Charli Howard

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Annoushka Ducas:
Hi, Annoushka here. In this series, I'd really like to take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about The Brilliant Breakfast, an initiative that I set up two years ago to help the Princess Trust support disadvantaged young women. It really can be as simple as putting the kettle on inviting a few friends around or hosting a breakfast for the team at work and asking everyone to give what they can to help change a girl's life. So that's The Brilliant Breakfast starting October the 10th this year. And for more details, visit the brilliantbreakfast.co.uk. Thank you.
I'm Annoushka Ducas and welcome back to My Life in Seven Charms. For me, there are so few things which can evoke a memory like a tiny detail charm. In this new series, I'll be meeting seven extraordinary women and hearing their stories through this very special 18ct gold biography.
Today's guest on My Life in Seven Charms is a model, writer, an activist, and an entrepreneur. Her stellar career and her profile was kick started by a brilliantly defiant letter she posted on Facebook, having been fired by the first agency who signed her. Since then, as well as writing novels and creating her own skin care brand, she has become a catalyst for women celebrating their bodies, embracing their curves and loving the skin they're in. She is a fabulous example of doing so. As part of international women's day, I'm so delighted to welcome Charli Howard to My Life in Seven Charms.

Charli Howard:
Thank you. Hello?

Annoushka Ducas:
Hello. So nice to see you and nice to be sitting in front of this cozy fire.

Charli Howard:
Exactly. It's nice and warm outside from the cold. Very sweet and I've just been given this piece of paper with all the charm illustrations on it and it's so cute. I love it.

Annoushka Ducas:
It's always interesting to know how people will react or if you've in your head, when you describe each charm, whether you visualize them very differently.

Charli Howard:
It's just better. It's just so sweet and the detail as well. That's what I love about them. The little book with the web splash on it. That's the title and the anchor and everything. I mean, it's just so sweet. I love it.

Annoushka Ducas:
Well, why don't we start with charm one?

Charli Howard:
Yeah.

Annoushka Ducas:
We'll start with charm one. So charm one is an anchor. I've seen this as kind of literally a miniature anchor in yellow gold with a rope kind of wrapped around the long part. I engraved it because I know that this is to represent your father. I put just dad on or we could put his name. So Charli, tell me about this anchor.

Charli Howard:
So this is my first charm because I grew up in a Naval household. So my dad was in the Navy and he's also a really big inspiration of mine on a personal level, just because he was the fastest person to have ever

 
gone from a sailor to a Naval captain. So it's quite amazing actually. And my dad's a really, really hard worker and I think he's instilled that kind of work ethic into me as well. He gets why I love working so much, unlike other people. I think you're either that way inclined or you're not and my dad is very much one of those people.
The Naval thing is obviously a really big part of my life. We moved around all the time. That bit I found particularly difficult. I have a bit of a love, hate relationship with my dad's job. But it also really shaped me. My dad's job shaped me because it gave me that independence really. And I'm an incredibly independent person, probably sometimes a bit more than I should be, but I think moving around so much and having to adjust so much and be thrown into all these different situations has really shaped who I am.

Annoushka Ducas:
That's so interesting, but just give us an example of where you were living? When you were little, where were you moving to?

Charli Howard:
We moved a lot to Germany back and forth. So we lived in a place called Schleswig-Holstein which is kind of on the Danish border. Hamburg, which was honestly my favorite place to have ever lived. I absolutely loved Hamburg because it's just so free and modern actually, modern thinking. Berlin, we lived in Belgium for a short time, we lived in various parts of England, London.

Annoushka Ducas:
Wow.

Charli Howard:
Wales. A bunch of different places but like I said, I did struggle with that a bit because it's very difficult to connect with a place and to make friends because you know that you're going to be moving within two years. So that's always been a bit of a problem for me.

Annoushka Ducas:
Were you educated at home or local schools, were you at a boarding school or?

Charli Howard:
Well, actually, so for the first few years of my life, I say I'm quite lucky in a way, because I've literally done every single version of schooling that you can. I've been to comprehensive schools. I've been to private schools. I've been to public schools. I've been to boarding schools, I've gone to American schools, I've done all these different kinds of schools. And again I see that actually a bit of a blessing because it means I can socialize with pretty much everyone.

Annoushka Ducas:
That teaches you so much.

Charli Howard:
It definitely teaches you so much, but it also puts you in a bit of a weird bracket in a sense of sometimes you feel like you fit in places better than others.

Annoushka Ducas:
Where did you feel at school? Where did you kind of feel you've fitted in best?

Charli Howard:
When I went to an international school in Hamburg and that was so much fun, it was just every different culture, religion, color everything. I mean, there weren't really any rules of school and I was always in trouble, but I think that's probably why I enjoyed it so much, but I'd say that one really. I think that was the best one. Definitely.

Annoushka Ducas:
Interesting. And you said you went to boarding school. Did you enjoy that?

Charli Howard:
No, not at all. I wanted to be free and I wanted to see the world and I felt incredibly trapped there.

Annoushka Ducas:
I'm sure we'll come onto this, but did you know kind of at an early age at school that you wanted to be a model?

Charli Howard:
Yes and no. I mean, I've kind of got a funny story. I remember the first time I knew that a fashion was something I wanted to get into, and that started at school because we had this thing called the birthday sack, which was the night before your birthday, they'd come around with a pillowcase and everyone would put in random tap basically that they didn't want. Put it into this birthday sack and then they'd come around and give it to you. And you'd be like, "Great, thanks for the used pen," that kind of thing. And to have someone had put in this really ripped old version of El and it had Elvis's grand doors from the front Rileyco, I think co, I don't know how to say it. And I kind of picked it up and I looked at it and I thought, "Oh my God, what is this?"
And I was only about probably 13 or 14 and I remember thinking, wow, this is the world I want to get into, but it seems so glamorous and so far removed from where I was and who I was. So that's when I really first started thinking about modeling would be fun, but I was quite a bit plump at the time and I was so much tall than everyone else. And then actually we had a career stay at school and there was a woman that came in, sorry, not a girl, a woman that came in who was a model. And she said, "Oh you should really try it."
And I thought, I was really embarrassed. I was like, "Really?" Because in my head it was a dream, it's not something that people did. I remember going to my dad going, "Oh my God this past pupil said I should be a model." And my dad was like, "You are not becoming a model. I've not spent this much money on your education for you to do that." So it turned to a massive row and I did it anyway but.

