It’s been a year since many of us scrambled to pull together workable work-from-home (WFH) spaces, so it’s a good time to evaluate what’s working and what isn’t. The novelty of temporary fixes like dining-room desks or taking over your bedroom dressing table has no doubt well and truly worn off by now.
“For those with a spare room, it was the jackpot,” says interior designer Aoife Power (
aoifepowerdesign.com). “But in a typical three-bedroom house with a couple who are both working and two or three children? It was a real struggle to carve out somewhere to work that didn’t impinge on the rest of the family and on home life.”
One of the very early pieces of business advice Karen Yates and her then 23-year-old daughter, Ellen, were given in 2014 when they launched their Northern Ireland-based accessories brand, Taylor Yates was: “Just make sure it doesn’t look like some sort of mother/daughter hobby.”
With more than 20 years of experience on the design and marketing side of fashion retail herself, coupled with Ellen’s degree in fashion business management, 55-year-old Yates was surprised and frustrated to be patronised in such a manner. It’s not as if the duo were crocheting tea cosies handbags are a billion-euro business and the pair’s combined skill set meant they were well placed to take a piece of this luxury pie for themselves.
International Women s Day 2021: Liadán Hynes gets advice from public figures on what it takes to be a woman in 2021 independent.ie - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from independent.ie Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
On International Women s Day, Liadán Hynes talks to 12 inspiring personalities about what they have learned along the way that has helped them become the women they are today
On the following pages you can read an essay about that very specific horror of an alcoholic mother. Me. I am that alcoholic mother. It comes from a book that is a snapshot of a few years of my life. Corsping: My Body And Other Horror Shows is a collection of essays that covers the full gamut: birth, death, addiction, mental illness and motherhood.