Rich List 2017
68 • thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlistI don’t think money
makes you any happier,
but it does give you
control over how
you want to l ive”
Lady Annabel Astor
CEO , entrepreneur and mother of Samantha Cameron
THE
RICH LIST
INTERVIEW
ELLIE
AUSTIN
T
he walls of Lady Annabel Astor’s Belgravia
apartment are covered with portraits of her
illustrious relatives. Her paternal
grandmother, the National Velvet author
Enid Bagnold, hangs alongside a painting
of Annabel’s husband, William Astor, 4th Viscount
Astor, a businessman and Tory peer. In pride of place
between two heavily curtained windows is a painting of
Annabel, aged five, with her impossibly glamorous
mother, Pandora Clifford.
It is a visual reminder of the privilege and exclusive
social circle into which she was born. But these
paintings only tell half the story, because, rather than
opt for an unchallenging life sustained by titles and
inherited wealth, Astor, 68, has carved out her own
identity as the chief executive of Oka, the furniture
and homeware company loved by style-conscious
middle-class families across the country. A case of old
money making new.
“We’ve seen a much wider range of people buy from
us over the past couple of years,” says Astor in her quiet,
cut-glass tones. “Our customers used to be mainly
people who had antiques and knew about furniture, but
that’s really changed. People aren’t moving house as
much these days, so they want to make changes to
rooms using textiles or furniture or coloured cushions.
Decorating your home has become a bit like looking
after your wardrobe: you have diff erent looks for spring,
summer and winter.”
Oka’s appeal is simple. Its products are chic,
classically English in style and versatile; you are just
as likely to see a London townhouse kitted out with the
brand’s French-style armchairs and Asian-inspired
fabrics as you are a country pile or a beach house in
the south of France. Oka is also aff ordable. As Astor
puts it, her aim is to cater for the “middle tranche” of
people who want something classier than Habitat, but
can’t aff ord a swanky interior designer.That’s not to say that Oka can’t attract a more
exclusive clientele. The Duchess of Cambridge, Eddie
Redmayne, Judi Dench and the designer Valentino are
said to be Oka regulars and Astor’s fi ve children all have
Oka pieces in their homes. Bearing in mind that her
eldest daughter is Samantha Cameron, it’s possible a
former prime minister is currently enjoying some of his
new-found free time from the comfort of an Oka sofa.
Certain items are eternally popular with her
fashionable customers. “Cushions always do
unbelievably well. As do our fake fl owers, although we
call them faux fl owers. We spend a lot of time making
sure that the colour of the fl owers is exactly right. You
see a lot of badly made ones, but fake fl owers make such
a diff erence to our lives. We’re time-poor and it’s such
a faff to change the water all the time. It’s become very
acceptable to have fake fl owers in your home.”
That may be so, but there are no faux fl owers on
display today in Astor’s apartment. In fact, other than
the family portraits and some Oka staples — two giant
sofas, which her son Jake sleeps on when he comes to
stay from Hong Kong, and a long oak table, scattered
with papers and her laptop — the decor is relatively
sparse. This, she later explains, is because she spends
most of her time at Ginge Manor, in Oxfordshire, the
Astor family seat. It means she can rent out her London
home — another example of her fi nancial prudence
and practicality. The living room where today’s Sunday
Times photoshoot is taking place used to be crammed
with books, but some of her tenants had a habit of
walking off with them.
So, her place on The Sunday Times Rich List — her
family ranks 507=, worth £223m — is due only in part
to a distinguished surname and the successful family
property business, Sableknight. A signifi cant share of
that sum refl ects the fact that, 18 years after Astor
launched Oka with two friends as a mail-order
company, its popularity and reach continues to“
PHOTOGRAPH
DAVID VINTINER507= £ 223 m ▲
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