Caryn Franklin on how being a carer in her thirties changed her attitude to ageing

Today’s guest is my personal hero, Caryn Franklin. Caryn started her career in the 80s as a fashion editor before moving into TV where she presented, amongst other things, BBC’s The Clothes Show. Always outspoken, Caryn has spent four decades being a thorn in the fashion industry’s side. Championing diversity of all forms LONG before it became the cool thing to do. 

She cofounded All Walks Beyond The Catwalk to promote body equality in fashion, chaired Fashion Targets Breast Cancer and was awarded an MBE for her services to fashion. Now she’s written Skewed, with Professor Keon West, to examine how media bias distorts our views of others.

To bring it back down to my usual level, She is also the owner of my fantasy hair!

Caryn joined me by popular demand (she’s one of the most frequently requested guests) to talk 40 years of fighting for diversity, Why the fashion industry is still so bloody bad at catering for older women and why clothes should be a superpower. She also shared her experiencing of being a carer to her first daughter’s father in her 30s and how that changed the way she felt about ageing, how going grey nearly cost her her job and how HRT gave her her life back. 

* You can buy Skewed by Caryn Franklin and Professor Keon West from audible. All the books mentioned in this podcast are available at Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!

* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker.

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