Annoushka Ducas:
What does your mom think?

Charli Howard:
If I'm being honest, they weren't that supportive in the beginning, because again, I think they wanted me to have things they hadn't. Both my parents had left school at 16 and I think that they wanted me to just be the first person to go to university, be the first person to actually have an education properly and do things properly, which I completely understand. And now that I look back, I wish that I'd also gone to university properly, but I didn't.

Annoushka Ducas:
But you could have.

Charli Howard:
I could have done. I did, I went for a couple of years, but I was essentially asked to leave because I was so bad at it.

Annoushka Ducas:
We'll talk about that, everything.

Charli Howard:
We'll talk about that in a second, but I really wanted to follow my dreams, but of course modeling, acting, singing, all these different things very, very few people make it. So as someone who's a bit older, I completely understand why my parents wouldn't want me to do that. And why they'd want me to follow a traditional path. But I was very stubborn in my ways and I was going to make it happen.

Annoushka Ducas:
Whatever they said.

Charli Howard:
Whatever they said.

Annoushka Ducas:
Your second charm, I love this idea. The second charm is a little tiny teacup. And you'd said maybe a Union Jack type teacup, but I thought, well, let's why don't we put a Union Jack on the bottom. So you can see I've drawn this literally as a three dimensional teacup and saucer.

Charli Howard:
I love that one.

Annoushka Ducas:
So English, isn't it? Teacup and saucer.

Charli Howard:
It's so English, but I didn't ... Because I saw the Union Jack underneath and I thought maybe that's a separate charm, but that's the base of the cup.

Annoushka Ducas:
That's the base of the cup.

Charli Howard:
Of the teacup.

Annoushka Ducas:
Of the teacup.

Charli Howard:
That's so cute. I love that.

Annoushka Ducas:
It's so funny because actually for my whole life I've collected miniature cups and sauces. I mean really miniature like this. Anyway, it was a real pleasure to draw this and kind of think about this. So as I say, it's three dimensional. It is in two parts, but attached by one jump ring so that the cup and saucer are not sold together. They're two separate things and I love yellow gold. I've drawn the cup in yellow gold polished and the saucer you can see also in yellow gold and on the base is the Union Jack with made of kind of blue sapphires and rubies and tiny little diamonds for the white part of the Union Jack.

Charli Howard:
That's so cute-

Annoushka Ducas:
It'd be quite a challenge, but I think it would be gorgeous charm, but I mean tea cup. I'm fascinated.

Charli Howard:
So like I said, I spoke to you about a Union flag in the beginning. I said, I like something with ... I love being British most of the time. I love fishing chips, roast dinners, tea. Obviously I drink so much tea a day and London, my dad moved to London when I was about 14, I think. And it was the first time, again going back to what I said about wanting to feel free and stuff. It was the first place where I felt free and the first place that I felt like was home. That was where my home was because again like I was saying, I didn't feel like I had a home because every one year, two years, three years we'd move. And by this point, I mean, I'd already lost count of the amount of houses we'd lived in. I think I've lived in over 30, 40 places.

Annoushka Ducas:
Oh my God.

Charli Howard:
My entire life. I mean it was-

Annoushka Ducas:
And you are 30?

Charli Howard:
And I'm 30. Yeah.

Annoushka Ducas:
That's unbelievable.

Charli Howard:
Yeah.

Annoushka Ducas:
That's very hard to imagine that actually.

Charli Howard:
It's very hard and it's very hard to uproot and pack and you genuinely don't feel like you settle in, but London is my home. That's where I consider home. It's the place where I've lived the longest now technically and it will always be home. And I actually found out recently through a ancestry DNA that most of my family are from there. They're from the east end. I absolutely love London. And like I said, this was the first place where I felt free, but it was also the first place where at school or during weekends or whenever I come and see my dad or stay with my dad, that I started getting scouted as a model.
So obviously Topshop doesn't exist anymore, but outside Topshop, there'd be tons of model scouts. They'd come to you inside there or I'd be in Camden or wherever. And people would approach me and say, "We'd love you to be a model." But it was also the place where my dreams felt like they were starting to come true and then they'd get pulled away from me because people would say but once you get down to this size, then we'll sign you. Then we'll sign you, then we'll sign you.

Annoushka Ducas:
So hold on. I'm fascinated. So at the time, were you bigger than other models, but you were scouted. Just try and explain to me bit about that landscape.

Charli Howard:
This would've been 16, maybe 16 years ago now I guess where modeling was a complete and fashion was a completely different time. People were obsessed with size zero if you remember. Everywhere you looked, it was size zero. That you'd open up a tabloid magazine and it would give you literal recipes of how to emulate these celebrities. I became really fixated on that because in order to be a model or in order to be accepted, you had to be thin. If you want to be in only you can do that. There's no one else who can do that. By this point I was probably about a size eight to 10. So not big, but in modeling sizes that was big.
I don't know, it was weird because I looked at modeling and I looked at celebrities and all these people I really wanted to be who were clubbing and had all these really handsome boyfriends and tons of money and designer stuff. And I thought, well the only way I'm going to achieve that is if I become a model and becoming thin, so it was this kind of vicious cycle really that you're going into. Anyway, so I would be scouted, but it was always a sort of when you get down to these certain measurements, then we'll sign you.

Annoushka Ducas:
God.

Charli Howard:
So it's difficult.

Annoushka Ducas:
So for you at that point, because you were what? 16 or-

Charli Howard:
14, 15. 15 probably.

Annoushka Ducas:
And did you think, okay, well you obviously thought, yes, I'm going to down to this size and was it at that point where you started to kind of, I guess, abuse your body in terms of what one has to do to get to that size?

