IN HER SHOES
Six months after marrying one of the country’s most eligible bachelors, Claire Stokes opens up about her fairytale wedding, her shoe empire and why she had to take up skiing. By Jane Albert. Styled by Philippa Moroney. Photographed by Jake Terrey.
Meeting Claire Stokes for the first time is surprisingly like catching up with an old friend. Despite the privacy she and new husband Ryan Stokes closely guard, Claire is so chatty in our email exchanges before we meet that by the time we sit down together I’m already familiar with the fact she’s a proud Queenslander; that she shares an unbreakable bond with her mother, Maryon Campbell; that family is of utmost importance; and that she’s, in her own words, “an energetic, positive person constantly trying to find balance in my life, as I feel rather chaotic at times. When I met Ryan, it certainly threw a spanner in the works!”
In person, Claire is equally enigmatic and warm. Little wonder, then, that Ryan, 40, was so captivated when initially getting to know Claire via email and over the phone (at first it was a longdistance interstate love), leading to an 18-month romance that resulted in Claire Campbell becoming Claire Stokes in a stunning two-day wedding celebration on Sydney Harbour last December. The 32-year-old may now be the wife of the Seven Group Holdings chief executive and the daughterin-law of Kerry Stokes, but there’s much, much more to this dynamo – the business of shoes, for one.
Despite capturing the heart of the media heir, Claire has remained elusively private, away from the public eye. But in her first extended interview I can reveal she’s a hardworking, gregarious fashion professional who travels to Europe three times a year for her family shoe business, the Brisbane institution Maryon’s. Although Claire is guarded about her relationship, she understands that marrying into the Stokes family invites a certain amount of public attention. The media blackout surrounding her wedding created a void that was filled by some incorrect assumptions and
questions about the new Mrs Stokes. In her very pragmatic, honest, humorous way, Claire has agreed to share some of her wedding photographs and opened up to Vogue a little about how she met and married Ryan with not one but three celebrations.
Claire enjoys a good laugh, often at her own expense. The couple’s first date was over coffee in Sydney, when Claire was down for business. “It was such a hoot. Ryan said there was this great coffee shop in Walsh Bay; I was staying in Woolloomooloo so I put on my exercise gear and went for a big walk through the city, and then met him for coffee in Walsh Bay. Then I found out he lived upstairs! So cheeky. I got cross with him!” she recalls with a laugh before adding, “But coffee went for three hours and we had a fantastic conversation.”
The story of Ryan’s proposal, when the couple – ironically both barefoot – was picnicking at a favourite haunt, Broome’s Eco Beach, was no different. Claire had an inkling a proposal might be in the offering but the day began just like many others. “We’d been for a swim and I went to get our towels then turned around and ran straight over the top of him; he was down on one knee about to propose. He said the most beautiful words, had an incredible ring, and I started to cry. Then I said: ‘ But this is forever, right? No jumping ship!’ And he said: ‘Yes, yes. I didn’t think I’d have to negotiate!’ So I said: ‘Yes, yes, yes!’”
With Claire hailing from Queensland and Stokes from Western Australia but based in Sydney, travel formed a large part of their courtship, and has remained one of their favourite pastimes, as has spending time with their respective families. Meeting your future father-in-law is intimidating at the best of times, least not when he’s none other than Kerry Stokes. But Claire needn’t have worried – her intelligence, integrity and downright decency clearly impressed him, although she didn’t escape without being quizzed about her (lack of ) skiing experience. “The very first thing Kerry asked
me was: ‘Do you ski?’ I said: ‘Not yet.’ Then he said: ‘Would you like to learn to ski?’ and I said: ‘Yes.’ We went on to talk about business and life and everything really, he’s a wonderful man, we had a great chat, and then at the end I gave him a kiss goodbye and he said: ‘So do you think you’d be a good skier?’!” For the record, Claire is now a skiing convert, and joins the family for their annual Christmas skiing holidays. “Kerry and [wife] Christine have been so good to me,” she adds. “They’re such a warm, kind family.”
