Catherine Isabel Audrey Kidston (born 6 November 1958) is an English fashion designer, businesswoman and author whose company,

Cath Kidston Limited Cath Kidston Limited is a British international home furnishing retail company with headquarters in London, with a focus on handicraft and vintage themed items that embody a quintessentially British lifestyle. Designer Cath Kidston opened her f ...

sells

home furnishing Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...

s and related goods online, through franchises and by mail order. She is particularly known for her nostalgic floral patterns and has also published a number of books.

Family background and early life

Kidston's paternal grandparents were Glen Kidston, a successful racing driver for

Bentley Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded as Bentley Motors Limited by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, North ...

in the 1920s, and Nancy Soames. Nancy is also

Samantha Cameron Samantha Gwendoline Cameron (; born 18 April 1971) is an English businesswoman. Until 13 May 2010, she was the creative director of Smythson of Bond Street. Her husband, David Cameron, was the British prime minister from 2010 to 2016. She took ...

's paternal grandmother, making them half first cousins. Television presenters

Kirstie Allsopp Kirstie Mary Allsopp (born 31 August 1971) is a British television presenter, best known as co-presenter of Channel 4 property shows including ''Location, Location, Location'', '' Love It or List It UK'', ''Relocation, Relocation'' and ''Locati ...

and Sofie Allsopp are her maternal second cousins, daughters of

Charles Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip Charles Henry Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip (born 5 August 1940), is a British peer and businessman, a member of the House of Lords from 1993 until 1999. His main career was in Christie's, the fine arts auction house, in which he was General Manager ...

, the former chairman of

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

Career

Kidston opened her first shop in London's

Holland Park Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road ...

in 1993, selling hand-embroidered tea-towels and brightly renovated furniture. By the end of 2013, she had 136 outlets, including a flagship store on

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...

next to

Fortnum & Mason Fortnum & Mason (colloquially often shortened to just Fortnum's) is an upmarket department store in Piccadilly, London, with additional stores at The Royal Exchange, St Pancras railway station, Heathrow Airport in London and K11 Musea In Hong ...

and four stores in China. Appearing on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's ''

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usu ...

'' programme, Kidston described her shops as provoking a '

Marmite reaction Marmite ( ) is a British savoury Spread (food), food spread based on yeast extract, invented by the German scientist Justus von Liebig. It is made from by-products of Brewing, beer brewing (Lees (fermentation), lees) and is produced by the Br ...

': "People either love it and want a little bit of it very much, or want to stab us." In 2010, she sold a majority stake of the company to private equity investors

TA Associates TA Associates, founded in 1968, is one of the early modern-era private equity firms in the United States. The firm leads buyouts and minority recapitalizations of profitable growth companies. TA invests across five industry groups: technology, hea ...

, retaining a minority stake and remaining the company's Creative Director. Prince George wore one of her outfits, which quickly sold out.

Collaborations

Kidston has worked with Milletts to design

tent A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using gu ...

s (2005–6),

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

Carphone Warehouse The Carphone Warehouse Limited was a mobile phone retailer based in London, United Kingdom. In August 2014 the company became a subsidiary of Currys plc (previously named "Dixons Carphone"), which was formed by the merger of its former parent Ca ...

mobile phones (2006), and Roberts radios (2005 onwards). In 2008, she collaborated with

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

to produce shopping bags made from

plastic bottle A plastic bottle is a bottle constructed from high-density or low density plastic. Plastic bottles are typically used to store liquids such as water, soft drinks, motor oil, cooking oil, medicine, shampoo, milk, and ink. The size ranges from v ...

s, which were sold to raise almost £500,000 for

Marie Curie Cancer Care Marie Curie is a registered charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which provides care and support to people living with a terminal illness and those close to them, and campaigns for better support for dying people. It was established in 19 ...

and saved about six million plastic bottles from landfill.

Personal life

Kidston's partner is

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

Hugh Padgham Hugh Charles Padgham (born 15 February 1955) is an English record producer and audio engineer. He has won four Grammy Awards, for Producer of the Year and Album of the Year for 1985, Record of the Year for 1990, and Engineer of the Year for 1 ...

. Kidston has two pets, a

Sealyham terrier The Sealyham Terrier ( cy, Daeargi Sealyham) is a rare Welsh breed of small to medium-sized terrier that originated in Wales as a working dog. It is principally a white-bodied, rough-coated breed, developed in the mid-to-late-19th century by ...

named Billie and a

Lakeland terrier The Lakeland Terrier is a dog breed, which takes its name from its place of origin, the Lake District in England. The dog is a small to mid-size member of the Terrier family. While independent in personality, it interacts well with owners and ...

named Stanley, who feature in her designs.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kidston, Cath Living people English interior designers People from Marylebone People from Test Valley 1958 births English fashion designers British women fashion designers Members of the Order of the British Empire People with dyslexia Cath