At this time London was rocking, and as she was only 22, she was, as The Times of London reported in 1964, “the youngest woman to operate really successfully as an independent public relations consultant.” Quite an accolade.
I quickly appointed her to become my Public Relations person, and she guided and helped market my photographic hair stories. When Maxine, my wife, opened up her French boutique above the salon in Hampstead, Caroline represented her and launched her onto the London fashion scene.
With press meetings through the week, our working life changed as our name got out into the world of magazines and the national press. Maxine had new stock deliveries many times a week from the great French houses. This brought Caroline up to Hampstead on a regular basis to bring the fashion editor up to get her hair done and meet Maxine and see her new samples, and Caroline always brought a new design story ready to be photographed for a publication.
In these days Sonia Rykiel was the big, big news in fashion design. (She has just celebrated her 40th anniversary this year.) Other big names were V de Vey with their most wonderful ski wear made in shiny plastic, Karl Lagerfeld, who was then designing beautiful clothes for Chloe, Charles Maudret for suits, along with Pierre D’Alby and The Bagagerie. The greatest evening wear came from Fakiel, which all the stars went crazy for.
Caroline was there to tackle and handle everything that had to do with the press. It was the 60s and a great time to be young and creative. It was the time of great music from Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Lulu, Sandy Shaw, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones—most of whom eventually came into the boutique.
Fashion, the British look, and the mini skirt came out of the U.K. at this time, but the French style was something different and created a great look and was great for the news media. Caroline ran things so smoothly, she taught us to develop one’s self-image and how "being out there" for the consumer market was most important. Caroline made it possible for us to attend every high-profile event in London as part of the strategy she set down for us.
Not too many years went by before Maxine was making Caroline's wedding gown and was up many nights embroidering crystals and silk roses onto this beautiful gown and headdress. It was Caroline hitting the press this time, the young super PR and bride.
In those early days of the 60s we watched Caroline becoming more and more successful. In 1971 she expanded into beauty PR. Her first big client was the Glemby Company, the leading operator of hair salons in department stores, which was big in the USA and just growing in the U.K. Caroline refers fondly to Seymore Finkelstein, one of the owners of the Glemby company, who introduced her to the U.S. market. Caroline and I were able to work together as I was a consultant to the Glemby Company.
The big names that came into the U.K. searched her out to represent them. She launched Ralph Lauren's first fragrances, Polo and Lauren, in 1979 in London, and then she launched Calvin Klein’s Eternity and handled a London media trip for Calvin and Kelly Klein. She clearly remembers this because in the middle of a special fashion show of Calvin Klein’s fashion collection in Harvey Nichols, the fire alarm went off and the whole VIP audience and press had to evacuate the building. Keeping the press away from Calvin and Kelly on the street was another story.
During the 1970s she represented many top American brands entering the U.K. market and, in fact, she made it a specialty. She visited the States twice a year on sales trips and invariably came back with a new American client who wanted to enter the U.K. market and for whom she wrote the launch strategy.
Caroline loved the USA right from the beginning, so much so that she and her husband Maurice ended up sending their two children, Dominic and Louisa, to universities in the States. Her view was that in England at private school you learned to play the game—but in the USA you learned to play to win. This was a good combination.
Caroline will admit her most exciting and challenging period was from 1981 to 1991 when she represented Cartier, Gucci (working for Aldo Gucci directly), Ferragamo, Donna Karen Beauty, Paloma Picasso fragrances, Neutrogena, Dupont's fiber Lycra, and The Rosewood Hotel Group launching the exclusive Lanesborogh Hotel for Mrs. Caroline Hunt who owned the group.
This led to so many other top brands seeking her agency out. Her clients began to vary enormously and included Olympia and York, the original developers of Canary Wharf and the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan.
She searched out U.K. shops that might like to establish themselves in New York and introduce the two. She developed the million-pound horse race for Goffs Bloodstock in Ireland and Cartier, the jewelers–called the Cartier Million. This ran for three years at Phoenix Park in Dublin and opened a whole new client base for Cartier—the racing industry. She also had a major hand in developing and promoting the Cartier International Polo, still a fixture in the London season today.
As her agency’s major charity commitment, she took on the chairmanship of the major fundraising ball for The Ireland Fund of Great Britain and held this position for some 12 years. The inspiration behind The Ireland Fund of Great Britain is the charismatic businessman Tony O’Reilly; the aim was to help raise funds for peace and reconciliation in Ireland. Caroline’s agency had always been a dedicated supporter of philanthropic activities. All the staff volunteered help for these activities.
Then in 2006 came a new departure when she was appointed president of the U.K. chapter of Cosmetic Executive Women, CEW (UK). This is the biggest organization for women at the executive level working in the beauty industry. It was founded in the USA in 1954, and Glenda Bailey, current editor of Harpers Bazaar USA, founded the organization in the U.K. in 2002. Caroline was one of the seven founding women. In 2006 she took over as president, a post she currently holds today in the U.K.
Her story should become a text book called How To Succeed With Trying. Her cockney charm, her constant smile, and her even temperament made her clients love her. But it was much more than that. Caroline always had an eye for the main chance, and many business opportunities and key meetings with influential and possible business partners were forthcoming from her.
I so remember just one personal story of many when she was handling a company called Haffenden Moulding, which after a few years became The London Rubber Company. I had just designed and invented the first radial (round) blow styling brush—this was in 1976—when she said to me, "Harold, go and see Mark Sellars." He was director of Haffenden's, the largest manufacturer of swim hats, rubber gloves, rubber plugs, hot water bottles, and so on.
She made an appointment down in Sandwich Kent to meet with them, and in the next breath they were manufacturing a range of "Leighton Brushes" that sold around the world. She was a constant hive of information with her evaluations and the companies she worked with. Soon after connecting me with Haffenden she was launching my first book, Haircutting for Everyone, with a center spread in the number one selling newspaper; my luck, on the front page was Elvis Presley lying in state.
Public relations in almost any field of business is vitally important to grow a brand or name—even more so today in 2009. To invest and to develop brands in bad times (like now) when it is tight for companies to budget buying advertising space, I would suggest that a good public relations manager offers the most affordable way to project that name and image to the consumer.
Today Caroline Neville-McCarthy is chairman of Neville McCarthy Associates with main offices in the city of London. Her extremely bright and personable son Dominic is now managing director of the agency, following in his mother’s footsteps and running the family firm. He already has some wonderful top brands in the tradition of his mother. Louisa, Caroline’s daughter, also recently joined the family firm and is working in the Lifestyle Division.
Caroline Neville-McCarthy of Neville McCarthy Associates—a great talented lady, a wife and mother of two, and dear friend. Harold Leighton lives and writes in Boca Raton, Florida.
