{"id":105466,"date":"2021-04-26T11:58:47","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T10:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/?p=105466"},"modified":"2021-04-27T14:14:48","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T13:14:48","slug":"my-final-fashion-choices-as-i-say-goodbye-to-qvc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/presenters\/kathy-tayler\/my-final-fashion-choices-as-i-say-goodbye-to-qvc\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying goodbye to QVC with my final fashion choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello again.<\/p>\n

I hope this finds you well and possibly having enjoyed the recent relaxation in lockdown. The weather has been kind to many of us – Olley and I benefited from chilly nights but beautiful, clear blue skies and sunshine when we got away in our motorhome.<\/p>\n

We enjoyed a break together in Ross on Wye. We\u2019re so lucky to have the van – it\u2019s a brilliant way to travel safely as it\u2019s completely self-contained with our own shower and loo, and of course we carry and cook our own food. In fact, the weather was good enough to use the barbecue and cook outside every day.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re now on our way home for me to head into work. Monday 9pm and all-day Tuesday will feature one of my favourite footwear brands Vionic<\/a> as our Today\u2019s Special Value, with an adjustable slider sandal in a choice of four versatile snake effect colours (the product number is 189087).<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Designed with three zone comfort technology, which gives heel stability, arch support and cushioning throughout sole of the foot, I\u2019ve found wearing shoes from Vionic<\/a> really makes a difference to how comfortable my feet are. By encouraging correct foot alignment and posture, the footwear helps to reduce aches and stiffness, especially if you\u2019re on the go all day.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re searching for the perfect summer dress to wear with your new sandals, look no further than the WynneLayers<\/a> Today\u2019s Special Value, which launches at 9pm on Tuesday and features all day Wednesday (the product number is 186058). With an effortless maxi shape and beautiful fluid viscose fabric, it\u2019s an easy throw on dress that can be dressed up with heels and jewellery for an evening out or teamed back with flats or trainers for a casual look.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

It comes in a range of colours – play it safe with Cloud, Black or Light Heather Grey, add a soft pop of colour with Sage or Sea Blue or choose the brighter tone of Geranium. In regular or petite lengths and with a sheer-sleeved jacket<\/a> in Chiffon Denim available to layer on top, it\u2019s going to be hard not to go for it in a couple of colours!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll also be bringing you lots of fashion in Morning Style at 10am on Wednesday as usual, but my big news is that I won\u2019t be doing that for much longer because, after almost 21 years as a QVC presenter, I\u2019ve decided to retire!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about it for a while now and decided last summer that it really is time that I hang up my earpiece and microphone and stop talking for a living.<\/p>\n

My husband Olley is a bit older than me and hasn\u2019t worked for a while now and I really want to spend more time with him rather than leave him at home while I\u2019m at QVC. After 38 years of working in live television I want to concentrate on enjoying time with Olley and the rest of our family.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

We love to travel and enjoy touring the UK and Europe in our motorhome – we\u2019re also lucky enough to have had a house in Corfu for the last 20 years. We\u2019ve only ever been able to stay there for two or three weeks at a time but now we can really settle there for a while. I also want to spend more time simply enjoying being at home and in our garden, seeing more of our three amazing children Bex, Charlie and Billy, and two gorgeous granddaughters.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much to look forward to. Billy, our youngest, is to marry the love of his life, Mel, on the second of June. She\u2019s already part of our family but this will make it official and, although we will be limited by Covid restrictions, it\u2019s going to be the most fabulous and happiest of days.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Also, I find I\u2019m in a so much better mood if I\u2019m outside in nature and fresh air. I benefit hugely from exercising outside and I\u2019ll spend more time walking, swimming, gardening and rowing. Ali Keenan and I try to walk together regularly but it\u2019s never often enough or for long enough to complete all we want to say to each other! Without work to interfere, I hope to see more of the dear friend I met at QVC almost 21 years ago, when we started at the same time.<\/p>\n

It’s incredible to think that I began working at QVC the month before Billy started school and the month after I finish at QVC, he will be married!<\/p>\n

Of course, it was long before that when my television career started. It was all rather surprising. Having gained a degree in Physiology and Biochemistry, I was working as a sports scientist developing a series of tests to measure functional fitness for athletes competing in different sports and disciplines.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

I had enjoyed success myself as a modern pentathlete (horse riding, fencing, pistol shooting, swimming and cross country running), becoming World Champion when I was 19 in 1979. That really was the catalyst for a lifetime spent in the media rather than a science laboratory!<\/p>\n\"\"\n

My sporting achievements led to me appearing on Question of Sport (I was on Emlyn Hughes\u2019 team) and I was later asked by the same production team to present a live children\u2019s sports show called Stopwatch. I retired from competing in sport in order to work on the show in 1983, and in 1986 I was spotted by the producer of BBC Holiday. The rest, as they say, is history!<\/p>\n

