SHE has gone from TV fashion guru to a multi-million pound beauty entrepreneur thanks to Trinny London – the cult make-up venture she founded just eight years ago.
Now frank-talking Trinny Woodall is set to share her business brain with new-starters who want to follow in her lucrative footsteps as a guest dragon on Dragons' Den.
And if they want to channel Trinny’s incredible success they are big boots to fill.
New accounts, filed at Companies House shortly before Christmas, revealed her beauty brand racked up an impressive £56.7 million worth of sales in the year to the 31 March 2024 – its best year to date.
Since founding digital-first Trinny London in 2017, she has successfully scaled the business into a global brand that has sold a wide range of skincare and make-up products in 180 countries, with retail stores in the UK, Ireland, US, and Australia.
When Trinny, now 60, recommends a product on social media its sales rocket - proving her unrivalled power in the beauty business.
Savvy Trinny pocketed £33.2 million in the UK alone, as well as £17.4 million from the rest of the world and £6.1 million from the rest of Europe, according to sales breakdown figures in the financial statements.
Not bad for a former TV star who, a decade ago, was battling to save her home after a divorce wrangle and the death of her ex-husband left her facing a legal battle over is £300,000 debt.
Named Sarah Jane, the savvy star gained the nickname Trinny after she was sent home from school, aged five, for cutting off another girl’s plait - leading family friend and St Trinian’s creator Ronald Searle to liken her to a mischievous St Trinian girl. The name stuck.
She and pal Susannah Constantine rose to fame as fashion and makeover experts, writing a weekly column for the Daily Telegraph - Ready to Wear - highlighting affordable high-street fashion.
The pair used themselves to demonstrate clothing that suited different figures.
They were soon snapped up by the BBC to host What Not to Wear -aimed at helping improve the nation’s dress sense.
The show was a huge hit - not least because of Trinny and Susannah’s trademark ‘boob-grabbing’, where they guessed participants’ bra sizes just by feeling their breasts, and their often ruthless analysis of guests’ fashion faux pas.
Even Trinny’s co-host Susannah has admitted the show would not be made today, telling Radio Times: "It was of its time and came along at the right moment, but it wouldn’t work today and I can understand why.
"People are fed up of being told what to do.”
But Trinny’s own daughter Lyla Elichaoff, had a more brutal analysis of her mum’s show telling Tatler: “I think they would be cancelled if the show was made now.
"You can’t really speak to people like that any more, and say things like: ‘You’re so ugly.’”
Personal tragedy
Despite the huge wealth Trinny has now accumulated she has suffered her own fair share of tragedy and financial woes which led to one of the most bizarre divorce settlement battles of all time - from beyond the grave.
Trinny was married to entrepreneur Jonathan Elichaoff for ten years and had daughter Lyla before they divorced in 2009.
As part of the divorce settlement, it was allegedly agreed that Mr Elichaoff would pay his estranged wife £24,000 a year in maintenance costs as well as repaying a loan from the TV fashion expert totalling £1.4 million.
It was later revealed that the businessman had been declared bankrupt just before the divorce was finalised, which meant that the original settlement was rendered null and void.
In 2014 Mr Elichaoff took his own life. In what a spokesperson for the TV presenter then described as a “nightmare” situation, Trinny was then being pursued by the trustee in Mr Elichaoff’s bankruptcy for the debts he left behind when he died.
The creditors owed nearly £300,000 by the businessman claimed that as the wealthier party at the time of the divorce – due to Mr Elichaoff’s undisclosed bankruptcy – Trinny should have actually been paying her husband maintenance.
But in 2016 the case was rejected by the High Court - preventing Trinny from being pursued for the debt.
Talking about her money woes on a recent podcast she said: "So, there was that period when the life I thought I would create for myself had not... I had been earning a lot of money, I bought this big house, mortgage, everything.
"I had this big overhead and then I wasn't getting the revenue in, so I couldn't afford the big life."
Booming business
The following year Trinny - who was then dating billionaire Charles Saatchi - made the move which was going to make her serious cash, setting up online make-up brand Trinny London.
It boomed during COVID when stores were shut and customers hit online sites with a vengeance - and was valued at £180m by Forbes in 2021.
Since then it has grown with 2024’s business review reporting: “During the year Trinny London Group has continued its strategy of delivering incredible products to its customers, focusing on personalisation, education and engagement, and has delivered a strong set of financial results.”
It increased its headcount of staff to 221 from 204 upping the salary of its highest-paid director – presumed to be Trinny - to £361,321 from £309,086, as well as amassing £10.4 million worth of stock and netting as much as £41 for new shares in the business sold to investors.
The company’s growth is seemingly driven by Trinny’s restless desire to get fresh new products into the hands of her customers.
Her firm is busily registering multiple product trademarks at the Intellectual Property Office, applying in November 2024 to secure the rights to sell goods under Eyetallics, Miracle Halo and Miracle Sun brands.
The proposed new product lines set to join internet sell-outs Flush Blush, Eye2Eye, Just Joyous and Energise Me and Lip Glow, among others.
Trinny has long been a champion for female entrepreneurs, launching an elevator pitch series on Instagram in 2019, where budding female founders can explain their business to her 1.4 million followers.
And she is keen to help other budding entrepreneurs as a guest dragon saying she believes it is important as an entrepreneur with a business that is growing to help others.
She says: “If you can succeed in a tough economic climate, you can easily succeed in a good economic climate.
"Although it might be the most challenging way to launch a business, I think it also gives entrepreneurs the greatest chance to thrive, because if you can break through when you've got the odds against you, you’ve really built something solid.”
