Young designer Otis is reaching for the stars

THERE may be a recession going on but one Swiss Cottage entrepreneur has shown it is possible to buck the trend and succeed in business even when times are tough.
Otis Batterbee, a 28 year old designer and businessman, specialises in luxury travel accessories which have been snapped up by fashion-conscious celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Mariah Carey.
The key to his success he says has been to source all his materials locally to support UK textile mills and manufacturers.
“It is very easy and cheap to use fabrics made in China, but I have always insisted on all my fabric being milled in the UK, and all my products manufactured in the UK,” he explains. “In my small way I am trying to support UK businesses, because if you don’t look after them it has a knock on effect in the form of job losses.”
A graduate of the famous St Martin’s College of Art and Design, the Hampstead born designer realised his dream of running his own business when he began trading last year – just in time for one of Belsize Park’s most famous residents, Gwyneth Paltrow, to order a pinstripe travel eye mask (pictured) as a Christmas gift for husband Chris Martin.
The business has flourished, selling accessories including luxury stripe and check handkerchiefs and grapefruit scented travel sprays online and through high end department stores like Mayfair-based Fortnum and Mason. The British Musuem will follow suit in September, selling a ‘quintessentially British’ collection including corduroy eye masks and Oxford tweed washbags in ‘public school’ colours.
Although the accessories are targeted at men they maintain a crossover unisex appeal, which could be why they caught the eye of another female transatlantic star.
“I know that one of my hot pink eye masks went into a gift basket from a television company for Mariah Carey,” laughs Mr Batterbee. “I like to think of her wearing it on a Lear Jet on her way to somewhere exotic!”
Men’s clothing is the next step with the launch of a knitwear collection of hats and scarves in time for Christmas, while plans are afoot to start selling to European stockists. However, as successful as he has been the entrepreneur says he will avoid moving too fast in the future.
“You could get into trouble if you expand too quickly, especially in this economic climate,” he explains. “Right now it is easier to stay in the UK and keep a close eye on my retailers, which is important because you have got to make people want to do business with you. I am grateful for every order!”
Otis Batterbee products can be purchased online at www.otisbatterbee.com

Hampstead Theatre looks to local community for inspiration

COMMUNITY, modern technology and the loss of interaction are the themes at the heart of a special new play coming to Hampstead Theatre.
‘Us’, a new comedy by award-winning writer Jane Bodie, has been written with the community in mind and poses the following question: if advances in technology are making it easier than ever to stay in touch through Blackberries, e-mail and mobile phones, then why does it seem that we are communicating less with each other?
“We’ve all adapted to using technology but it seems like we’ve forgotten how to connect on a basic human level,” explains Ms Bodie. “The play looks at how people would cope if they were stripped of this technology.”
The play marks the 50th anniversary of the theatre, which wanted to pay tribute to the local community that has been instrumental to its success as well as being the target of its outreach, education and youth theatre programmes.
“We throw our doors open to the local community and produce theatre for the community, which is what makes our plays successful,” says Eric Dupin, Creative Learning Director at the Theatre, who directs the play.
“We have a big team of people working on several projects with schools, workshops and regional theatres. This theatre belongs to the community.”
Hampstead Theatre commissioned Ms Bodie to create a production that would weave together stories of the people of the local community, so she consulted several local groups, including elders (60+), schools, the Hampstead youth theatre, Heat + Light, local Somalis, ESOL students, and even a female Rabbi.
“When I was approached by the theatre and told that it was a community project, my first thought was ‘Oh’,” she says, indicating slight apprehension.
“But then I looked up all the meanings to ‘community’, and found one which defined it as ‘a common space with interaction between people’ which got me thinking.
“Every group I spoke to, whether they were elders, kids, the Somalis or the ESOL students, talked about technology and how they communicated with the world through things like the internet but talked also of a growing sense of isolation.
“For example, I was struck by a much older woman who said that she felt safe but isolated, and remembered that a younger person I had spoken to earlier said almost the exact same thing. It was illuminating.”
With a cast of professional actors and non-professionals selected through open auditions, the play sought to include characters from a variety of backgrounds, ages and races, with cast members ranging from 13 to 65 years old.
And at almost two hours running time it is a giant of a production, covering the substantial subject matter of how groups of society can reconnect with each other by putting technology aside and finding common ground, whilst seeking to render the various community groups faithfully.
“It’s one of the hardest plays I’ve ever written, a massive job,” admits Ms Bodie. “It needs to be both truthful and celebratory, and represent people respectfully and authentically, without poking fun at anyone.”
However a difficult a job that sounds, most of the cast and crew thinks she has pulled it off. Cast member Mike Roberts said: “When my agents rang up and told me it was a community project I was worried it might be a bit worthy, but it is a wonderful, rich and poetic script which is a joy to work with.
“What’s great about the play is that it celebrates everyone’s differences but shows they can still come together. It shows that being in different communities shouldn’t breathe exclusivity and that when people are thrown together, they realise not their differences but what they have in common.”
Jane Bodie is hopeful that the production will entertain audiences of all ages and backgrounds whilst giving them food for thought.
“When I go home after rehearsals I feel enlightened and hopeful. I think everyone can take different bits from the play as there are lots of positive things in it.
“In good plays, writers ask questions and I wanted to ask why we are losing interaction with each other. If there are any answers to that question, it is that we should try to regain true interaction with each other.
“The play doesn’t suggest that if we do that everyone will live happily ever after, but what’s the harm in trying?”
The play runs at Hampstead Theatre between July 28 – 31.