At first, they only gave me activity holidays to report on, so anything that involved getting wet or muddy, jumping off cliffs or out of planes or just simply exhausting was my job. The first film I made was horse riding in the New Forest and I managed to fall off my horse before they\u2019d even got the camera out of its bag!<\/p>\n

I eventually got better and had the most wonderful opportunities to try so many different things. I\u2019ve parachuted, surfed, carriage driven, scuba dived, piloted a plane and a glider, water-skied and white water rafted, mountain hiked, kayaked, motor raced, hot air ballooned, parascended, wind surfed, cycled and dog sledged my way around the world.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

My role developed into being allowed to work on some more exotic locations and I travelled to the Seychelles, Bali and Alaska. I had a trip in a dugout canoe on a tributary to the Orinoco river in Venezuela (where I slept in a hammock in a mud hut and stood at the top of Angel Falls), I trekked through the jungle in Zaire to meet a family of silverback gorillas and I camped out in the Masai Mara surrounded by hyenas. I\u2019ve skied in the Rocky Mountains, watched glaciers calve in Alaska and marvelled at Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone Park.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

How lucky have I been!? I loved it all…<\/p>\n

I was asked to join the TVam breakfast television team in 1989. I started on Good Morning Britain sitting beside the lovely Mike Morris and moved to present AfterNine before the birth of our first child Rebecca in the summer of 1991.<\/p>\n

I stayed at TVam, fitting in being a mum and continuing to film for BBC Holiday as well until TVam lost the franchise bid to GMTV at the end of 1992. That\u2019s when my then dressing roommate Lorraine Kelly took over the 9am show and six weeks later our second child, Charlie, was born. Our family was complete in 1995 when Billy was born, and as he approached school age I had an interview at QVC and got the job!<\/p>\n\"\"\n

In many ways, it doesn\u2019t feel anywhere near as long as twenty-one years since I started. Many of the faces that welcomed me then are still with us now… Julia, Jilly and Anne, Dale and Charlie were all presenting already and many behind the scenes then are still there now too.<\/p>\n

The job has changed, of course. I didn\u2019t write a blog at the beginning as there was no social media and the range and quality of what we bring you on air and the number and expertise of our guests have improved hugely.<\/p>\n

But the essence of what we do, the connection we feel with you, our viewers, and the friendships I have made at work over the years are the same and the most important. I will miss the people I work with more than anything but I will stay in touch with as many as I can, their friendship is too precious to lose.<\/p>\n

I have so many memories to cherish. I\u2019m proud of the part I\u2019ve played in the Morning Show becoming a regular show and have so enjoyed working alongside Simon Biagi (I even like the useless facts he shares at the start of the show – don\u2019t worry, he\u2019ll keep on bringing us those and I\u2019ll just join you as part of the audience…)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also enjoyed helping to develop Morning Style and I\u2019ve learned so much from our expert fashion stylist guests. I\u2019ll still be buying more than I should from our fashion department!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the everyday work that I\u2019ll remember – from tackling the overnight MoonWalk charity marathon with a group of QVC mates, to a trip to the Hong Kong Gemstone Exhibition and learning about the fine jewellery we sell, to making a film on the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship in Dubai when we were selling holiday cruises – there\u2019s so much to cherish. It\u2019s really all been about the people I\u2019ve done everything with, and the teamwork.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

The presenters are the face of QVC but we can only do our jobs because there are so many people working hard behind the scenes to make it happen. In a way, that\u2019s true of life itself. It\u2019s the connections that we make with people as we travel though our lives that enrich us more than anything.<\/p>\n

My final Morning Style will be at 10am on May 5th when I\u2019ll be joined by the new regular presenter – and I can assure you the show will be in the best of hands. And my very last appearance on air will be with Simon for the Morning Show on May 6th.<\/p>\n

I hope you can join me one more time as I say my goodbyes – it\u2019s going to be hard to not become emotional when I think about how long QVC has been such a big and important part of my life.<\/p>\n

Thank you for being a part of the QVC family and experience that has sustained me for so long. I\u2019ll try not to look back over my shoulder too often as I move into the next phase of my life but as Olley and I head off into the sunset together, there\u2019ll always be a special place in my heart for QVC.<\/p>\n

All the best to you all, do take care.<\/p>\n

With love<\/p>\n

Kathy xx<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello again. I hope this finds you well and possibly having enjoyed the recent relaxation in lockdown. The weather has been kind to many of us – Olley and I benefited from chilly nights but beautiful, clear blue skies and sunshine when we got away in our motorhome. We enjoyed a break together in Ross […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":105472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[263,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105466"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105494,"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105466\/revisions\/105494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}