Trinny Woodall has revealed she used her ‘habit of nakedness’ to help promote her early career on the London Underground and even used a cheeky bare-chested snap as her business card.   

The 60-year-old businesswoman told Jamie Laing on his Great Company podcast that she used a topless photo with melons on her breasts to boost sales of her 2000 book, *Ready 2 Dress*.

She skyrocketed to fame with Susannah Constantine after their Ready to Wear column which dished out fashion advice. 

Their global star status soared in 2001 when they starred on BBC’s hit show What Not to Wear.   

But before Trinny’s fame, she used some unique tactics to boost her success.

She told Jamie: ‘We’d done a book before we did telly and the book was based on this image we used on the tube for advertising Ready 2 and it was about everyone is different.

‘So Susannah was there naked – we have a habit of nakedness – but naked from the waist up with melons on her breasts and there was a picture of me looking a bit scrawny with fried eggs on my breasts and it was everywhere.’

The brainwave to bare all came from their ad agency, Trinny revealed. And the ‘naked’ pic wasn’t just for posters as it even became her business card.

She continued: ‘We even had cards. That was my business card, the melon and the fried eggs. So we had this whole campaign and it was fantastic.’

The image eventually became the cover of Trinny and Susannah’s book. 

According to Trinny, the book only sold 13,000 copies, which prevented them from securing the advance they needed for a sequel on their publication. 

Determined to publish their sequel, they negotiated a deal to receive a higher percentage of sales instead of the advance payment.

The sequel, What Not to Wear, sold over a million copies thanks to help from their very successful TV show. 

Elsewhere on the podcast she also opened up about the death of her late husband Johnny Elichaoff and admitted his tragic passing ‘made her stronger’ for their daughter Lyla. 

Businessman Johnny, who was married to Trinny, from 1999 until 2009, committed suicide in 2014. 

However, Trinny admitted that the tragedy fired her up to succeed with her beauty firm. 

She said: ‘Death is terrible and final,’

‘But suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It’s like that tsunami that comes and it kind of pulls the guts out of you. But, also, I have got inner strength. I needed to be the one who would look after everyone.’

When you are faced with the worst thing you think could happen. There was this feeling I had, of ‘Nothing worse can happen now’. So I should take the greatest risk.’

As well as Lyla, Trinny is also stepmum to Johnny’s son Zak, and admitted that she ’emotionally, I couldn’t have lost more than to lose my daughter’s father, for her’. 

She also confessed that the tragedy made her stronger while admitting ‘I didn’t grieve for many, many years’ due to dealing with the ‘fallout’ and confessed ‘I was a bit angry’ but shortly after missed him. 

This November will be 10 years on from the tragedy – and Lyla, 20, will join her family to celebrate and remember her father. 

At the time of Johnny’s death, the star was launching her beauty company named Trinny London and was living in an expensive home. 

She decided to sell the house and invest the money in her start-up and four years later she turned it into a £180million beauty empire. 

She told Jamie: ‘It was a time when maybe I should knuckle down and make things as safe as possible for Lyla.’

‘But I also knew that this was this crossroads in my life.’

The interview comes after Trinny split from her partner Charles Saatchi, 81, last year after a decade together. 

And friends suggested the reason behind the split was the couple’s 20-year age gap which caused issues in their relationship. 

Speaking to The Sun, friends of Trinny said she felt it was ‘time to move on’ and ‘their age difference started to become an issue.  

‘Charles wants to slow down,’ the source revealed. ‘He prefers quiet evenings at home while Trinny feels the opposite.

‘She feels she’s in her prime and wants to be out and about.’

Trinny had been dating Saatch for 10 years – after he split from his wife Nigella Lawson – however, the makeup and beauty mogul said on her Instagram at the time that she was moving forward.

She posted: ‘It’s a new day, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new life.’ She added: ‘I have been moving but now I have moved.’ 

The beauty who was on a skiing holiday with her family in France at the time emotionally said: ‘I have looked out at this view for the last 30 years of my life. It’s the one consistent view I have ever had.’

‘Recently with the big life change and moving house, it was important for me to come back here with (daughter) Lyla and family just to have that moment, listen to the birds, be at one with nature. Very healing.’

Saatchi, an ad-man turned art collector, is said to be worth around £100 million. Trinny’s worth isn’t known but her beauty and skincare brand is said to be worth £180million and rising. He declined to comment.

In an interview in 2021, Trinny said that she had ‘grown up a lot’ in the relationship saying: ‘I don’t let myself get away with stuff, so if I have a kind of outrage he’ll go: ‘Really, are you kidding?’ And then I’ll go upstairs and think: ‘OK, let me grow up now.’

‘I think that’s what happens when you are with somebody who has been through a lot in their life, and there is nobody who is more supportive of my business and jobs in terms of being my champion.’

The couple started dating in 2013 after Saatchi’s first wife, Kay Hartenstein, reportedly drew up a short list of women who he might like to date. 

He had been single since splitting from food writer Nigella Lawson, soon after photographs were published which showed Saatchi holding her by the throat during a lunch at Scott’s in Mayfair.

He explained at the time that it was a ‘playful tiff’ and accepted a police caution.

He later said that he was just helping Nigella to ‘focus’ but she explained that she had seen a cute baby go past in a pushchair and said that she was looking forward to becoming a grandmother, which sparked an argument. 

Great Company with Jamie Laing is available on all podcast providers. 

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Source: Los Angeles Times1