Manumission: The party’s over…

MANUMISSION, the most notorious and provocative club night in Ibiza, closed its doors to clubbers this summer after 15 years.
Secrecy surrounds why the club night, named after the Latin word for the act of freeing a slave, has been put on hold this year. Its Mancunian founding duo, brothers Andy and Mike McKay, announced cryptically that they had decided to take a year off to “tend to their chickens”.
I first experienced Manumission three years ago on a girls’ clubbing holiday to Ibiza. Having visited the party island a few times prior to this trip I smugly assumed that by then I was au fait with its glamorous extravagances.
But nothing could have prepared me for the spectacular show that was Manumission. Hosted by Privilege, a veritable monster of a club boasting a capacity of 10,000 people, it was an dazzling feast for the senses.
Semi-clothed erotic dancers gyrated on stage while the DJ, who just happened to be on a platform suspended over the club’s swimming pool, spun the latest hits of Mylo and Orbital. Lithe acrobats gracefully swung from trapezes in the shape of crescent moons, lit up by the giant glittering “M” sign dominating the stage.
Then came the firebreathers, cabaret performers and dominatrix dancers, making the night feel more like an lavish circus crossed with a sex show, the likes of which you might expect to see in a backstreet den in Soho or Amsterdam.
My fellow clubber Helen and I had come to Manumission determined to dance the night away in a frenzy, but in less than half an hour we had come to a standstill while marveling at the spectacle in front of us, unashamedly craning our necks to see better when two of the female dancers on stage appeared to be getting physically intimate with each other.
I came away awed by the risque and sensational show, amazed that the huge arena had maintained such a high-energy vibe throughout the night. It is sad to imagine the White Isle without the biggest and most outlandish club night it has ever seen; clubbers will of course still flock there en masse each summer but for me, it won’t be the same without Manumission.