In turn, Ryan, too, has had to measure up to the Campbells: a loud, boisterous, tightknit family who aren’t afraid to air their opinions. “Ryan loves it, thank God,” says Claire, laughing. And it would certainly appear he’s passed the test. “One of the things about my family is that everyone gets a funny pet name. Mine is Gloria, then there’s Mildred and Myrtle and Rodnick, all sorts of unusual names. And I think Mum just loves and adores Ryan so much he hasn’t been given one yet. One of my cousins said: ‘You know, Ryan Campbell has a good ring to it’ and then silence. Ryan’s face was a picture. Hysterical! Just a joke, of course. Anyway, we have a short list of pet names for Ryan – it’s inevitable marrying a Campbell.”
The nuptials last December were a fairytale affair, with Sydney’s naval base Garden Island transformed into a sea of roses around the bridal couple and their wedding party. Ever loyal to her Australian fashion colleagues, Claire wore a Paolo Sebastian gown while her bridesmaids wore custom-made Carla Zampatti. “All the guests arrived by Fantasea ferries, there were bagpipes and kilts, it was a great day, a really great day,” she says. “I arrived at the beginning of the aisle and was a bit teary and a bit nervous because there’s a lot of pressure, too. I could see Ryan with this huge smile at the altar so I thought: ‘Okay, don’t look at anyone else, just look at him, and I can do this.’ We made our vows – traditional vows, we’re quite traditional – and then I turned around and got the shock of my life as there were so many people. I’d forgotten they were all there!
I think I yelled out: ‘Hello!’ Gosh, so embarrassing, but a funny moment.” For the record, as one would expect from the owner and buyer of a shoe boutique, Claire changed shoes three times during the day – “a typical habit of mine!” – from Dolce & Gabbana lace pumps to Aquazzura nude sandals and Stuart Weitzman strappy stilettos.
In fact, this was their second round of celebrations, the first a more informal affair on North Stradbroke Island, Claire’s childhood holiday destination and a place she describes as “her happy place” because of its low-key, natural setting. The couple was only able to squeeze in a four-day honeymoon, to Blanket Bay in New Zealand, such are the demands of their respective working lives and travel commitments. “It’s been busy. An adjustment and a busy time,” she says. “I feel like I have a double life at the moment, between Queensland and Sydney, which isn’t hard when you don’t have kids, but my focus is certainly to build a life in Sydney as well.”
It’s a life that includes working hard on her fashion business. Those who are familiar with her know that she’s the director of Maryon’s, the longstanding Brisbane and Gold Coast shoe institution founded by her mother, Maryon Campbell, more than 40 years ago and which is still running successfully today under Claire’s watchful eye.
The Campbells made their mark on the Brisbane landscape more than a century ago, a story Claire proudly explains began in the mid-1800s when the Campbells arrived from Scotland. Peter Morrison Campbell began a soap business from a bathtub at Kangaroo Point, using tallow from a local abattoir. Before Brisbane’s Story Bridge, Peter built a punt to transport his soap across the river. Here their passion for marine transport began. Peter soon expanded his soap empire to Newstead with his seven sons and Campbell Brothers soap was born. Campbell Brothers is now a publicly listed company, known as ALS, focusing on laboratory services, but the family’s successful maritime business, Riverside Marine, is still in family hands after five generations and was the reason the Stokes’s wedding guests were ferried to the Garden Island reception by Fantasea ferries, a subsidiary of Riverside Marine. Other groups under the Riverside umbrella include towage, marine transport and a new venture in Canada with ferries between Vancouver and Victoria.
