** She loves scouring for bargains in Zara, stays in Airbnb – and has just knocked the Queen off the Rich List…**
‘I’m addicted to Ebay,’ India Rose James confesses, sipping her favourite cocktail – a Soho Mule. ‘I eBay all day, every day.’ Since she’s 23 and carving out a career in the struggling arts industry, it’s perhaps not surprising that she’s a committed charity shopper who also holds public jumble sales in her flat. Or it wouldn’t be – if she wasn’t also London’s wealthiest young woman.
Although India Rose could blend in with many of the girls passing by – her hair hanging long past the collar of her Topshop blouse, platform plimsolls boosting her already model-esque frame to 6ft – she owns the very place we’re sitting in: the Soho House private members’ club. She and her sister, Fawn, 29, are hide my phone from myself as I’m on it too much’), India has a tight-knit group of girlfriends from school who she’s still extremely close to, and prefers cuddling up with her boyfriend, Will Pelham, in their (penthouse) flat on a Friday night to partying until dawn. She’s endearingly passionate and ever so slightly shy, laughing quietly but frequently. Her voice is soft and wellspoken, but wouldn’t cut glass – more Made In Chelsea than Kate Middleton.
Already a huge fan of the high street, she has a new-found love for Zara, and so many shoes that she’s had to store some pairs on her kitchen shelves. ‘Shoes are my problem,’ she laughs. ‘I’d rather have another pair of shoes than, say, go out for an expensive meal.’ Despite her essentially unlimited budget, she gives herself an (undisclosed) allowance, with a limit on how much she can spend on clothes – a self-discipline she learned from her upbringing.
‘People have a misconception of me,’ she says. ‘They don’t realise that I was brought up by normal, middle-class people who have done very well for themselves. I always had to earn my pocket money like anybody else.’
‘It annoys me when people ask me why I work.'
After shunning university to do fashion internships, she’s just opened her latest project, Soho Revue – a 5,000ft gallery on London’s Greek Street, showcasing emerging artists. With up-and-coming collaborations with Central Saint Martins and Savile Row, and talk of hosting events now London Fashion Week is moving to Soho, it’s already a burgeoning success – and India Rose is working around the clock.
‘It annoys me when people ask me why I work. Yes, I could spend my time flying round the world – and I like to treat myself to a holiday – but I want something to wake up to. I want to make my grandfather and my family proud of me; I’d love it if people saw my achievements first and spoke of my grandfather second. I want to feel like I’ve done something – especially as some people expect me to do nothing.’
India Rose isn’t afraid to point out that much of the negativity comes from others being envious (or, as she puts it, ‘jelly’) of her. But, moreover, she feels too often in the shadow of her mother, Debbie, who died of a heroin overdose aged 36, when India Rose was just nine months old. She was then brought up by her father, John James, and stepmother, Gilly, who she calls Mum.
‘Of course [my birth mother] is a part of me, but I’m not her,’ India Rose says, a little defensively. ‘It’s unfair to judge me now on what’s happened in the past. I don’t actually think [Debbie’s death] has affected me at all. I have a mother and she’s been bringing me up since I was tiny.
‘Obviously it does keep you away from drugs,’ she adds. ‘Why do something that killed your mother?’
It’s a view shared by her sister Fawn, who is now a director of Soho Estates and to whom India Rose is ‘super-close’. But, for both, being phenomenally wealthy has its drawbacks. ‘I’ve always known people might use me for my money,’ she says. ‘I’ve overheard girls I thought were going to be friends say, “Get in with her, she owns The Box [a Soho nightclub].” But I don’t dwell on it. I couldn’t say for sure I wouldn’t be the same if I was in their position.’
However ‘normal’ she seems, India Rose is never going to be exactly like any other 20-something, with a £454 million back-up plan behind her. But although she’ll never worry about being jobless and broke, she still seems more passionate than priviliged.
Before we leave, I ask her what she’s doing that evening. ‘I’m heading to a friend’s gig, then I’m packing for a few days away,’ she says. She’s not off to drop some cash in Cannes or Dubai, but to Iceland on easyJet – staying in a one-bed Airbnb apartment with two friends. ‘We’re all staying in one bed, but we don’t really care,’ she says. ‘We only need it for sleeping. What’s the point in getting somewhere flash?