want to get going again.”

CLARE ON THE SACRIFICES OF BUILDING YOUR OWN BRAND
 

“What I really have missed about doing this is friendships…"

"I’ve never built that closeness at the school gates. That’s the sacrifice. You still have friends, but you’re not in the club…because you can’t do this and be a good mum and be the friend that’s always there. That’s the thing that’s sad. Now it’s fine – it was the early years that were hard. That’s when the girls [would say] ‘you’re not on the PTA, you’re not this, you’re not that’ – and you feel very guilty. Now they’re older, it matters less. I think they’re quite proud.”

CLARE ON THE MENOPAUSE
 

“It’s good that it’s talked about, because it felt like a really mean thing that you had to go through."

"I had panic attacks...And terrible headaches. I came off red wine, coffee, everything, and they just wouldn’t go. I went on HRT very early. It was quite extraordinary, the difference it made. I never looked back”

CLARE ON MAINTAINING HER SANITY

“The business can never wobble me..."

I think maybe some northernness in me is the only thing that saves me. And age, to be honest. There’s something about age that just lets you weather storms. You’ve been there, you’ve done it.” She certainly has.”