Ali Hewson is naturally curious. It’s what drives her. But it’s disconcerting trying to interview someone who wants to ask all the questions. As we sit in a hotel suite in New York, where Ali and business partner Bryan Meehan are presenting their revamped skincare line, NUDE, she wants to ask all about me. “Oh you moved here to New York did you? Where do you live?” she asks, eyes alert and friendly behind heavy black spectacles, all in a dancing Dublin lilt. The thing is, we are in a hurry. Her husband is coming to pick her up.
That husband, of course, is Bono; the boy who made her laugh when she was twelve and the man with whom she celebrated her thirtieth wedding anniversary this August. His car is imminent, it’s the end of the day, but Ali is charm itself, fluent about the merits of her skincare line and why it has been updated.
“Well, if you are conscious of what you are eating and what you are wearing, you have got to be conscious of what you are putting on your skin every day,” she explains earnestly. “We wanted to make a natural skincare line and, although there were plenty of them around, none were active in anti-ageing or feeding your skin. We wanted to make skincare that was pro-active.”
Her inspiration came from omega oils and probiotics, healthy bacteria found naturally in the skin and the LVMH group was so impressed, it bought a 70% share of NUDE last year. “They were so excited about the formula and re-formulated it with us. So now, this is ‘super NUDE’,” Ali exclaims, proudly passing me bottles. The packaging has also been given an overhaul. “You want to have beautiful things in your bathroom. After all, it’s a luxury to live in a part of the world where you use skin creams.”
I can’t help but notice Ali’s skin is translucent and quite flawless, so much so, I worry she that she has succumbed to needle intervention until, to my relief, her forehead moves. Instead, I suspect she did a deal with a high SPF factor at an early age because, at 51, she looks a dozen years younger. She wears steep platform shoes and a black dress by House of Dagmar, a small Swedish brand. “I’m not wearing Edun, which is sad,” she sighs.
Inspiration for Edun, her fashion line, “came out of buying for my children and not wanting to buy clothes made by someone else’s children, made with despair.” As an early ethical label, Edun has been a roaring success and now shows at New York Fashion Week. Is Ali ever temped to design herself? “That is not something I have training for, although I do love to watch the process as much as possible.”
Does she have any style icons? “I like to look simple relaxed and uncomplicated. But you would die if you saw the state of my closet: most of my clothes are 20 years old and I hate shopping with a passion.” But she does adore clothes, often buying online. “I love Vivienne Westwood and the
way she hits the female form, though there is nothing uncomplicated, simple and relaxed about her clothes!” As for her enviable figure? “I try not to eat anything out of a packet. Fresh food seems to give more energy but, like most women, my weakness is chocolate.” What exercise does she do? “Mainly yoga. I don’t normally get the chance to do it with an instructor so I have a guide, a little piece of paper.” It’s rather sweet to imagine Ali in her hotel room in eagle pose scored from a cheat sheet.
Ali and Bono – or Paul Hewson – started going out long before U2 was conceived or became successful. Alison Stewart, as she was then, was born in Dublin in 1961 to a father who ran an electrical business and a stay-at-home mother, growing up alongside a younger brother who now lives in Australia. At school, she thought about becoming a pilot, nurse or vet. “I always knew I would see the world.” See it she has; and they are a close bunch, U2, which has been key to their success and stability as a band. “Nearly all our friends come from school, the whole band went to
secondary school together. I think maybe, as fame happened and the band became bigger, it was more important to hold onto friends who really liked you and really knew you.”
Thirty years of marriage to Bono have produced four children: two older girls, Jordan, 23, and Eve, 21, who live in New York, and two younger sons, Eli, aged 12, and John, 11, who are at school in Ireland. “Dublin is home, although we did live in New York for a year when both our girls moved here. Even grown-up girls still have things that they need their mother to do,” she laughs. There is scant danger of their children falling prey to trust-fund syndrome, if the example of the Hewsons’ work ethic is anything to go by. With Ali and her two businesses and charitable work, and Bono recording and touring with U2, life for the couple is a military operation. “I try to make sure everyone is going to the right place,
so it’s busy, but it works. But the most important thing for us has always been the kids,” she continues. “If they aren’t completely secure, then nothing else is going well.”
For many years, Ali concentrated on her children and avoided the limelight, uncomfortable with the attention. It was the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster that bought her closer to activism. “Two million people had to be evacuated from their homes and the human tragedy, the social tragedy is almost immeasurable.”
The disaster at the processing plant released radiation estimated to be around 120 times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. In 1993, Ali drove a truck full of supplies to Belarus from Ireland. The project was filmed for a documentary she produced called Black Wind, White Land. “It was the first time I worked as an activist. I was more scared of the cameras than I was of the air [radiation] over there.” Having now found her voice, twenty-six years after the explosion, she’s still fundraising for The Chernobyl Children’s Project, of which she is patron. “We work with children in homes. If they survive to eighteen over there, they are put in jail; there is nowhere else for them. We organise volunteers to build new independent units for them and a lot of the able-bodied children come over and spend the summer in Ireland. They eat healthy food to boost their immune systems and learn English.” Hewson admits it’s a cause for which it’s hard to raise money. “It’s small stuff we are doing, but it’s groundbreaking in Belarus.” And she’s in it for the long haul. “Bono and I both understand that we can’t take any of this for granted. It’s a huge blessing.”
As is their long marriage. “It is!” she exclaims enthusiastically. How will they be celebrating? “A good friend of ours, Gavin Friday, is playing Electric Picnic, the festival. I think we will go and see him.” The car has arrived with her husband to collect her. I can’t help thinking that Bono may be the biggest rock star on the planet – but he is also a very lucky man.
http://www.nudeskincare.com/
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