The sparkling, stylish woman reminding us life is precious

ONE SUNLIT AFTERNOON, playing fantasy dress-up with writer and chef Domini Kemp, filled our souls. Armed with a suitcase of cosy jackets from Brown Thomas, Bobbi Brown’s iconic shimmer palette and curling irons, our make-up artist, hair stylist and I listened as Kemp cracked jokes and shared her story with us - swallowed up in an armchair of the Beacon Hotel’s penthouse. Fresh from the Ploughing Championships with LID, she was ‘much happier’ to be back, sans mud, in Dublin, even if that meant shooting the breeze with a few kind strangers and broaching the dreaded ‘C’ word: cancer. ‘I didn’t want a badge,’ she said on her battle with breast cancer. ‘I didn’t want to lie in the hospital during treatment and moan’. ‘I wanted to get in and out and get better.’ Before the shoot, Kemp and I talked via email and she told me she loves dark masculine clothes, nothing too frilly or floral. When she arrived at the Beacon, in a fitted Philip Lim bomber jacket with lapels and silky black Donna Karan pants, Kemp’s style was true to form. Snapped up in a sale for a fraction of the cost, Lim is almost a year old and the pants she held out for in a Christmas sale in Brown Thomas. In my styling suitcase was an off-the- shoulder knit, an ivory lace slip dress that reminds her of her wedding night and snug wrap coats that I got the feeling she would shudder at the thought of wearing on a ‘normal’ day. Fashion, thankfully has a way of transforming one’s mood and once hair and make-up got cracking and enough espresso and croissants have been consumed, I got the feeling Kemp had warmed to my thoughts. Pink traditionally has been the colour carried though the magazine since the beginning of The Pink Issue. The pink ribbon is the international symbol for Breast Cancer Awareness. It evokes mindfulness of the cause - so queen of dark, edgy masculinity embraced a dainty dose of femininity to mark her cover shoot. It was out of her comfort zone but, as Kemp put it, ‘we were telling a story’ and hers is one I’m thankful to have been part of. Kudos to Kemp for trusting my instincts, laughing through poses (it’s surprisingly hard to get a belly laugh from someone on a cover shoot ) and baring some leg – a rare occasion for her. Lucky us! ‘I’ve learned to love things about myself now,’ she told me. ‘I’ll never have waif thin legs, but I feel like I’ll never complain in the same way again.’ Kemp gives the impression of being somebody who is more comfortable shining the spotlight on others – unsurprising, perhaps, after all her years crafting ideas for books and columns and TV shows. That Friday, though, snuggled up on the sofa of a Sandyford hotel, was all for Kemp, the twinkle-eyed mother and author who reminded the YOU team how truly precious life is.

The queen of dark, edgy style embraced a bit of pink for a worthy cause