Shirts that come in several lengths to work with high or lower waistbands. When she launched swimwear earlier this year, she made sure the necklines of every cover-up and matching bathing suit lined up.
She spent her teens making her own clothes with her mother, a primary school teacher in Oldham: ‘I grew up around very well-dressed women.’ Her father was a joiner who ran his own small business. It’s not hard to see where the obsession with detail and the passion for creating clothes that slot together seamlessly spring from.
None of this is cheap: if you’re familiar with Me&Em, you’ll know the trousers and shirt she’s wearing probably top out at around £250 to £295 each.That’s a sweet spot for the brand – what the Stella Artois copywriters used to call ‘reassuringly expensive’, but not obscenely so. Hornby’s ambition is to train fashion journalists to stop categorising Me+Em as high street and refer to it as modern luxury instead.
‘Modern luxury’ is one of those catchphrases that Hornby, as a former advertising executive, is very good at (along with ‘intelligent style’ and what she calls her ‘four Fs’: flattering, functional, forever and fair).
Following the current vogue for defining your personal style in three words, I’d sum up Hornby’s as: polished, androgynous, eclectic. She’d probably describe it as down-to-earth, although there’s always something high-end in the mix. Today it’s the chunky square-cut emerald ring Johnny gave her, after being prompted by Maddy, and a pair of Alaïa’s cult crystal-studded Mary Jane shoes, which in fashion parlance ‘elevate’ everything else.
The Hornbys’ Cotswolds house doesn’t require elevating. An idyllic honey-coloured stone building with spectacular views of the River Windrush, it’s all tall sash windows, pillars, box trees and comfort – a grand piano in one of the bay windows, huge squashy sofas, Rug Company floor rugs, Diptyque candles, Farrow & Balled walls, dog beds a-go-go (Alan, her dachshund, and Maple, the show cocker spaniel, inspired Me+Em’s puppy-tooth dog leads), plus a fountain.
Nothing’s ostentatious – but when you look closer you see the art is by Sam Taylor-Johnson and Tim Walker. Johnny bobs in and out, telling me how The Farmer’s Dog, the pub he’s launching with Jeremy Clarkson, found itself accidentally opening ahead of schedule the night of the Euros final. I note, too, the presence of Mike, who previously worked at Highgrove, makes the best coffee, drives the family around when required and was a farmer so presumably does a lot more besides.
The Hornbys are a strikingly glamorous couple who reportedly hang out with the Chipping Norton set (the Camerons, Rebekah and Charlie Brooks, Clarkson, Lord and Lady Bamford), are good friends with Sir Charles Dunstone, the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse and an investor in Me+Em, and according to some sources are bezzies with the Sussexes.
I somehow doubt this, although until last year Johnny was chairman of Sentebale, Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho’s charity that supports children with Aids. When it was strapped for cash after the pandemic, he boosted its coffers considerably by asking James Blunt to perform at a fundraiser in the Hornbys’ garden.
Clearly a man who enjoys a challenge, he’s now turning his thoughts to finding a chef, amid the current shortage, for The Farmer’s Dog, where Hawkstone lager, from Clarkson’s farm, will be a star attraction.