Charli Howard:
Yeah, 100%. So I developed bulimia, I think when I was about 14, maybe 13 and it started off with someone in my family had made a comment about the fact that I put on a lot of weight. And the reason why I put on a lot of weight is because I was at boarding school and I was really miserable. So I'd go to the school tuck shop and just eat, eat, eat, eat, eat. I just felt really lonely. I can't explain it. It wasn't because I wasn't around people, it was just because I felt this sense of loneliness and it's very difficult, even for me now to explain this, but I just didn't feel like I belonged I think. So in order to feel something I just used to eat and as a teen and I wasn't exercising and the weight just kept going on and on and on.
So someone in my family said Charli's put a lot of weight, why is that? And so I started cutting out food and the weight started coming off. Then when I started to lose weight a bit more, the model scouts came and then it was a case of like I said once you lose some more weight, then we'll sign you. I deliberately cut out more and then I discovered bulimia and I think bulimia, for years and years and years, I did not see it as bulimia. I just saw it as a way of getting rid of stress and anxiety.
I think, and of course it comes back again, your brain tricks you because you think I feel really relieved right now because I've got rid of everything out of my body. And then the stresses come back and the anxieties come back. If someone said a mean comment, or if you feel homesick or whatever, these feelings all come back and then you do it again, do it again. And it just becomes this cycle really.

Annoushka Ducas:
But this might be a really kind of stupid question, but at that point, did you enjoy the eating bit?

Charli Howard:
Well, this is what's really weird is that no, not really. Because it becomes a case of just eating and shoving things in your mouth until you feel like you could burst, you just eat and eat and eat and eat and then you throw it all up.

Annoushka Ducas:
And in secret?

Charli Howard:
In secret.

Annoushka Ducas:
All of those things. Eat, eat in secret. So you wouldn't eat in front of anybody.

Charli Howard:
Yes. Again it was like, why am I doing this? But at the same time, I just felt like I needed to do it. I can't explain it. This is something that I've dealt with for a long time. And I haven't made myself sick in six years now. It will be six years, I think. And it's very, very difficult to crack that because your brain associates that purging with stress relief.

Annoushka Ducas:
Just before we move on, for girls now girls or men, I know there are lots of men who have bulimia issues and I mean more so than I think we've ever been aware of before. Or perhaps it's always in there, but no one's been aware of it. What would be your advice for people out there who might be suffering from something similar?

Charli Howard:
Yeah. I guess it's important to realize it's an addiction and people don't view it as an addiction, but it is because you are getting addicted to food and then you are addicted to throwing up and you are addicted to being thin or getting rid of the stress or whatever it is that you want to get rid of. So it's an addiction. So once you view it as that, and you realize that you want to get help, that's the most important thing. And also, I think it's really important to remember that life doesn't have to be miserable.
Food is a really wonderful thing and I consider myself a foodie now. I love trying new foods, for a long time food was my biggest fear, my biggest enemy really. It doesn't have to be, you only have one life and one of my friends sadly died last year at 30 from cancer. And it just really puts a lot of things into perspective because you realize that life really is too short and you never know when it will end. So just make the most of it, don't live in fear.

Annoushka Ducas:
Did you kind of talk to any of your friends or your parents or your anybody about it?

Charli Howard:
No, not at all.

Annoushka Ducas:
That was part of it.

Charli Howard:
That is part of it. It's like, it's very embarrassing and it's very shameful and you think, God, everyone's going to laugh at me and you already don't like yourself, so you don't want people to already think you're more of a freak than how you feel if that makes sense.

Annoushka Ducas:
But when you say you didn't like yourself, you just didn't like the way your body looked.

Charli Howard:
No, I hated everything about myself. I hated like the way I looked, I hated the way my body looked, I hated my cellulite. I hated the situation I was in. Whether it was the boyfriend I was seeing or the school I was at or whatever, because I had it for over 10 years. I felt very lonely. I didn't feel like I had many friends and eating disorders, they really isolate you as well from people because you get terrified of going to social events and hanging out with people because you're worried about calories, calories, calories. And I had a very, very severe form, I think as well of anxiety that I wasn't really aware of. The more that I've looked into it and the more that I've studied anorexia and bulimia, you realize that most people have anxiety and or depression as well. So they all feed into each other.

Annoushka Ducas:
Yes.

Charli Howard:
That's been something that I still struggle with and that I try to address. Annoushka Ducas: But are there places where people should go in terms of professional help or websites that people should go to?

Charli Howard:
Yeah, I mean there's Beat, which is a great start if you're worried. There's Anorexia Bulimia Care. I think it's called ABC, which is another amazing charity based in Bristol I think. Obviously if you've got the resources, there are rehab places you can go to if you need to that counselors and things, but trying to break that cycle of not wanting to punish yourself or damage yourself is very important, but you have to want to get better before you-

Annoushka Ducas:
You have to recognize there is problem.

Charli Howard:
Yeah, because most ... I've seen it happen so many times where people go to rehab or they do all these things and they just don't get better because they're not ready. So you have to want to be get ready.

Annoushka Ducas:
So your third charm's a camera.

Charli Howard:
Yes.

Annoushka Ducas:
So I'm really excited about this actually, because I actually I already have a camera in our collection, so this camera, but I've drawn it in yellow gold. It's a lock it. So the back of the camera opens so you could actually put a little tiny little photograph that we could print for you.

Charli Howard:
That's so cute.

Annoushka Ducas:
The lens on the front actually turns and you can see, I put a little ruby where the flash would be. But it is entirely as perfect a miniature of a camera as I can possibly get it to be.

Charli Howard:
That's so cute.

Annoushka Ducas:
Charm size.

Charli Howard:
Charm size, yeah.

Annoushka Ducas:
Charm size. So I'm assuming that you've chosen a camera to represent your modeling-

Charli Howard:
Yes.

Annoushka Ducas:
Career. So you've told us a bit about how you got into modeling. And what I'm really interested to learn is a bit about behind the scenes of modeling. For those of us that have never been a model, never even been on the cards. It'll be really good to understand about how you were treated and then we'll come on and talk about out what you did about it.

