Life & Style after fifty portrait: Heleen Hulsmann

Portrait no. 29 features Heleen Hulsmann, 1963. Born just outside Amsterdam and despite being raised in a new housing development close to the city, she actually feels like a true ‘Amsterdammer’, though. As from the age of 12 Heleen was allowed to visit the Big City by herself by bus. Which she did from then on as often as she could.
Her true love for shoes started with her first job: Saturdays at a shoe store. After high school an internship at Wilma Wakker styling fueled the idea to become a window dresser. To only discover already during her training that her future wouldn’t be behind the glass. Heleen changed course and opened her agency for advertising creatives, Roughmen Creative Talent Agency.
After 15 years, a director husband and three kids – one daugther and twin sons – further, the time was there to sell the company. With a husband travelling for work, fulltime motherhood became her next project.
No need for her extended collection of designer clothes anymore and when she approached second-hand stores, none of them were interested in high-end vintage designers. She decided to sell to friends, a small rack was all it took. For starters. Soon others brought their clothes to Heleen and one floor of their house became background to famous private selling days. By appointment only, the Salon Heleen Hulsmann was born.
Now, six years later, there is a store in Amsterdam.

How do you feel about being over fifty?
Age really is just a number for me. I kind of feel the same as I did when I was in my twenties. Waking up happy every morning and feeling energic to start today. Love my work – and Pilates – and consider myself a lucky woman.

Which age is your favourite time? Would you like to go back?
I like to look back but do not want to go back. Looking back I realise that every decennium has its highlights. Around twelve I really felt on top of the world because hey, I was finally growing up. Experienced that same feeling when I was around twenty-one.  Everything was possible, world at my feet and about make a big career.
In my thirties I felt like I owned the world,  my business was thriving and in a relationship with the cutest man on earth. And when I turned fifty, I discovered another chapter. Started my new company Salon Heleen Hulsmann. Based on my  passion for fashion and styling. My dream job has landed.

What would your ideal day look like? No restrictions in time, money, people or whatever.
My ideal day would definitely be in a city, I love the energy of cities. Every season of the year. From the very cold wind that you encounter you when you turn a corner in the winter time in New York the heat on the Piazza San Francesco in Arezzo mid Summer. So we wake up in New York where we enjoy a lavish breakfast at The Beekman Hotel. After that it is coffee at Le Pain Quotidien in Antwerp, very conveniently around the corner of my favourite shop Modepaleis by Belgium designer Dries van Noten.
With packed shopping bags we sit down for lunch and meet our friends at restaurant Chiave d’Oro in Tuscany where it all adds up. For afternoon tea we head over to London, where else. At Chiltern Firehouse, to be precisely.
We the sun sets it’s time for a beer on a terrace, we bike through Paris with Cafe de la Nouvelle Marie as desired destination. Located in the fifth arrondissement.
We leave the bikes behind and hop on the boat to Majorca – my favorite island – where we will have dinner outside on the sidewalk at Patron Lunares in Palma. But not before we roamed the city streets of Palma on the hunt for a vintage market treasure. Looking back on the perfect day we lay our heads down at a seaside room in hotel Esplendido in Soller.