Dame Prue Leith proved she still knows how to make an entrance as she strutted down the catwalk at the Vin + Omi: Dysphoriana show during London Fashion Week.
The Great British Bake Off judge, 85, looked radiant in a flowing oversized red midi dress with dramatic sleeves, paired with red-and-white trainers and a matching red hat. She completed the look with striking fuchsia earrings as she walked alongside models who went topless or braless in daring designs at the art’otel London Hoxton.
She wasn’t the only TV star to lend some glamour to the night. Loose Women’s Jane Moore joined the runway in a burnt orange patterned dress and black beehive wig, while Jo Wood drew attention in a plunging black leather number.
The outing comes as Prue opened up about her personal views on career and motherhood. Speaking on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, she insisted that women “can’t have it all,” admitting she would have found being a full-time mother “boring and tiring.”
Reflecting on her career, she said she would never have achieved what she did if she’d married and had children in her twenties. “By 1969 I had my restaurant, and in the ’70s I opened my cookery school. Everything was booming. If I’d had children then, I couldn’t have run it all. When I did have my children later, I had help – first an au pair, then a nanny.”
Prue married author Rayne Kruger in 1974 after a long relationship; the couple had two children together, Danny and Li-Da, before his passing in 2002. She remarried in 2016 to retired fashion designer John Playfair.
While she admits motherhood wasn’t her natural calling, Prue remains unapologetically honest. “I would not have been a good full-time mother. I’d have got ratty and furious. Children need relief from their mother – and mothers need relief from them.”