Claire’s own story, however, is one of fashion, and shoes in particular, a world she’s been immersed in for as long as she can
remember. Maryon’s shoes began as a hobby when Claire’s mum was 21, the result of a passion for colours, textiles and fabrics fuelled by the frustration of not being able to buy decent shoes for her size 41 feet. The business soon expanded until there were four stores in total, and when children came along, the business followed wherever Maryon was. “We’d often have agents from Europe come to our home and lay out the different samples with colours, fabrics and leather swatches, so I was always surrounded by it. It’s in the blood,” Claire says. “I was sample size by the age of six. The designers would send us samples and I had these fabulous Robert Clergerie pointy stiletto ankle boots, the left one suede and the other patent leather. I used to go everywhere in them. I don’t know how I didn’t break my ankle, but I just loved them.”
Somehow Maryon juggled her expanding business with family life, but it was certainly busy. “She was always around,” Claire says. “We discussed business at the dinner table each night. I don’t know how she found time to be at every dancing concert, take me to singing lessons and sew the ribbons on my pointe shoes … but it was full-on running a business and being a mum. She’s remarkable: I take my hat off to her. I’m blessed.” Claire has a close bond with her older brother Drew, a marine pilot and previously a ship’s captain who has worked the giant BP and Shell vessels across the world. “We’ve been raised with the same moral compass and we adore each other, but we’re so different. He’s tidy and neat – Campbells are – and I’m a bit more chaotic,” she says. “Everything is immaculate and in colour order, then I come in and destroy it all, just to rub him up the wrong way for a bit of fun.”
Claire never considered going into her mother’s business, however, so immersed was she in her own world of dance and music. She danced every day for 15 years – classical ballet and contemporary styles then later Argentine tango and Latin American, even passing her ballet teacher exams. But it never occurred to her to pursue dance professionally, and she signed up instead to study journalism at Bond University in Queensland, an obvious career path given her innate curiosity and fascination with people. “I probably should have [pursued dance professionally], as I miss it deeply and dearly. I never feel happier than when I’m dancing,” she says. An ardent fan of Queensland Ballet and its artistic director, Li Cunxin, Claire also supports the Australian Ballet and is keen to flex her dancing muscles again through a class at Sydney Dance Company.
Nevertheless, when her mother began considering an unsolicited offer to buy Maryon’s, something clicked. “Mum was keen to move on from the business. She was already a director of the family marine company, but she also wanted to travel. She traded her Robert Clergerie lace-ups for French designer boating shoes.
She bought a yacht and was keen to go cruising. She sailed to Tasmania and back for a shakedown trip, then eventually sailed across to Indonesia and beyond, exploring for five years. Mum was very good, she knew we’d clash and wanted me to make my own mark on the business. ‘Sink or swim’ were her joking words. It was a good learning experience for me. I was a bit naïve.” Fastforward 11 years and Claire is successfully running the business, travelling thrice annually to Milan and Paris on buying trips.
“My favourite thing about my work is definitely the people,” she says. “I’m so fortunate, we have wonderful staff who have all been with us such a long time – and also our fabulous clients, right across Australia. Working with beautiful brands and picking the trends is so much fun, but also buying for three generations of discerning women certainly makes things exciting and interesting – visualising what they’d love and what they’d wear.”
Meanwhile, her mum continues as a director of Riverside Marine and has been busy kayaking the Amazon and, most recently, cycling from Amsterdam to Paris: “She has a very adventurous spirit, but she’s the guiding light in my life and certainly still a sounding board. I speak to her a million times a day.”
Claire appears to have slipped easily into the world of the Stokes family, and says one of the most enriching aspects to life now is the interesting people she meets. “Ryan’s life is so eclectic and broad that I’ve met remarkable people. One thing journalism taught me is that curiosity, not being afraid to ask questions, so I’ve had wonderful experiences travelling or meeting or dining with all sorts of people.” For the most part, though, they maintain a low profile, enjoying what time they do have reading, cooking, going to galleries. “Ryan has a unique work ethic. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard. He’s so passionate, and I love that, I love anyone being passionate about whatever it is they do,” she says. “He’s very disciplined and has an intensity to him at work – he’s a Gemini, after all – but when he comes home, there’s this softness and kindness. We have our own little bubble, really. I think I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”