Charli Howard:
Sure. So for those who think modeling's really glamorous and you just get tons of free things and everything's very exciting and you get treated like royalty. Believe me, you do not. You are at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to shoots and when it comes to campaigns or whatever, unless you have happened to become Kendall Jenner or Bella Hadid, and modeling now is very, very different to even how it was when I first started, it's just not the same industry anymore. It's certainly not the same industry as the supermodel era. I mean, it changes all the time. But again, I went into it like I was saying before, where I thought that my life would become magically glamorous. And it really isn't like that. You go to casting sometimes five, six a day, travel around London.
You very rarely make money. You do some jobs sometimes that are £250. I remember getting one campaign and that was two a half grand, which to me at the times was like, "Oh my God, two and a half grand. That's so much money." And then of course it's really not when you have bills and things to pay. And when that's the only job that you have all year or every few months or whatever, and you're treated quite badly because what you have to remember is that you are a commodity, you're not a human being. You are there to sell something. So you grow a very, very thick skin because you go to castings with your model card and your photos that you've had in your portfolio. And people look at you as saying can you sell my product?
That is all you are there for. You are not a personality. You are nothing. It took me very long time to understand that because I'd look at people like Kate Moss or whatever, and think, oh my God how wonderful and amazing. It really is not like that. Nowadays you have social media and now you have to have a personality. But even when Instagram first started, I remember girls getting in trouble because they were posting too much about themselves. You are there to look good. You are there to have a face, to be a face. You don't wear makeup. You don't wear heavy makeup. You wear all black to look as simple as possible.

Annoushka Ducas:
As neutral as possible.

Charli Howard:
As neutral as possible and that is who you are. It was very difficult for me to kind of get my head around that because I guess I have always been more than that. It just took me a long time to understand I had more to offer if that makes sense.

Annoushka Ducas:
In terms of kind of how you are treated once you've secured the job and you go to the shoot, how are you typically treated when you get to a shoot?

Charli Howard:
Well, I guess it depends where you are in your career. If you started out, you are not treated always that well especially sometimes with the bigger clients. If you do e-com jobs, for example, which for me are hell and I refuse point blank to do them. You're there and you are modeling sometimes 70 outfits a day. I mean, I did. I counted once. I think I did 79 outfit changes a day and that includes makeup change, touching up makeup and people might think, oh, well that's easy. Believe me, it's not because they don't give you time to eat lunch. You have to woo things down sometimes whilst you're still getting changed and addressing gown or whatever, you eat, eat, eat try and eat when you can, you get on set, it's just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. It's just one thing after the other and that is if you even get fed, sometimes you'll turn up to a shoot and you're not fed at all.

Annoushka Ducas:
Is that still the case?

Charli Howard:
Yeah.

Annoushka Ducas:
In this day and age, they still have that.

Charli Howard:
I hear that all the time. So you have to learn quickly to bring a cereal bar with you or something and eat when you can in the toilet. I mean, you are literally a commodity. I mean, I've got so many stories that I could just write a book on, honestly, where you do a shoot and the team will eat without you and then there's nothing left for you at the end.

Annoushka Ducas:
That is just extraordinary.

Charli Howard:
Just bizarre. Or people making comments about the way you look all the time. Or ... I remember being a side six by this point and people going it's really good we've got a curvy girl on the shoot. In my head, I was like, but I'm a size six but at the same time, I thought, well, no, I must be fat then if people think I'm curvy, I must still be fat.

Annoushka Ducas:
I suspect there's a kind of that people forget that you are a human being, that they're talking about you, but not to you.

Charli Howard:
Yeah. I mean, but that's the thing is that you are not a human being. You have to view yourself as a business and you have to see yourself as just that.

Annoushka Ducas:
Gosh, I mean, it is such a different world and I think it's so important to talk about it because I'm sure there's so many young girls, young people who want to become a model who have no concept of what the reality is.

Charli Howard:
Yeah. And also you don't realize how much debt you get into. So these agencies from the get go, you are kind of in debt because there's always a cost on your statement at the end of each month where they say courier costs. So where they send your book out to people. And there's no guarantee they're actually even doing that by the way. And you get charged X amount a month. Whenever they print out your business cards, they always cost 50 quid.

Annoushka Ducas:
Which comes off your fee.

Charli Howard:
Comes off your fee.

Annoushka Ducas:
Not their-

Charli Howard:
No.

Annoushka Ducas:
Large percentage that they take,

Charli Howard:
It's yours. If they print out the pictures for your book, that's another cost. The actual book itself, that's a cost, taxis. I mean, I made the really big mistake of staying in model apartments, which were at the time £100 a night, but once that works out to two weeks, you could have probably stayed in Airbnb for that time or whatever. And these places are pretty much always disgusting. You are living, sharing a room with two other girls that you don't know, and the bathrooms are disgusting and there's no privacy. I remember being in Paris and I saying in this one apartment where there were two showers, two or three showers in the bathroom. So you were expected to shower alongside these other girls that you don't know.

Annoushka Ducas:
Oh my God.

Charli Howard:
And I mean, gosh, I've just got so many stories literally, I could two whole other podcasts on this but it was-

Annoushka Ducas:
Completely gripping because I mean I had no idea there was such a thing as a model apartments.

Charli Howard:
They are. That's how they also make money. Sharing bunk beds with girls that you don't know.

Annoushka Ducas:
None of that's passed on the client.

Charli Howard:
No. I mean, even like the model apartment, I mean, now you probably find this bizarre, but the model apartments where you're putting rooms with boys and share rooms with boys and bunk beds and these guys, you don't know them. There's a lot of cases of sexual assault that people cover up and things like that. I mean, it's a really dark world and there's an amazing initiative actually now in New York called the Model Alliance. And this was set up by a model who became a lawyer and she now campaigns for safer regulations. And even basic things like being paid on time.
There are so many jobs that I haven't been paid for because the clients go bust or they just decide not to pay you where you're waiting for like a year, two years to get paid for a job that you did. That's not normal behavior. If you've done a job you deserve to get paid, but these people know that they can take advantage of that.

Annoushka Ducas:
But it also sounds like there's a real issue with the agencies.

Charli Howard:
Yeah. And this is the other thing, the amount of agencies I've been signed to who say we work for you. No, you bloody don't. I mean, if you read the small print and this is a mistake I will not make, again, based on past events. If you read the small print, you realize that you don't have any voice because-

Annoushka Ducas:
Right, maybe.

