Poor you, SamCam!
Born to one of UK’s wealthiest families, the ex-PM’s wife claims she launched her upmarket fashion business because she was left with ‘no disposable income’
SHE’S the daughter of aristocratic multi-millionaires, the wife of an ex-prime minister and has enjoyed a successful business career of her own. But Samantha Cameron has complained that she didn’t have enough ‘disposable income’ to afford designer clothes after paying for childcare and a mortgage.
The mother of three, 46, who with husband David owns two homes worth £4.8million in total, said this was her inspiration for starting her own fashion label Cefinn in February, which is designed to be more affordable than luxury clothing.
Yet despite her own apparent money worries, the items, which are made in Macedonia, aren’t exactly bargains, ranging in price from £110 for a T-shirt to £390 for a coat.
Speaking at an event celebrating female entrepreneurs, she said the idea behind the brand – which is estimated to be worth £3.7million and is aimed at busy women who ‘need clothes that are going to work hard’ –
‘It’s been incredibly hard work’
came from ‘a very personal need’. She said: ‘I’d been working in the luxury fashion business for a long time and didn’t have the disposable income with childcare and mortgage to buy designer clothes.
‘I wanted to find workwear, daywear, that had a fashion edge and felt a bit younger, more modern than what was available.’ She added: ‘There was a gap in the market in terms of price, because I come in between high street and luxury.’
Mrs Cameron’s financial complaints are perhaps surprising given her and her husband’s deep pockets.
Mr Cameron has been cashing in since leaving Downing Street by giving hour-long talks for £120,000 a time – almost as much as the £143,462 he earned a year when he was in power.
He is thought to be doing at least two talks per month – which have included speaking at a lunch for Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk.
The couple also have two homes, a £1.3million cottage in his former Oxfordshire constituency and a fourbedroom Notting Hill house which they bought for £1.1million in cash from profit on another home. It is now worth more than triple that.
The Camerons did not have a mortgage on their London property until eight days before the EU referendum last year. It is unclear why they belatedly took out this loan, but it may have been to invest in other assets.
And the family seem to have enough money for lavish purchases. In April Mr Cameron spent £25,000 on a shepherd’s hut complete with a wood-burning stove, sofa-bed and wool insulation.
Their three children, Nancy, Elwen and Florence, wanted it as a playroom, but Mr Cameron is using it as his writing room.
Meanwhile privately-educated Mrs Cameron hardly needs to rely on her husband financially. Her father is a baronet and her parents, who are divorced, are worth tens of millions of pounds each. She was also out-earning her husband as creative director at luxury leather goods brand Smythson before taking a back-seat role when he became PM.
Speaking at the All Bright’s Found-HER Festival in London yesterday, Mrs Cameron said of her business venture: ‘It’s been incredibly hard work and frightening... I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights.
‘The first few months it was just me on my own… There’s a period in which you’re doing everything and answering your emails at 4 o’clock in the morning and dealing with lots of aspects of business that you might have never dealt with before.’