SOUL SISTERS
Writer Claudia Navone and artist Alice Alexander have been lucky to have enjoyed a friendship for more than 16 years.
Writer Claudia Navone and artist Alice Alexander have been lucky to have enjoyed a friendship for more than 16 years. Photographed in the beauty and wild bounty of Alexander’s home near Robertson in New South Wales, they talk to Alison Veness about the pure joy and spiritual connection of being friends. And the fun and the laughter. Styled by Philippa Moroney. Photographed by Levon Baird.
CLAUDIA NAVONE
“I was about to move to Australia when [Crown Resorts executive chairman] John Alexander, Alice’s husband, invited me to Wimbledon. I was still living in London at the time, working as the fashion director of The Sunday Times. I was outside the Channel Nine tent and suddenly I saw this beautiful woman. She had this John Galliano skirt on, a very crisp white shirt and riding boots. I stared at her and I knew instantly that she was John’s wife and that she would have some kind of important role in my life.
“I felt an instantaneous soul connection with this mystery woman. Sometimes you know things with your heart before knowing them with your mind, and I knew that of Alice. This is exactly what happened in that summer of 2003, just before I came to live in Australia.
“We next met again in Sydney. Alice was a photographer and so at first we started this creative relationship, producing beautiful fashion shoots together, and that’s how we began to get to know each other in a deeper way, through creativity. My aesthetic and point of view and hers were very similar. So we understood each other very well in that way.
“Alice was already on a spiritual path at that time and she would tell me a little bit about it. I was intrigued, even if I couldn’t really understand much about it. In a way she reopened that spiritual door to me. I didn’t know what it was, but she had so much light and with her light she made me lighter. I wasn’t conscious of it then, but I knew that being with her lifted me up somehow. She was very honest, and I loved her honesty. She has this gift of touching hearts, and the gift extended to animals. She has the most extraordinary connection and communication with animals, from cats to horses and kangaroos. It is quite an experience to watch her in action, bonding with them.
“And so I felt I could trust her. To build trust is something very important in a friendship. She won my trust and I could be open with her. She knew all my secrets and how I was truly feeling, as I was going through a difficult time in my life. I could be completely myself with her. I had great difficulties in being myself with anyone else.
“The funniest thing was when people assumed we were sisters. When we went out to parties it was very funny, because we would tell all these phantasmagoric stories about having the same father but different mothers and created all these fantasy scenarios and people believed us, so we were very naughty like that. We were acting up, but secretly we were very pleased that people saw us as sisters, because we felt like soul sisters.
“The other amazing thing is that we travelled a lot together, because of the fashion shoots. The first time I went to Uluru to do a shoot was with Alice and something major happened spiritually to me and she was there to support me – and in Bali it was the same thing. Our creativity started to merge with the spiritual world. She was the one who could truly understand what was going on. I trusted her, because she was on the path herself and she could understand what I couldn’t even understand of myself at the time.
“It’s like a beautiful pure friendship you may have with somebody as a child, but we received this as older women – when we met we were both in our early 40s. So as grown-up women we were blessed to have this pure friendship. Pure, sincere, honest and trustworthy. Alice also taught me how to be softer. Back then, I was quite the director. I didn’t have much compassion: Alice had great compassion and softness and vulnerability.
“When we are together, we love talking about everything, and just enjoying the simplest things is enough. Alice loves having tea and cakes, so we love having tea and cakes! It doesn’t really matter. It’s not what we do, it’s how we are with each other.
“Ours is a very balanced friendship and I am so grateful to have her in my life” – Claudia Navone