Charli Howard:
And rights as well, because they will literally say to you, we don't have to legally get you work, but you are expected to do this and the other, you also can't leave, but we can drop you at any time. So I remember a lawyer looking at one of the contracts I signed. He was like, "Why did you sign this?" But when you're in your early 20s, you don't think about it. It like it's fine, don't worry I'll be fine.

Annoushka Ducas:
Well, you probably never even consider getting a lawyer.

Charli Howard:
No.

Annoushka Ducas:
Because you just read it.

Charli Howard:
Well, and you are very excited to have the opportunity. It's messed up.

Annoushka Ducas:
God. So there was a moment in your life when I would say everything changed, when you wrote this extraordinary piece on Facebook, when you kind of had had enough of all of that. I think it would be fantastic if you could read it now.

Charli Howard:
Wow. Here we go. So this is the letter that I wrote on Facebook and it was a status and I'd been dropped that afternoon by my agency and they called me up and they said we really appreciate how much you go to the gym and everything, but not everyone was designed to be a model. And then they said, "I'm sure you'll get signed somewhere else though. Or something like really weird and hypocritical." And I kind of had this realization for the first time in years where I was like I'm a lot smaller than most people. I'm a lot taller than most people. And I also know that I don't deserve to get treated like this. I am one of these people that kind of tends to put up with a lot of shit. And I think this was the first time where I thought, hang on a second, I've given my absolute all to this and I've starved myself beyond belief. Then for you to turn around and say we appreciate how much you go to the gym. I think that was honestly like-

Annoushka Ducas:
Was the nail in coffin.

Charli Howard:
I just saw red for the first time. And this was the first time where I genuinely thought I'm absolutely fucking done with modeling. I'm not doing this anymore.

Annoushka Ducas:
How old were you?

Charli Howard:
23 I think, 23, 24. I wrote, here's a big FUCK YOU in capital to my (now ex) model agency for saying that a 5ft 8in tall in a UK size, 6-8, I'm too big and out of shape to work in the fashion industry. I will no longer allow you to dictate to me what's wrong with my looks and what I need to change in order to be beautiful, like losing one fucking inch of my hips in the hope it might force you to find me work. I refuse to feel ashamed and upset on a daily basis for not meeting your ridiculous unattainable beauty standards.
The more you force us to lose weight and be small, the more designers have to make clothes to fit our sizes and the more young girls are being made ill. It's no longer an image I choose to represent. If an agency wishes to represent me for myself, my body and the woman I've become, give me a call. Until then I'm off to [Nandos]. That was so funny. This was so funny. There we go.

Annoushka Ducas:
So that was the end of that. That marked to kind of end of a era.

Charli Howard:
Yes. So I remember writing that and then thinking, haha, that's funny. And I thought yeah, I'm never going to model again. I really don't care. I posted it and it must have been about six or seven o'clock at night and my then boyfriend was out. And so I ran a bath, went upstairs and when I came back down, I was fuming. When I came back down on Facebook, I suddenly had all of these shares and where people had shared it and it was like 100, 200, 300. And I thought, oh God what's happened. So I decided getting texts off people being like ... Some models were like, you need to delete this. You're never going to work again.
I was like, "No, I'm not deleting it. I don't want to model again." I generally don't care. Anyway, because it got shared so much a journalist from the biggest tabloid newspaper, let's just say found it and they started emailing me saying, "We're going to write about this in the morning or whatever." And I said, "I really would prefer you not to if that's okay." And they said, "Okay, well either give us a comment or you're not because we're going to post it either way." So I just saw shit like this is it now. Anyway, it went on this website and we'll call it the daily fail.
I wasn't aware that they basically could take your Instagram pictures and post them on there without your consent. Any image that you put on Instagram becomes public domain. So they put it on and I clicked on it and the first few comments were nice. She looks like this person, oh good luck to her, Anand's comments really funny or whatever. And then they started becoming really nasty where it was like, "Well, she's ugly anywhere." Well, if you can be a model then get a normal job, like the rest of us or whatever. I just thought, "Oh God." My parents saw it and my mom's really, really, really upset by it. I've said this before, but it was almost like an out of body experience because then after that, it must have been a really slow news day because then other newspapers picked it up.
So it was on like the third page of the Times. And then really massive photo that I had taken at a wedding that summer put on there. It was on apparently Pakistani news and it was in the Sun and it was the only time I'm ever going to be on page three of the Sun. I mean, it was everywhere and I was in the kitchen and then my face was on BBC politics show where they were talking about the modeling industry and how messed up it was. Then it was mentioned in the House of Commons because they were talking about the way that people were being treated and the way that women being treated.
So it was really quite scary. And it was quite frightening because I felt like, "Oh God, have I done something wrong?" Have I really ruined now my whole chances of ever getting a job again? What's my life going to be like? I didn't have any qualifications. It was really, really frightening.

Annoushka Ducas:
I mean, but what an extraordinary thing you did?

Charli Howard:
I mean, it was, I mean, now I'm proud of that.

Annoushka Ducas:
Looking back. It must be so proud.

Charli Howard:
I'm proud of myself now. I think it started to debate just really about women's bodies in general, because I think everyone has felt the pressures to look like glamorous women or to look or to be thin, I think most importantly to be thin. And I don't know, I think if you ever feel bad about something, you don't necessarily have to be famous in order to make a stand, you can just be a regular because at the time I wasn't anyone, you could just say something that you've really believed strongly in and social media gives you that platform.

Annoushka Ducas:
I mean, it's an amazing thing you've done because in terms of the confidence that you are able to give other people now having ... Just you reading that. I mean, because one of the things, I mean we're talking in the lead up to international women's day, which is so much about raising women up and giving them, you and I have talked about this before, but giving them the confidence that they need to be able to go forward and have the competence to do what they want to do. I just think that set you on a whole path, hasn't it? That we're going to talk about.
So having kind of put a stop on your modeling career, kind of by putting this piece out on Facebook, you then kind of had a big change. I'm assuming that this next charm, charm four is to do with that change. This is New York. The big apple because-

Charli Howard:
That's very cute.

