India Hicks on Parenting Five Kids, Island Living, and Eating Chocolate for Breakfast Interview By Tatum Rebelle
India Hicks is a designer, serial entrepreneur, author, model, and mother to five children. She is also a marathon runner, thrill seeker, island-dweller and world traveler to scratch the surface. Raised in London, India was born into royalty on her mother s side, with a father who was a famous interior designer. Although she could be living a leisurely life, India has chosen to work since she was a young Ralph Lauren model and hasn t stopped since. She has passionately pursued many personal and business endeavors, and continues to reinvent herself India s new web series, Extraordinary Lives is the latest installment of her evolving career. Though we had never met before, our recent conversation flowed like we were old friends. Poised and speaking the Queen s English, India exuded the confidence of a regal woman. However, it quickly became clear that she is incredibly warm and nurturing. I left our chat with the strong sense that India is a humble, hardworking woman who is creating her own legacy. Tatum: I don t even know where to start, you ve done so much, so I ll begin by asking what you d like to share right now about your life and career? What s important for people to know about you? India: I think it s that I m forty-seven, and it s just shocking to me to suddenly realize that I am well and truly into the middle ages. I have to say though, that one of the really wonderful things about becoming forty-seven is that I m now able to look back and really live the experiences that I ve had. I love being able to draw from those experiences. What I draw is a real confidence, in understanding who I am, the person I want to be, and the path that I m on.
Tatum: I see on your website that it s going through some changes. Can you tell me a bit about that? India: Yes, I am in the process of building a business, which I ll be talking about in a couple months because it is still very much under wraps. What I m going to be doing in the interim is putting in place the foundation for where that business is going to go. I ll be hosting a mini-series of interviews, which will be called Extraordinary Lives. I had extraordinary parents and extraordinary grandparents I always try my best to emulate either their talents or to live my life by their values. I probably am not doing such a good job as they did, but they were very inspiring to me. Also my own life, I ve had the great privilege of meeting extraordinary people. In this series, there will be some celebrity interviews, and there will be interviews with people who in my mind just made life work for them in different and unexpected ways. Tatum: You mentioned your family. They re big shoes to fill from what I understand. Your mother s side comes from the royal family, and your dad was a famous designer. Did you draw from them as inspiration, or did you feel daunted by it? India: I think for a number of years, it was very daunting. I always felt that I was seen as the goddaughter of somebody or the bridesmaid of somebody, or the daughter of somebody. I had never really stood on my own two feet or had really developed my own story. And coming back to being forty-seven, the great thing now is that I think I ve really told my own story and lived my own life.
More than any of that, now that we have five children, it s parenthood that really completes the whole story. It s parenthood that is the biggest challenge and the one that I really don t have the answers for, and probably the one that we should all be holding hands on because it is daily that you re questioned, and daily I question myself as to whether I m parenting the right way. Tatum: You are an adventurous woman with many outdoor hobbies, and an entrepreneur, how do you balance that with five kids? India: I strongly believe that I m probably a better mother because I have other projects and other businesses that I m handling. Hopefully I m setting an example to them that is a good one. I try very hard to schedule my time in life so that when my children are here at home and on holiday that I am not traveling. I also try to instill in my children that no matter where I am or however distracted I may be, they know that ultimately they come first, and that they re loved, and that they re wanted. They are never second to my business; they are first. Tatum: From the outside, your life seems so glamorous and amazing, but I know that no matter how glamorous it may appear, there are always struggles. What s something that we may not see from the outside? India: It is, of course. I had a very remarkable upbringing in England, and then choosing to live a very different life on an island with a pink sand beach and a tropical sea around us. So yes, I everyday know how incredibly lucky I am that that opportunity came my way, and that I took that opportunity. An island life definitely has its own set of issues. We have a three-month hurricane season. We have power that goes off for hours on end. Which means not just that we can t cook, or there s no air conditioning, but that aside, I m trying to run businesses and I m not able to take calls. 18
There are some real frustrations to trying to make an everyday life work on a tropical island. I m not complaining. I would never complain. I m just commenting that there are challenges. Indeed challenges in having five children, and at such varied ages seventeen, nearly eighteen down to six. Tatum: Switching gears a little bit to diet and exercise. Can you tell me about your own fitness? How do you stay in shape, being a busy mother and having five kids with different personalities? Do you make activity part of your family life? India: I m very lucky in the fact that I enjoy the physical side of things. I ve always been a horseback rider. I hiked into the Grand Canyon when I was seventeen years old. I would be the first to jump off a bridge because I like the adrenaline and the adventure of it. I m very religious about finding one hour out of the day to myself. It gets increasingly harder the more the business grows, the more the children grow, and all of them have more demands. I m a marathon runner, so I ve been running for so many years. Now I try to do some weights in the gym, or I try to do some stretching. That hour is so important not just physically, but also mentally. Because I have four boys and then the girl at the end, family life is very geared to adventure. We do a lot of waterskiing; we swing on ropes, we scuba dive together as a family, but again, you have a stubborn teenager who wakes up and wants to sit in front of his Facebook all day, and I have a six-year-old who wants to learn to ride a bicycle. Believe me, there are screaming fits within this house about me and my expectations for them, and what they think that they want to be doing on their terms.
I m not very good on diet. I am happy to begin breakfast with a big bar of chocolate. But, I balance do it out by having a lot of green juice. I gave up Diet Coke on New Year, which is killing me because I want that every single day. I drink a lot of water. I try to be healthy, but it s hard because I have a very sweet tooth. I manage it through exercising and just trying to be moderate. Tatum: With all of your experience in modeling and design, what are your thoughts on fashion? India: I was a model for twenty years, and oddly I was very disinterested in the fashion. Now I have a shop on the island, so I take much more interest, and I have fun with it. There s not a lot of time in my life for fashion, so it is just more fun. I m always interested to see what the kids are doing and what they re responding to. Of course, I am first and foremost a designer I m always trying to make it so that it kind of works for everybody. In their own bedrooms, they re able to decoratively express themselves, which sometimes I find incredibly painful, and I have to just suck it up. The area where we all sit together as a family, it is challenging. That s the lighthearted side of parenting multiple ages. Tatum: As a busy mom running out the door, is there a tip that you d suggest, like always have on a necklace, or do you think it s just too individual? India: Yes, when I m traveling, I like to have a fairly uniform way of packing. So let s say that the wardrobe itself is fairly monotone and then I have a shock of color somewhere in there. I m very happy to go to a business meeting dressed in a good pair of trousers and a boyfriend jacket. Then to change it up in the evening, to add on a super high pair of heels, so it s not so much the body as the actual accessory that s changing. Visit IndiaHicks.com to learn more and watch India s new series Extraordinary Lives.
Photos Courtesy of Colleen Duffley Photography