Fiona (43) on AlisonALISON'S worst look was undoubtedly the green punk hair she sported as an art student. Since then her style has calmed down – now my biggest worry is she'll turn up wearing the same as me, which happens freaki
shly often.
She has always lived in London, but that didn't stop us being close – we'd visit each other for holidays, and when I started working down there we'd go out partying. Alison could get your name on all the trendy guest lists. Her taste in music was terrible – she was into techno and bands you'd never heard of, and she tried countless times to drag me with her to Glastonbury. She's still a big show-off when it comes to music.
It wasn't until our 30s that we came up with the Fifi & Ally concept, over a few glasses of wine. Alison's the arty one, so she gravitates towards the buying side, whereas I'm better at looking after the restaurant, deli and catering. Having said that, we both have input into most decisions, and often step on each other's toes. Alison is a huge fan of kitsch and once chose to stock these God-awful Chinese plastic pencil cases. They did sell, so she proved me wrong, but I was glad to see the back of them.
We've had our fair share of blow-ups, especially in the early, stressful days. She'd slam the phone down or I'd send her an e-mail loaded with hidden meaning. Nowadays we've learned to put things in the '24-hour drawer' rather than lashing out.
Alison is far too soft, especially when it comes to our staff. She's also appalling at nipping problems in the bud. She constantly puts things off – which can drive me mad.
The distance between us – with her in London and me in Glasgow – gives us our own space, but it does mean when we get together we fire things at each other at 100 miles an hour, Alison punctuating every sentence with "Bloody hell!"
Alison (41) on FionaMY FIRST memory of Fiona is the two of us playing with our Sindy dolls in her bedroom. I'd drawn make-up on mine and she'd cut the hair off hers. I always looked up to her as she was older. Her mum used to cut her hair really short and she looked like a boy – I think that's why she now has this shock of red hair.
She was a big New Romantic fan and used to wear this disastrous pair of orange-striped leggings. Her philosophy on clothes would be: "You can never dress too young."
Once we attended an awards ceremony and, because she's shorter than me, she wore these sky-high, dominatrix-style shoes. Fi had to walk down a catwalk to collect the award and fell over in full view of everyone.
She's too impulsive at times, but part of that makes her a successful businesswoman. She's very driven. People do find her quite confrontational as she can be very direct, and she gets cross if people don't do things quickly. When we deal with our staff she always plays bad cop to my good cop.
Since I'm based in London I often feel removed from things, and I like to talk to Fi regularly. She is really bad at returning my calls, which annoys me, and when we have spoken on the phone she'll end the conversation saying, "Bye bye bye bye bye bye bye" – I'm not sure if that's a Scottish thing or if she's just eager to get rid of me.
We find the same things funny. A few years ago we were on the train back from Paris thinking about our ideal shop manager. We built up an image of this Catherine Tate "how very dare you" sort of gentleman with velvet gloves. We went into such hysterics that a stern businesswoman asked us to be quiet, which made it worse. The woman eventually moved carriages while we giggled like teenagers for the rest of the journey.
• Fifi and Ally (
www.fifi-and-ally.com)
The full article contains 716 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
