This Works

Kathy Phillips' Biography

April 2004 saw the launch of her own brand – this works. It is a range of serious aromatherapy products designed to deliver what it promises on the bottle as well as to look fresh and modern. The brand has a flagship store in London’s Chelsea and in 2006 was rolled out into outlets internationally starting with all branches of Harvey Nichols and Fenwick and branches of Barneys and the Bliss catalogue in the US.

Despite the designing, creating and on-going marketing of the range, she is still happily associated with British Vogue and writing for them as a Contributing Editor. Her long relationship with Condé Nast began when she was Beauty Director of Tatler and where she also wrote and styled celebrity interviews. Kathy is one of very few journalists who are also involved in the visual side of things, not surprising since she spent four years studying Fashion and History of Art at St Martins School of Art before the start of her career. She has styled fashion, beauty editorial and advertising shoots over many years and worked with the very best photographers including Raymond Meier, Carter Smith, Enrique Badelescu, Steven Meisel and Richard Burbridge to name a few.

Kathy has also worked for many British magazines and newspapers over her career, first as Fashion Editor with her own weekly page for The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday and then for YOU magazine as commissioning editor for the Style pages. Since becoming freelance she has also written for; The Financial Times, The Times, The Sunday Times, the Saturday Telegraph Magazine, The Sunday Telegraph, The “Beauty Guru” column in the Evening Standard and currently the “Beauty Queen” column in the Observer Woman magazine. She has won several Jasmine Awards, the fragrance industry’s top prize for Journalism and a CEW Lifetime Achiever Award, recognition from the Cosmetics Industry.

In 1977 she wrote The Vogue Book of Blondes and then edited and co-wrote Vogue Beauty as well as two best-selling books on Yoga. The most recent of these, The Spirit of Yoga has been translated into several languages and was re-issued as a paperback. A new, smaller paperback format was re-printed for August 2005. She has frequently appeared on TV and radio both here and in the US.

Kathy is interested in the serious side of Beauty, Complementary Medicine, Health and Fitness and is often found quizzing doctors, dermatologists, laser specialists, nutritionists and cosmetic surgeons as well as being invited to watch operations and new procedures being performed.

She has been practising Yoga for over twenty-five years and is a qualified teacher.