Style on Wednesday Revealed: why all newsreaders really dress the same
You might think female news anchors are all singing from the same style sheet – but they’re just visiting the same shop, says Bethan Holt
Have you ever noticed that there’s a kind of uniform among female newsreaders? Of course, the men all wear suits and ties, but the women too have honed a “look” that tends to comprise of a figure-hugging, knee-length dress in a very bright colour. You may not have heard of Diva, but if you are one of the million viewers who tunes in to Good Morning Britain every day, or the 1.5 million whose cornflakes are accompanied by BBC Breakfast, then you’ll recognise the label’s vibrant signature dresses.
Despite the fact that its pieces are worn on an almost daily basis on British TV, and have a cult reputation among the presenter cognoscenti, Diva is a remarkably discreet business. Its headquarters are on an anonymous corner of New Cavendish Street, a kind of no man’s land nestled a few streets back from busy Oxford Circus. Inside the showroom, two long rails house a rainbow of the slinky yet business-like styles beloved of Susanna Reid, Steph Mcgovern, Carol Kirkwood and many more.
And while his dresses are some of the most recognisable in the country, owner Tim Webb couldn’t be further from the fashion designer stereotype either – he tells me he spent the morning before our meeting digging out potatoes in his garden. In fact, Webb has the air of a businessman who almost mistakenly landed on a winning formula, and fostered it into a mini-empire. “We seem to have carved out a niche,” he admits. “I don’t know how or why exactly, to be honest – it just happened.”
Of course, like all thriving businesses, Diva didn’t simply “happen” at all. Webb began his label in 1985, specialising in corsetry. “We’ve had various incarnations. We sold corsets but then had to change after the crash in 2008,” he says of diversifying the business into dresses – an obvious choice, since at the time the fashion was for bodycon styles. Webb’s corsetry background left him well placed to cut stretch fabrics to flatter and enhance curves. “Corsetry is about holding people in and shaping them. What a lot of the ladies who buy our dresses like is the fact that they accentuate all of the right parts.” The famous adage goes that the camera adds 10 pounds, which is why, although fashion might shift towards billowing sleeves or ruffles, the minimal extra fabric and neatly tailored proportions of Diva dresses continues to appeal to the nation’s newscasters. But how did they discover them?
“I was out shopping one day and walked down New Cavendish Street,” says Debbie Harper, stylist and head of wardrobe at Good Morning Britain. “I saw all these lovely dresses in the showroom window, so I made an appointment – and the rest is history.” Recently, Harper has dressed ITV’S Charlotte Hawkins in the “Celia” dress, a short-sleeved, peplum design with a square neckline that comes in nine colours, from jade green to orchid purple; while Reid has worn “Ontario”, the three-quarter length sleeve, in violet. (Webb says there is no rhyme or reason to the dress names – he simply picks them at random.)
Word of mouth means that everyone from Sophie Raworth to Emily Maitlis has worn a Diva dress – and even as Webb and I are speaking, a BBC staff member pops in to the shop wanting to try some on. Prices are reasonable, between £85 and £185, and although he does sometimes offer a discount, Webb has
‘To sell black, you’ve got to do bright colours. Cobalt sells well’
never gifted dresses, even to his bestknown customers.
“Our central location definitely helps. We’re just around the corner from Broadcasting House,” he says. “The television girls also like the fact that the dresses are quite warm because they’re made from substantial fabrics. They tell me that the studios are cold sometimes.” And Diva fever has spread to America. “They all seem to know each other, so lots of the US presenters now buy our dresses online,” he says, sounding somewhat incredulous. “Our favourite brand of dresses here at Fox 25 news!!” meteorologist Shiri Spear wrote on Diva’s Instagram account earlier this year. Many of these TV personalities, of course, have thousands of followers on social media, as well as the women watching at home, who are inspired and influenced by their style choices. All of which means that the appeal of Diva dresses goes beyond newsreader circles. “It’s not that these dresses suit the news environment especially, it’s that they make perfect work dresses,” Harper explains. Most popular is the “Lydia” dress, which Diva can barely keep in stock. “That dress has sold and sold and sold,” says Webb. “It’s got sleeves, which women love, and it has a very good fit. We’ve been doing it for four years now.” Lydia’s details are simple – a notched neckline, ruching around the waist, and a hem just below knee-length – meaning that it’s a straightforward yet polished option for women who want to look put-together, but not spend too much time worrying about their wardrobes. It also comes in a staggering 27 colours, from banana yellow to lilac and coral, popular with the TV crowd, if not Diva’s other businesswomen customers for whom black is by far the most bought shade.
“To sell black, you’ve got to do bright colours,” Webb insists of how they lure the shoppers in, even if they don’t end up buying them. “But there are certain colours that are almost as popular: cobalt sells ridiculously well because it’s so flattering, forest green is popular at the moment, and red can be very good, too.”
Although Diva is best known for block colours, Webb has begun to introduce prints. “I noticed that [US president Donald] Trump’s wife, Melania, was wearing a very similar print to a yellow one we do, so I was pleased,” he says, adding that he only makes small runs of each pattern so that women feel they are getting something unique.
While FLOTUS might not have been wearing Diva, a few VIP fans have helped boost the brand’s profile. Nigella Lawson wore several designs, including the cobalt “Midhurst” dress to promote her US TV show The Taste in 2014. And then there was Royal Ascot in 2013, when Autumn Phillips (wife of the Princess Royal’s son, Peter) rode beside the Queen into the Royal Enclosure wearing a turquoise version of the Lydia. “She had bought it at a shop in Cheltenham. You couldn’t wish for anything better than that,” he beams. With her own penchant for cheerful, block colours, Her Majesty would surely have approved.
Webb maintains that the secret of the success of Diva dresses (which are all made in the UK, and sold mainly in-house but also through a few small boutiques) is in the meticulous attention to detail in the cut. “I’ve seen some atrocious pattern cutting on expensive so-called couture dresses in my time,” he confides. “A lot of the success of any collection is down to the pattern cutting; it’s absolutely vital to know how the fabrics react, and getting the stretch in the right direction.” And it seems that if the dress fits, women will want to wear it.
‘I’ve seen some atrocious pattern cutting on so-called couture dresses’