Kathy Phillips' Biography

Kathy Phillips spent seven years at Vogue as Health and Beauty Director. She left this prestigious post a few years ago to pursue various new projects both in journalism and in the commercial arena. She is now the International Beauty Director for Condé Nast Asia working with all their titles (Vogue, “W” Self, Vogue Girl and Allure) in Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan supervising Beauty shoots and 50-page Beauty sections.

April 2004 saw the launch of This Works where she has the hands-on role of Founder and Creative Director. It is a range of high quality natural products designed to deliver what it promises on the bottle as well as to look fresh and modern. The brand 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 in autumn 2006. Since then, a second, diffusion range Good Works has been launched at Boots with a contribution from sales going directly to the charity Kid’s Co.

Today she still enjoys her long relationship with Condé Nast which began in 1992 when she was first Associate Editor and then Beauty Director of Tatler. She 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 Badulescu, Willy Vanderperre, Nathanial Goldberg, Dan Jackson, Regan Cameron, Miles Aldridge, Solve Sündsbo, Ben Hassett and Richard Burbridge, to name a few.

She has worked for many British magazines and newspapers throughout her career. At 23, she became a Fashion Editor with her own weekly page for The Daily Mail. She was Fashion Editor for the launch of the Mail on Sunday and worked on YOU magazine as commissioning editor for the Style pages. Since becoming freelance she has also written for The Financial Times, The Times, and The Sunday Times, the Saturday Telegraph Magazine and Sunday Telegraph.

She wrote the “Beauty Guru” column in the Evening Standard and 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 C.E.W 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 (2000) 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.