Annoushka Ducas:
The big apple. I've seen this in absolutely miniature three dimensional apple. That's a locket. So it opens in the middle, I thought it'd be nice to do it in rose gold because I always imagine the big apple, we always see it in kind of rose gold. So in red and again, I think just so lovely to put perhaps a pair of photographs in each side of the locket inside. So tell me about why New York and why that's obviously been an important part of your life.

Charli Howard:
So I've been in London for a long time and I was in a relationship that I wasn't very happy in. So on top of that and the Facebook letter and the modeling and all these other issues, I then got approached by a model agent in New York. I'd always been told that I was too big to make it in New York as in body wise, that I was never going to do it. I was too short, too big to ever go to New York.
Suddenly I had this email from someone saying, "Look, I'm at this agency, would love to fly you over." So I thought, "God, do I really want to do?" I mean, I've just written this letter. Will I look like a hypocrite if I go and do it, but also do I want to pass up this opportunity? So they said, "Look, why don't you come for three weeks and see how you feel and we'll introduce you to a few new clients and see how you go."
So I thought, okay, fine. So I flew over there and it was the first time really that I was away in a massive of city on my own. It's a bit different when you're in London, because you're still in the same country as your family, but I was very anxious and I was scared and I went over there and I had the best time and I just thought, oh my God, the world is such a big place. Again when we talk about the chance of being free, it was the first time where I felt like a woman and I felt like, wow, I'm earning my own money and I've been given this second chance. I was there for five years in the end.

Annoushka Ducas:
You were over there five years?

Charli Howard:
Yeah. Five years. So it was a really big part of my life. I love the culture over there and it was where I discovered plus size modeling as well. So again, I'm not plus size.

Annoushka Ducas:
You are not plus size.

Charli Howard:
At all, but I realize that there's a whole new market and this market wasn't big there now it's there are loads of plus size models killing it now.

Annoushka Ducas:
So plus size models, what's constituted plus size?

Charli Howard:
Well, believe it or not, it's probably someone over a UK size 12, so really not big at all. And actually it's quite insulting, but I'm kind of in the middle of those two things. So I had an agent who said to me, "Look, you're not going to be big. You're never going to be thin. So why don't we just market you as who you are." There are a lot of clients at the time, this was like five, six years ago that were looking for girls who were like a size 10. Who wanted that because that's what a lot of people are.
There was no one representing that. And for the first time in my life, I started making money and I became part of this movement of 'bigger bodies' in inverted commas, just at the right time. So I set up a charity whilst I was over there called the All Woman Project. And that was about showcasing bodies of all different shapes and sizes and that led on to further opportunities. And I started writing books, reached onto to further opportunities. So I really think Americans are very big on people achieving their dreams. They don't get anything right but they are very big on people saying I've got a dream and they are very supportive of that.

Annoushka Ducas:
It's a very yes mentality.

Charli Howard:
Very yes mentality. The UK isn't like that. We actually like to see people fail to a degree, but Americans like, "Yeah man, you go girl."

Annoushka Ducas:
So that was a very conscious decision to kind of start a charity.

Charli Howard:
Yeah. What we did is because again, now you see girls of all different shapes, sizes in campaigns or whatever, back then you didn't, it was either you have a straight size model, which is like the thin runway kind of types that you see, size zero or there's a plus size. And everyone's got something. Women's bodies are not these photoshopped amazing things. I also think there are tons of plus size girls who are stunning, who aren't ever going to be thin and they also deserve to be shot in a really editorial cool way. We started working with brands like Nike and American Eagle and people like that and creating these unretouched campaigns. So

Annoushka Ducas:
That sounds like the perfect time to get onto your next charm. So charm find is boobs. So I was-

Charli Howard:
I love it though.

Annoushka Ducas:
So I was really excited about this one and I thought there are so many ways we could have done it, but I think my favorite way to do it is to do the absolute perfect miniature bra. Both the cups are diamond pave, so completely all in diamonds and the straps all move like I absolutely expect them to move. And the bra itself is in white gold. So the diamonds are look gorgeous.

Charli Howard:
I just love it. It's so cute.

Annoushka Ducas:
Barbie bra.

Charli Howard:
Barbie bra. I love it.

Annoushka Ducas:
Barbie bra.

Charli Howard:
I love it. It's so cute.

Annoushka Ducas:
But talk to me about the bra and kind of what that really represents for you.

Charli Howard:
So the bra, so when I had eating disorders, I was really obsessed with thinness, thinness, thinness, and I guess I wanted to fade away. I was very embarrassed about anything that made me womanly. I didn't want to have boobs. I take over my dad's side of the family and those women have got big boobs. I was very embarrassed about that and I just wanted to hide away. So I'd wear bras that really pinned my boob down and wear ... I just wouldn't look feminine. And then after discovering this body positive curvy movement in New York, I really started to fall in love with female bodies, I guess a bit like a bit obsessed with them. I love Helmut Newton. I love Vintage Playboys. I love all these different things where you women's bodies.
I'm a big believer in that women should feel free to show them off if they want to. I think that's an act of feminism. I know some people disagree, but I really think that it's amazing to own what you have and to be really excited about that. Yes and now I love wearing clothes that show my body off after spending years and years of trying to hide it away. And I'm obsessed with lingerie and I always find it very funny because I used to be mortified, like beyond mortified. I'd have sweat dripping down my head. I'm not even exaggerating where if an agency asked me to come in and do lingerie polaroids, I would physically dread it because I was like, "Oh my God, my body's not perfect." I didn't wear a bikini until I was 24, 25 on a beach.

Annoushka Ducas:
Wow.

Charli Howard:
Or swimwear. I hated my body so much.

Annoushka Ducas:
Which is just mad isn't it for a size 10?

Charli Howard:
Now of course you go to my Instagram naked all the time. So that's why I wanted a bra charm or a boob charm because I wanted something that shows that off.

Annoushka Ducas:
But I know you talk about body neutrality. So can just talk me through what you mean by that as opposed to body positivity?

