Chapters In My Life: Tanya Sarne

“I grew up with two parents who worked and I think that definitely shaped the person I became. My mother studied at the London School of Economics and worked at the BBC Overseas Service and my father was employed by Reuters. I wanted to be an actress. The happiest day of my life was the day I left school – and I soon went to Rome to do a screen test with Rossano Brazzi who, at the time, was a heartthrob and star of South Pacific. But when he asked me to sleep with this very unattractive man in front of him and his wife, I gave up on the idea of acting and came back to my parents’ house to go to university. It’s strange because a lot of people marvel at the fact that I was a woman at university in the 60s, but it didn’t feel odd or unusual to me – even then.”

“I’d already met my future husband, Mike Sarne, before going to university and didn’t like him at all. He was pompous and arrogant and, even when I was working as a secretary for a literary agency after graduating, he managed to get me fired because they thought I was giving him all my secrets. As an apology he took me out to dinner and after one thing and another, we got married on my 24th birthday. 

“While I’d always been very independent growing up, I suddenly found myself with a man who was constantly in demand. He’d already had three number one hits in the UK and had since turned his hand to directing – so we suddenly found ourselves in Hollywood. The sad reality is I was completely ignored in our marriage – I wasn’t seducible and didn’t take drugs, so I went from being strong and independent Tanya Gordon to sad and destitute Tanya Sarne within the space of an aeroplane ride. 

“People often marvel at who was around me during our time in Hollywood – but of course, they weren’t as high profile then as they are now. It’s an interesting story: Roman Polanski asked us to go and stay in his house to look after Sharon [Tate] while he was making a movie in Europe. I refused to go because I wanted my own house and my own life, and it was extremely fortunate that I dug my heels in because the people who did go to look after her were murdered. I was very lucky – it really was an extraordinary twist of fate.”

“When Ghost was riding high, the opportunity came to create fragrances which was something I loved doing. It was originally a licensing deal with Wella and we made three really successful perfumes, but they then sold out to Proctor & Gamble, who I struggled to work with. It’s interesting, because they’ve never had a successful Ghost fragrance beyond the first three we created with Wella, which probably tells you everything you need to know.

“At the same time, fashion buying habits were changing. Women no longer bought clothes for the season and shops weren’t buying as deeply into collections. There were also thousands more designers and it was no longer clear what customers wanted. Our wholesale business suffered as a result, even though our retail stores were doing well. I’d also had to take the manufacturing outside of the UK, which hurt me more than I can say. It had been done in small local units and to suddenly take these people’s livelihoods away was very difficult. But we’d have gone bankrupt if we stayed with them – it was just too expensive. 

“I was also in recovery from my drug addiction and maybe not as focused as I had been. I was leaving a lot more to my finance director, who wanted to expand our retail chain – which would require capital. We saw a lot of people – including Philip Green who called Ghost clothes ‘nightwear’ – and Arev were the only group who were seriously interested. Back then it was headed up by Kevin Stanford, who was married to Karen Millen for a time. I agreed to sign the contract on the condition that I stayed in place as managing director while they opened thousands of stores. But as soon as I did, they kicked me out. They told me to get my things from head office and leave. Much to my amusement, two years, later Arev went bust, and Touker Suleyman bought it. The Ghost of today is a very different brand to the one I started – the garments now say ‘dry clean’ on the care labels, which misses the whole point.”