ANYA HINDMARCH Reveals She apos;s Plagued By Self-doubt

What's it to be? A glossy red ‘chubby heart' cake filled with the lightest of chocolate mousse? A slice of celadon-green and primrose-yellow Battenberg?
A ‘cartwheel', her luxurious take on good old Wagon Wheels? What about a plate of those little biscuits exquisitely iced with edible first-class stamps?
I am with Anya Hindmarch, 52, handbag designer to the stars, at her newly opened Anya's Cafe, trying to choose. It seems a shame to actually eat one. Just as so many of her bags look good enough to eat so, it seems, her cakes look good enough to wear.
I plump for a vegan coconut and banana loaf — delicious and not as worthy as it sounds.

It's gone in 60 seconds flat — with a little help from Anya.
Anya Hindmarch, 52, (pictured) revealed the inspiration behind her new cluster of shops in Central London
Wait, though. What is the message here? Since when has anyone in fashion declared Cake Is The New Black? It feels a bit of an oxymoron. Surely cake is precisely what we don't need if we care about the way we look in our clothes?
Anya, though, always ahead of the curve — remember her I Am Not A Plastic Bag campaign back in 2007 — thinks otherwise.

She wants us to stop feeling guilty about indulging ourselves and find the joy in the simpler pleasures of life.
This includes sitting down with each other at an old-fashioned melamine-topped table and sharing a slice of homemade cake, ‘because really, what's more pleasurable after lockdown, Calligraphic paintings to celebrate Opening what to give than that?'
To have her own cake shop has in fact been a long-term dream of Anya's. A self-confessed sugar fiend, she's already entertained the idea of Opening gift paintings up an old-fashioned sweet shop too, lined with jars of personal favourites such as Maynards wine gums and strawberry liquorice ‘laces'.
RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share ‘Heaven, right?' she giggles, ‘although perhaps that could be a bit over the top.'
This all fits into Anya's latest project The Village, a five-strong cluster of shops bang in the centre of London — designed to bring back the idea of community to shopping.

The aim is for it not only to be a retail hub but a place where people can interact, as they did before the pandemic and all the subsequent ordering off Amazon.
Along with the cafe (which is also a restaurant — you can get wine, salad and Welsh rarebit, too), there is a shop selling her 100 per cent recycled products.