Charli Howard:
Body positivity is something that I discovered on Instagram when I first moved to New York. And it's basically a movement set up by women who don't have that conventional modelesque body, I guess that society expects you to have. They all expect you to be very thin and toned and mothers to lose weight and everything. These girls are posting videos of their cellulite and of their stretch marks and their tummy rolls and really celebrating it. And I was like, oh my God what is this? I started doing that as well.
I got a ton of abuse really rom girls that were bigger than me because they'd say, "Well, what have you ever had to worry about? Your body is technically perfect." When I kind of thought, well, if you knew the struggles I'd had about it and the comments I've had from men or agencies or family members or whoever it is, you might understand how I feel, but whatever. So body neutrality is a bit different to body positivity because it says that rather than focusing on your body, which is what body positivity still does, still very much makes your body the main focus. It says that your body is a body, but actually you're more than that. So you can focus on the way you think.
Even though I obviously post pictures of my body a lot and my body is something I'm very proud of now. I like to view it as a machine really, and how strong and everything it is after abusing it for years, really. I like to try to focus on body neutrality now and seeing it more as just something that is part of me, but it's not who I am.

Annoushka Ducas:
So body neutrality is a kind of a way of really promoting confidence. Is that right? Charli Howard: Yeah.

Annoushka Ducas:
Would you say that?

Charli Howard:
Yes, I guess so. I mean, I guess both of them are, both of them are for women who are kind of tired of being told that they should be a certain way.

Annoushka Ducas:
So what were the kind of highs in your career? We're going to come on and talk about some of the more recent things, but from a modeling perspective, were there any kind of moments where it was like, so proud of in particular?

Charli Howard:
Yeah, I have so many, there was one where I did a shoot for American Eagle and it was in Times Square. That was really amazing. I think one of the best ones is when I used to work with Pat McGrath quite a lot, I still do, but I worked with Pat a lot at her studio in New York and for those who don't know, she's the biggest maker artist. And she gave me my first shoot in Vogue, British Vogue when Edward Enninful first started. And that was really amazing because I was like, "Oh my God, Vogue." But it is just incredible and he's transformed obviously the way Vogue is now. So that was probably my favorite one. I did the Agent Provocateur campaign as their first really curvy model and showcasing roles and stuff like that. So that was another one. There's just been so many, but it obviously took being myself in order to get those jobs.

Annoushka Ducas:
Yes.

Charli Howard:
I didn't get them when I was trying to be someone else.

Annoushka Ducas:
Such a life lesson.

Charli Howard:
Interesting. Massively.

Annoushka Ducas:
Such a life lesson there. I kind of wonder what you'd say to your younger self. Not the year old, but your younger self now, what would you say?

Charli Howard:
I guess, I guess one of the most important things and this isn't really to do with modeling, but I would say it's very, very, very important that especially as a woman, that you have your own money and that you don't rely on anyone, and that you have other skills to offer because the amount of people, especially models that I've seen who get dropped, never work again, who age, who put on weight, I've seen so many girls go from being the top models then having to get very average jobs because they haven't got skills. So it's very, very important.
It doesn't matter what you do that you have other skills on the side. I cannot stress that enough. My mom and dad used to say that to me, you need to go to university. I thought, whatever what do they know? But now it is one of my regrets not having done that properly.

Annoushka Ducas:
You did have a good at that. You went to London Fashion School.

Charli Howard:
I went to London College of Fashion.

Annoushka Ducas:
College of Fashion.

Charli Howard:
But I wasn't very good. University of the arts class.

Annoushka Ducas:
You say you weren't very good.

Charli Howard:
No. Well they were like, you probably don't come back. So I was like, oh great I love it.

Annoushka Ducas:
So that sounds like the perfect time to get onto your next charm, which is a book.

Charli Howard:
Books.

Annoushka Ducas:
It has to be a locket because a book has to open, doesn't it?

Charli Howard:
Yeah. I love that.

Annoushka Ducas:
Again is very much polished yellow, gold. You'll see I engraved splash on the front because I think that's your first book.

Charli Howard:
My first one.

Annoushka Ducas:
It's got a little row of diamonds all the way around the edge of the front cover. So you've written two books now.

Charli Howard:
Yes.

Annoushka Ducas:
Where did that come from?

Charli Howard:
So again being an author is again, is one of those pioneer sky ideas for most people. So the fact that I've had two books is amazing honestly. When I first moved to New York, again, like I was saying earlier, you don't always work as a model. There are weeks times where you don't have a single casting or you don't have a single job. So you've got to fill up your time elsewhere. So I started writing and I wrote this children's book and it was really a way of me passing the time honestly. So Splash is a book about body image and it's about a girl called Molly who is a lot bigger than a lot of her friends. And she has some personal issues at home as well, but she's a lot bigger than her friends.
But she loves swimming and she's at that really weird age where a lot of her friends say it's really embarrassing and uncool to be a swimmer. She should be more focused on boys and socializing and going to secondary school and things like that. So that's what that's about. And I was really proud of that. So that was with a smaller children's publisher, but that's been translated in Korean, Polish, Spanish, Italian, so loads of different languages. And it's really cool seeing it in the different place. It's really weird.

Annoushka Ducas:
What age group's that aimed at?

Charli Howard:
Probably about, I guess, seven to 11. So yes, there was that one. Then I approached by Penguin because they were looking for a book about eating disorders and there wasn't one. And of course most eating disorders develop when you're a teenager. So I started to sign coming up with an idea of a book about eating disorders and why they develop and a bit kind of autobiographical. And then it became a bit of my life story up until that point.

Annoushka Ducas:
That's called, what's that called?

Charli Howard:
What's that's called Misfit.

Annoushka Ducas:
So that's two books down, anymore in the pipeline?

Charli Howard:
I'd love to write more. It's just a case of trying to find the time.

Annoushka Ducas:
I was going to say, I mean, your last charm I suspect is why you haven't necessarily had time to write another book. So this is the Squish Cherry logo. That's just going to be the most divine charm. So we are going to make those cherries in red, agate, calved, perfect cherry shape.

Charli Howard:
Juicy.

Annoushka Ducas:
Juicy and really tactile and kind of gorgeous. It'll look really gorgeous.

Charli Howard:
I just love them all. I want them all

Annoushka Ducas:
So Squish. So tell us about Squish.

