As the Sydney born, London living Editorial Director of Net-a-Porter.com and Fashion Director of their magazine Porter, Gabriele Hackworthy certainly has a global outlook on fashion. Factor in stints working as the Fashion Director at Vogue Australia, Vogue Nippon, Vogue China and Harper’s Bazaar in the UK, and you begin to get why this smart woman’s take on her industry is far from run of the mill.

In her most recent position – a post she has held for just over two years – it is Hackworthy’s responsibility to hone in on the inspiration and vision that will strike a chord with the millions of women that make up Net-a-porter’s customers all over the world. That she is a working mother with an eight-year-old daughter who has held jobs at the top tier of her industry for over a decade probably helps with this.

What we love especially about Gabriele, however, is her own personal approach to style. Known, as she admits below, for her Boy meets Girl take on dressing, her fondness for a bit of boho mixed with a slice of androgynous chic (she sure knows the power of a well cut blazer,) has seen her emerge on style blogs all over the world as the poster girl for a certain sort of nonchalant take on fashion with plenty of power dressing thrown in.

Here, she tells us what makes her tick.

What’s in your make-up bag?
Mac Face and Body Foundation, Mac Pro Longwear Concealer, Dior New Look Mascara, Tom Ford Brow Sculptor, By Terry Rose Lip Balm, Nars Bronzer

Do you have a beauty secret?
Sleep

How would your female friends describe your style?
Boy meets girl

What’s the most treasured item in your wardrobe?
My wedding dress, a Black Prada 1920s-style chiffon and lace slip dress with Art Deco chain embroidery

Hot date night with your husband, what do you wear?
A little Black dress, at the moment most likely by Saint Laurent

When home alone, what do you wear?
Men’s style silk pajamas

What do you wear to bed?
Less is more

You’re the fashion police for a day, what do you ban?
Acid Wash denim

Have you ever worn anything you now regret?
No, I never have regrets

How high is too high a heel?
I can run in heels

How old is too old for jeans?
Jeans are like women, they get better with age. Currently I’m wearing a lot by Frame and J Brand

If you could live in any other time for its fashion, when would you choose?
The 1970s – I loved all the women of that Era. Stevie Nicks, Angelica Houston, Bianca Jagger, Jane Birkin, Lauren Hutton and Charlotte Rampling would be just some of my style icons

What is your most recent purchase?
An Etro handkerchief hem bohemian dress

Can you judge a book by its cover?
You can judge a man by his shoes

What are your bad habits?
Addiction to Instagram

What’s your greatest extravagance?
Yet to be experienced!

What are your guilty pleasures?
I don’t feel guilty

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Be nice to people on your way up, you never know who you will meet on your way down.

What’s your favorite smell?
Frangipani flowers

What’s your idea of a great holiday?
Sun, sea, surf in Sydney, Ibiza or Majorca

What are you most proud of?
My daughter Charlotte

What is your pure bliss?
Lying on a beach with my family

Who or what would you like to be reincarnated as in your next life?
Betty Catroux . She was a must to YSL, and she once told me that as a little girl she had two ambitions in Life. “To never have to work and to lead an extraordinary life.”

What would you eat for your last supper?
The Baked potato and caviar from Caviar Kaspia in Paris

If you could meet someone from history who would it be?
Cleopatra

Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?
I hope technology will have become so advanced that I wont ever have to go under the knife

Do you have a favorite purse or bag?
My Hermes Constance bag

Do you have a favorite KOTUR bag?
My iphone and Agent 99 bag have seen many fun nights out together

On a scale of one-to-ten, how good looking are you?
Off the charts!

How would you like to be remembered?
As someone who lived life to the fullest

Photo Courtesy of Oliver Holms

No slavish follower of runway fads, British-born Sarah makes her wardrobe of Alaia classics and timeless biker jackets work hard for her, whether at home in Hong Kong or jet-setting the international front rows.

Her friends call her a magician, but I like to think of her as more of a technician, piecing together components to create a masterpiece.

As you would expect from the fashion director for the Lane Crawford group of department stores in Asia, her product knowledge is encyclopedic, with the contents of her make-up bag reeled off without hesitation and with full specification – brand, shade and size.