For Vanessa, radio is where her heart is

Relaxing in the plush settings of the BBC Radio building in Marylebone, VANESSA Feltz suddenly gets serious, leans forward in her chair and tells me: “I sometimes find myself lying awake at night thinking about the stories of my listeners.”
It is exactly what you would expect from Feltz, whose eponymous weekday radio talk show galvanizes Londoners to ring in on the hot topics of the day, often sharing deeply personal experiences.
“I hope that if I care about an issue, if it’s worrying or bugging or exciting me, that my listeners will care about it as well,” she says.
“It’s all about the way you present it, using real sincerity and not being fake. It’s reassuring for the listeners to know that you mean what you say, even if they might not agree with you.”
Feltz puts a lot of passion into her work and gets it back in spades from her listeners, who she claims are passionate about world issues, London issues, local issues, sexual, emotional issues…
“Anything at all! My listeners are passionate full stop. They can be exceedingly passionate about something like knife crime, or passionate about the new directive of parents not sleeping in beds with their babies, or incredibly passionate about things like the inauguration of Barack Obama, which had Londoners crying!
“The great connecting tissue is their passion, which is not confined to one particular thing.”
The 47-year old is a chatty, engaging and eloquent interviewee, exactly as she comes across on her radio show, where she often teases out personal stories from her audience.
“As the years go by, I’m more and more affected by their stories.
“Some listeners will ring in and tell you something they’ve never told anyone else before. It really connects you to the human condition.
“We have half a million listeners but it’s still a very intimate show – and incredibly real.”
Perhaps part of the reason why her listeners are so willing to open up to her is due to the well-documented problems in her own personal life.
She famously lost five stone following a painful marriage break-up when Michael Kurer, the father of her two daughters cheated on her.
She ended up in a relationship with Dennis Duhaney, the personal trainer who had helped her slim down.
But things went pear-shaped when her Trisha-style BBC show was axed amid accusations that the guests were actors from an agency.
She continued to garner the wrong sort of headlines for her minor meltdown on Celebrity Big Brother in 2001 where she scrawled on the house table in chalk and screamed obscenities at producers.
With characteristic indomitability, she has bounced back, forging a successful career in radio as well as making appearances on other reality TV shows, including Celebrity Wife Swap.
Her genuine engagement with her listeners has now been recognised with a Sony Radio Academy Award.
“I’m delighted and thrilled to pieces!” she exclaims. “It’s great to receive some kind of national recognition for what is essentially a local show.
“Awards matter to everyone, from the listener who thinks they’ve picked the right show to listen to, to the [production] team who work really hard on a shoestring from the early hours of dawn every morning. Three hours of live radio is quite taxing for any team to put together.”
Feltz’s broadcasting career has spanned nearly three decades, including stints on The Big Breakfast, The Wright Stuff, Celebrity Fit Club, and her own television talk shows on ITV and the BBC.
Now engaged to musician Ben Ofoedu, former lead singer of Phats and Small, who she describes as “the loveliest, friendliest guy”, and with a weekly column in the Daily Express, Feltz seems much happier in the slightly less conspicuous world of radio.
“Radio is more fun, immediate, and more genuine,” she explains. “I can respond to my listeners and let them take the show in a different direction, whereas television is all prescribed in advance. It is the most immediate, reactive broadcasting you can do. I love it passionately.”
Feltz is also currently in the application selection process for One and Other, a project in which sculptor Antony Gormley is looking for members of the public to occupy the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square this summer for an hour each, 24 hours a day for 100 consecutive days.
“It’s a wonderful project. What is more representative of art than the human form?”
She says she has not yet decided what she will do if she gets a turn on the plinth. “Maybe I will broadcast,” she wonders out loud. “I heard some people are getting naked but I don’t think I will join them.”

Feltz, a Cambridge graduate with a first-class degree in English, has lived in North London her entire life, describing it as “the only place on Earth.”
Born in Islington, she grew up in Totteridge and lived in a large family home in Hampstead Garden Suburb before moving to St John’s Wood after her divorce.
“St John’s Wood is totally different to Hampstead Garden Suburb – there is city life, it is exciting and fun.
“I can be more anonymous there. Whereas Hampstead Garden Suburb is quieter, more of a place for a nuclear family.
I would love to live in Hampstead one day. I am getting closer and closer!”