Charli Howard:
So Squish, I set up in no late 2019. So just before COVID and I'd always wanted to own have my own skincare line.

Annoushka Ducas:
Can we just, why?

Charli Howard:
Why?

Annoushka Ducas:
Yeah, why?

Charli Howard:
I've had problems with acne in the past and I've always been very self-conscious about my skin and I didn't want other girls to feel that way. And I felt like a lot of skincare lines were very, they all look very clinical. They all look very semi, semi. They're either in white packaging or baby pink packaging, and I wanted to do something a bit different. So I set up Squish with my business partner and we invested in ourselves. I designed all the products, everything you see, I've completely designed from scratch. We have these flower acne patches, which are really cute that you put on acne and it's really gross, but they pull out all the gunk from white heads. But it was an idea of you could take a selfie in them or you go to the shops with these patches on and you're not going to feel embarrassed. It's like so what?

Annoushka Ducas:
It covers the spot.

Charli Howard:

And we have these cherry mars, which is what the Squish logo has and the charm obviously has, which you put underneath your eye and they're made from hyaluronic acid and [Lader oil] and aloe vera and they de-puff your cheeks and your under eyes because I get very puffy cheeks, especially for eat bread.

Annoushka Ducas:
Was it slightly born by you couldn't find what you wanted or was it just-

Charli Howard:
Yeah, I just thought I can do that better. So I was in New York and I came across acne patches and I thought these are a bit like, they could be a lot prettier and I said, "Oh my God. Imagine if they were flowers, that'd be so cute. Imagine if they had a diamond in the middle. Oh my God it'd be so cute. People would take load the pictures."

Annoushka Ducas:
Have they got diamonds in the middle?

Charli Howard:
Yeah. Well, they've got like glass crystal, not plastic. They've got glass crystal diamond centers, which are cute. So when you move around, they're all spark clean stuff.

Annoushka Ducas:
Going back, so you got a business partner and was that someone you'd known for a long time or how did you-

Charli Howard:

It's actually my ex-boyfriend, Ben, but we're still very good friends and we set it up together whilst we were still together. Didn't work out romantically, but we love doing the business together and Squish is our child really.

Annoushka Ducas:
Are there more and more kind of product ideas you've got or do you want to keep it very tight?

Charli Howard:
There are, we focused last year, very heavily on brand collaborations. We've done a collaboration with a CBD tampon company because obviously you get period pain. So you get the [hudei] they're amazing. And you can buy this box where you get the acne patches and the cherries and these CBD tampons to help with period pains.

Annoushka Ducas:
That's incredibly clever because I'm just thinking, is that anybody else who's really dealing with all these kind of issues that women of all ages have to kind of deal with?

Charli Howard:
I mean, I guess not really.

Annoushka Ducas:
Exciting. So no wonder you haven't written another book.

Charli Howard:
I know, but I will do, I will get around to it eventually. I've got ideas for them. It's just about getting them done. And sometimes your brain is just all over the place that you can't really.

Annoushka Ducas:
So actually, so you are juggling a lot. What do you think it is that kind of drives you? What's the thing that's kind of keeps you.

Charli Howard:
I mean, I love to work. I love, love, love to work. I get so much enjoyment out of it. I know most people don't, but I genuinely do. I'm one of these people where if I'm interested in something, I just want to give it a go. I don't think you need millions of dollars to make these things happen. I also don't think you need to be super intelligent to make these things happen because I'm not. I do appreciate that the way I look probably really helps me in some regards, but I'm also an incredibly hard worker. And if anything, I know that's one thing that I've got going for me. I've still got loads of other ideas that I want to do. I'd love to get into acting and try that perhaps. There's so many things I want to do, but like I said, life is very short. You're only here once.

Annoushka Ducas:
With quite a lot in so far. Exactly.

Charli Howard:
I still got more to do. I also have this really big fear of like running out of time.

Annoushka Ducas:
Oh no, I so understand that. I have this kind of mantra that you might not be here tomorrow, so we-

Charli Howard:
Got to do what you got to do.

Annoushka Ducas:
So many congratulations on everything you've achieved.

Charli Howard:
Thank you.

Annoushka Ducas:
It is absolutely fantastic. And I think, well, you and I have talked about The Brilliant Breakfast.

Charli Howard:
Yes. Which I love.

Annoushka Ducas:
So The Brilliant Breakfast is all about giving women confidence and all about what the Princess Trust do to help young women and kind of raise them up. And that's October the 10th this year, the whole week of that.

Charli Howard:
Super important.

Annoushka Ducas:
But Charli, so these seven charms. So when someone in 50 years or 100 years time finds this picture of all the charms that represent your life. What do you want them to think about you? What's the kind of legacy that you'd like to be remembered for?

Charli Howard:
I guess someone who made their dreams come true.

Annoushka Ducas:
That's such a lovely thing.

Charli Howard:
Well, I think that's important. I think it's important to have dreams and not to settle for anything.

Annoushka Ducas:
Absolutely. I'm going to make you one of these charms. So you got choose.

Charli Howard:
I know but I don't know which one, this is going to be the hardest thing. I genuinely don't. I feel like you're going to have to choose for me. I think it's either between the book or the cherry.

Annoushka Ducas:
You got to choose.

Charli Howard:
Oh God. We'll do the cherry then but before I came here today, I thought, and if she could sign a cherry, then that's what I'm going to go for. But now I've seen all of them and now I'm like, oh God because they're all so perfect. I mean, I love everything.

Annoushka Ducas:
Well, I'm so glad. Well, anyway, let's start with the cherry.

Charli Howard:
We'll start with ... Wink wink. We'll go from there.

Annoushka Ducas:
Thank you so much. It's been such a blessing.

Charli Howard:
Thank you so much for having me.

Annoushka Ducas:
Thank you so much for listening to My Life in Seven Charms with me Annoushka Ducas. If you would like to see all of the charms and illustrations that I've made for my guests, please go to my website annoushka.com. If you have enjoyed this podcast, I would be so grateful if you could rate and review and subscribe and also share with your friends, it would be such a help. Thank you so much to my producer, Robin at Fairly Media. See you soon.