A curator of fashion, Sarah is master. She also offers unexpected revelations about her addiction to cheap chocolate, her knitting habit, and her weakness for all creatures great and small…

KOTUR: What’s in your make-up bag?
Sarah: Oh that’s simple. I’m very minimal on makeup. I wear very little – I never wear mascara, ever. Clue de peu foundation, Mac blusher, I wear a Chanel nude lipstick and I wear Giorgio Armani eyeshadow

KOTUR: Do you have a favorite purse or bag?
Sarah: Yes – I have to say the bag I use the most is an Hermes clutch. I use it for evening and for day. When I’m on a business trip, I have a car 24/7, so the car becomes my office where I keep files and everything. I don’t want them ruining my handbag or ruining my back.

KOTUR: Do you have a beauty secret?
Sarah: Yesterday I bought my first bottle of La Prairie Caviar Luxe cream. I’m literally on day 1, and by day 30 I expect to look… oooh… 35?

KOTUR: How would your female friends describe your style?
Sarah: Very eclectic, but mostly they’re shocked because I’ve got fewer clothes than any of my friends have – they call me a magician. I have a very strict wardrobe – I’m the expert at mixing and matching… it never looks like I wear anything twice.

KOTUR: What’s the most treasured item in your wardrobe?
Sarah: It’s a family signet ring, a very large signet ring which was unusual for a woman, it comes from about 1720, so it was a great great great great grandmother, and she was a very bold dresser.

KOTUR: Is there anything in your wardrobe you should get rid of but can’t?
Sarah: Never – everything I have in my wardrobe I wear. My wardrobe works very, very hard for me. I tend to buy the same thing in a couple of colors. The biker jacket, for example, has been in my wardrobe for 30 odd years, but I can always find an excuse to buy another one – the weight of it, the color, the cut, the proportion…

KOTUR: What do you never leave home without?
Sarah: Wearing scent. Perfume is very important to me, which is why I’ve got a very large nose – for a reason. I never leave home without wearing my perfume which is one of 3 brands: Jo Malone Lime Basil and Mandarin, the other is Bulgari and Clarins in the red bottle. I never walk out of the house with out scent on – I feel naked.

KOTUR: Have you ever worn anything you are now embarrassed by?
Sarah: I think my hair embarrassed me, looking back, at the 80s with that curly perm, the whole Flashdance thing. I certainly look at that 80’s perm Bananarama thing going on with the mousse, and it’s pretty terrifying…

KOTUR: How high is too high a heel?
Sarah: Oh no such thing, but I will never be uncomfortable. Anna Dello Russo said fashion should be uncomfortable, but I am in the school that absolutely anything I wear that if I have to fiddle with it, or if I’m mincing around in pain, it’s just not going to happen.

KOTUR: How old is too old for jeans?
Sarah: Never, never. My mother is 80 and unbelievably chic, she is my style icon. The chicest woman you will ever know, beautiful, beautiful woman – she’s very much like the Duchess of Devonshire, she’s a very tall and regal woman, she wears jeans. We went out and bought a pair of J Brand dark, dark blue jeans and she looks incredible in them.

KOTUR: What is your most recent purchase?
Sarah: Very easy… yet another Alaia dress. My first independent purchase, with my first salary at 17 was an Alaia dress. I saved up and went to Paris. Absolutely I still have it and wear it. It’s the one brand and time when I never ever look at a price tag, because it is irrelevant to me in that respect – it defies trend, it defies season, it defies anything you would normally question “should I pay this much for this or that?” because I’ve never, never not worn my Alaias to death…

KOTUR: Can you judge a book by its cover?
Sarah: Never, but I am an extremely good judge of character. I guess it’s because my grandmother was a psychic, and it’s something I’m never wrong on…

KOTUR: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Sarah: My greatest extravagance, I suppose, is my inability to say no to an animal in distress. Every year, there are more animals in my house – literally we now have 2 dogs, 5 cats, and I lavish my mutts…

KOTUR: Do you have a cheap thrill?
Sarah: When I say I like chocolate, I only like cheap chocolate…Cadbury’s.

