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Five years ago if Space NK creator Nicky Kinnaird had been asked whether she fancied opening a state-of-the-art concept store on Tottenham Court Road in London, she would have laughed.
"‘Are you crazy?' I'd have said. But I think London is becoming increasingly ‘villagey'. People are looking to stay in their neighbourhoods and support neighbourhood businesses."
Her company celebrated its 15th birthday last week, had an annual turnover of £40 million (Dh220 million) last year and has 57 outlets in the UK (plus four in New York) but Kinnaird remains a cool hunter.
She travels the world in search of the next beauty fix, whether it's a fragrance from a little artisanal workshop or "the most amazing beauty tool in some far-flung place". She brought us Nars, Kiehls, Eve Lom, Chantecaille, Diptyque.
Kinnaird is a serious businesswoman, who has an honorary doctorate in economics from Queens University Belfast and trained as a chartered surveyor. For several years she worked as a retail consultant for a London property investment company.
It's madness for me to meet the founder of a cult beauty retailer when I have chipped toe varnish and windblown hair to rival Joan Collins, and I feel like a schoolgirl as I'm ushered into her Bloomsbury HQ, all white furnishings and scented candles.
If she asks me to show her my cover stick, I might cry. But Kinnaird, 44, brisk and remotely fluffy, has a maternal streak (she lives with her long-term partner, Bob, who works in furniture design, but has no children).
By the end of our meeting, she's taken me across the road to the new store on Tottenham Court Road and diagnosed the right eye cream and an oil-free tinted moisturiser for my skin type. She even wraps the products and rings them through the till, proving she is nothing if not a born shopkeeper.
When she launched her first Space NK store in Covent Garden, back in 1993, she revolutionised the fashion and beauty retail market. Instead of a fussy, feminine shopfit, she created a clean vanilla box with "play" zones where customers could try out products.
Her real inspiration is the traditional apothecary shop. "Growing up in Belfast as a child, one of my favourite stores was a pharmacy with those great old-fashioned drawers and the weighing scales."
The family went to the Spanish coast for three months every summer and it was here that Kinnaird became obsessed by Spanish pharmacies, full of lavender and orange water and olive oil bars of soap. "I still recall the smell of the fresh citrus colognes during the early evening paseo along the seafront, so I used it when we created our Laughter fragrance."
Although she was a "complete tomboy", she would often disappear into the bathroom for hours to play with "lotions and potions". Today as the curator of Space NK, she uses her passion for art and literature to bring us an edited, personal selection of things she has discovered on her travels.
Early on in her retail career, she learned that most knowledgeable shoppers bought their specialist beauty products in boutiques in Italy, France or America and realised she had spotted a gap in the market. Her break came in 1992 when the Thomas Neal Centre in Covent Garden was under development. With the help of a few DIY business guidebooks, Kinnaird, 27, submitted a plan for a 4,500 sq ft basement store and was taken on.
Suddenly, she was juggling 200 suppliers as well as training staff, working on the shop floor and doing the accounts — all from a cupboard under the stairs. By 1997, with the help of some private investors, she had opened three stores in four weeks in London.
In 1999 Space NK launched its own signature range of products and opened a day spa in Westbourne Grove. More recently she opened the concept store, SPACE.NK.MEN. "Men say they don't use products, but when you question them, the list comes out."
The teen market is also burgeoning. "Remember how when you were a kid having Clearasil around was something to be hidden," she says feelingly. "Now teenagers talk openly about cleansers and scrubs." And she is "constantly interrogating the offspring of friends about what is cool, hip and happening".
To celebrate the 15th anniversary, she is launching four new fine fragrances inspired by her most memorable travel destinations (Tuberoli came from a romantic weekend in Rome).
New trend
And she has started a new NK code that shows the "harmful" ingredients taken out of best-selling products (parabens, sulphates, petroleum, synthetic colours).
She predicts the new trend will be for a much closer relationship between beauty regimes and your home — bathrooms or areas with spas, wellbeing or even
medical and nutritional facilities.
"Taking time out to look after yourself in the comfort of your own home is very important. In the Japanese culture, for example, the bath tub is a place for de-stressing and relaxation."
Kinnaird wants us to make our lives more pleasurable and what she proves, with her sharp intellect and brilliant eye for design, is that beauty doesn't have to be vacuous. "You can be reading serious material, or handling a complex issue but just because you're burning a scented candle at the same time, it doesn't mean that you're an airhead."
Facing the recession head on
Nicky Kinnaird is sanguine about the credit crunch. "People can change a look by a lipstick rather than having to spend hundreds of pounds on a new outfit."
Her philosophy certainly chimes with the results of a new survey which reveals that 29 per cent of women refuse to cut back on pricey beauty products and make-up despite a looming recession.
All products are still personally tested by Kinnaird, despite her selling 90 per cent of the company to private equity firm Manzanita Capital in 2007.
Protect your skin
Nicky Kinnaird looks amazingly tanned and fit — she gets up at 5.30am to play tennis — but is not ridiculously thin. "For me it's always about healthy, radiant skin rather than ‘I love your make-up'."
She would rather educate women about protecting their skin without resorting to the needle or the knife.
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