ABOUT vanessa
Vanessa Barneby graduated from Edinburgh University in 1999 and went on to study decorative painting, trompe l’oeil and restoration at Hampstead Decorative Arts in London. Her passion for furniture, textiles and print led to a position as an interiors stylist at House & Garden for five years. She was Living Editor for British Vogue between 2004 and 2009, where predicting and writing about upcoming trends in design, styling shoots, and examining the correlation between fashion and interiors were all part of her job.
A fellow Edinburgh graduate, Alice Gates went on to study figurative painting overseas before achieving a Masters in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her vivid, often narrative paintings, rooted in fashion illustration, have been exhibited worldwide and featured in numerous publications including Vogue, Tatler and The Saturday Times Magazine. She has also collaborated with fashion label, Libelula designing prints for their ready-to-wear collections.
Pooling their experience, childhood friends Vanessa and Alice set up Barneby Gates in 2009, first from a small studio in West London, and now based in Wiltshire’s beautiful Vale of Pewsey. Their range of idiosyncratically English designs give classical ideas a contemporary edge using subtle metallic finishes and often a wry touch of humour.
An Interview with vanessa
What is your earliest beauty memory?
I’ve always had quite oily skin and started getting spots before all my friends (aged 10 or 11) and this eventually turned into teenage acne. My mum had the same skin as a young girl and could see what was coming, so she taught me the importance of the ‘cleanse, tone, moisturize’ routine very early on. In those days, it was a baby lotion for the cleanser and moisturizer because Mum thought that was the gentlest for my young skin – if only she’d known how full of toxins and parabens it was!
What is your beauty routine?
Cleansing my face before bed has been an engrained part of my bedtime routine for 30 years, well before I was wearing make up. Even if I’m camping at a festival and rolling into the tent at 3am, I will still clean my face! I use a cleansing milk, which I clean off using an organic muslin cloth. The cloth works as a super-gentle daily exfoliant which is brilliant for skin prone to blocked pores like mine and helps keep blackheads at bay. A good serum with hydraulic acid, followed by a small amount of night cream. I also try and do a rehydrating / decongesting facemask once a week.
What do you love most about Wild Beauty and why?
Being able to trace the provenance of the products right back to the soil in which each and every ingredient grew. Each element has a sourcing story, from soil to seed to beautiful bottle, and I love that.
What does organic beauty mean to you?
Having had acne as a teenager, I’ve put so many toxic products on my skin I can’t really bear to think about it. We all know the saying ‘you are what you eat’, but our skin absorbs whatever we put on it too, so it’s important for me to follow the same philosophy for skincare as I do my diet. Organic means working with nature, not against it – there’s simply no place for pesticides or unnecessary synthetics. We analyse the ingredients in the foods we eat, and we should do the same for the products we put on our skin.
How important is a healthy lifestyle to you and what do you do to achieve this?
I’m hugely grateful to my parents for bringing me up in such a healthy household which meant living a healthy lifestyle was just the norm. Regular exercise, plenty of vegetables and a low sugar diet were part of our everyday, and that’s what I’m trying to do for my children too.
How do you find balance in your life?
I try not to sweat the small stuff, but it’s not always that easy! I juggle a few balls with a full-time job running Barneby Gates while also trying to be as present as I can for my children (Lily, 12 and Gabriel, 10). I find walking my dog up the hill behind our house in Hampshire very meditative and really helps me level out if I’m having a stressful day.
What is your wild beauty escape?
Tresco Island in the Scilly Isles and, specifically time spent in Tresco Abbey Gardens. The air is so clean there – as testified by the beautiful lichen you find growing on everything from graves to benches. When the sun shines on Tresco I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.
What 3 things would you take with you on that escape?
My husband, Tim and my two children, Lily and Gabriel.