KOTUR: Who or what would you like to be reincarnated as in your next life?
Sarah: A really loved dog! A dog in a family that is really crazy about me, because that would be a fabulous life…

KOTUR: Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?
Sarah: I’m a no to Botox, but will I have surgery… hell yes!

KOTUR: What part of your body would you like to change?
Sarah: I would like straight hair that I don’t have to blow-dry.

KOTUR: Do you have a favorite Kotur bag?
Sarah: Yes, it’s my feathers… it’s really so chic. Again, because I’m so understated in a lot of the things I wear, I love a clutch bag and people say ‘ooh where did you get that?’ and it’s always in my bag in every trip.

KOTUR: On a scale of one-to-ten, how good looking are you?
Um… I’m not good looking, I stand out in a crowd – people remember me. I’m not a classic beauty, I’m different… and how do you rate that?

A background in magazines at Harpers Bazaar in the US and on the launch of C magazine in Los Angeles set Ross on her fashion trail. Transferring her skills to TV, she worked on shows such as Lipstick Jungle – the perfect backdrop for her sophisticated and eclectic take on how women want to dress now. A savvy show about successful women (in knockout outfits, of course,) we at Kotur were very proud to be carried by it’s actresses.

These days, Ross is the Fashion Director of Departures magazine, where she styles their shoots and also writes a column, Uptown Girl, alongside working as a consultant to both large fashion houses and with the likes of Vera Farmiga, Kim Raver, Naomi Watts and Mariska Hargitay.  Whether it’s for a big name brand or a red carpet moment, inspiring editorial or a character’s work get up, people seek her out for fashion that speaks about much more than trend. A big fan of jewellery, Chanel bags and a master at mixing vintage with designer (plus a pair of Manolo’s,) hers is a refined style that’s more than hard to come by. Some stylists bring something extra to the game, and Amanda Ross is one of them. With the sort of taste, sophistication and eye for style that’s about so much more than the particular dress you happen to be wearing, we are delighted that she’s agreed to be a Muse for Kotur.

What’s in your make-up bag?

Purell hand sanitizer, Clarins Moisture Replenishing lip balm with rose wax, Edward Bess bronzer and Santa Maria degli Angeli lotion from The Palazzo Hotel in Venice

Do you have a beauty secret?

Good genes and sleep

What would be your desert island essentials?

A tall Italian, water and sunblock

How would your female friends describe your style?

Uptown East meets Nepal

What’s the most treasured item in your wardrobe?

My collection of jewelry, both costume and real

Is there anything in your wardrobe you should get rid of but can’t?

I love to give away, so probably not

When home alone, what do you wear?

James Perse cotton leggings, Louboutin ballet slippers and a cashmere sweater

What do you wear to bed?

A cotton tank dress

You’re the fashion police for a day, what do you ban?

French manicures and Reality TV stars

Have you ever worn anything you now regret?

A Giorgio di Sant’angleo dress to a day wedding in Bedford

How high is too high a heel?

When you can’t walk

How old is too old for jeans?

Never if you still look good in them

If you could live in any other time for its fashion, when would you choose?

Greco Roman times, I love Grecian dressing

What is your most recent purchase?

An opal and gold pendant from Nardi in Venice

Can you judge a book by its cover?

Yes

What are your bad habits?

Recycling ex boyfriends when I know better

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

You are given one name, don’t trash it

What’s your favorite smell?

A burning fireplace anywhere in the mountains

What’s your idea of a great holiday?

Skiing in Europe

What are you most proud of?

6 years of running my own business

What is your pure bliss?

Hanging out with my twin sister and her three boys anytime, anywhere

What would you eat for your last supper?

A meal at Il Piccolino in West Hollywood

If you could meet someone from history who would it be?

Tolstoy, Kirkegaard, Stefan Zweig and Serge Gainsbourg

Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?

Nope

Do you have a favorite purse or bag?

My Chanel 555 bag

Do you have a favorite KOTUR bag?

The Ross Bag (named after me!)

How would you like to be remembered?

As an honorable person