Annabel Czyba is putting her life experience to good use in her work as a stylist helping women, men and children to feel better about themselves, as SUE BRADLEY discovers.

SHE’S seen her dreams to be a ballet dancer shattered, battled breast cancer and leukaemia, coped with the sudden death of her father when she was just 12 years old and got through two divorces.

That’s not to say there haven’t been wonderful things too, however, not least her beloved daughter Isabel, a career as a model and many, many friends.

Throughout it all Annabel’s walked tall and faced each day wearing the right lipstick, advice she picked up from her days on the catwalk and still holds true today.

Now she’s putting her life’s experience to good use by helping others to gain confidence in themselves through her work as a House of Colour stylist, working with men, women and children to look and feel great through their choices of clothes, hair styles and, for female clients, make-up.

Annabel’s love of ballet stretches back to her childhood on a farm in Wexcombe, 10 miles south of Marlborough.

She started learning to dance when she was just four years old and had dreamed of going to ballet school, but her parents felt she should have all-round education and at the age of nine she was sent to boarding school.

“I had always wanted to be a dancer and I was talented,” says Annabel, who lives in Wroughton. “Sadly Queen Anne’s School decided to stop doing ballet as an extra-curricular activity, so I spent four years without it and was miserable.

“Looking back I think I am one of those people who have changed a lot since my teens; back then I found it easier to express myself through movement rather than talking. Dancing was a way to express myself.”

Annabel’s arrival at boarding school was all the more painful given that her dad had died after a sudden heart attack at the end of the annual harvest, just two weeks before.

“All in all I was feeling very sorry for myself,” she recalls.

Annabel left school at 16 and went on to study ballet, tap, modern jazz and other forms of dance at Andrew Hardie’s Ballet School. She initially intended to be a teacher but advanced to the point at which she was persuaded to set her sights on working in musicals. It was a happy time, but one that was suddenly brought to an end by an accident.

“Sadly and stupidly I was late for a jazz class one morning, and without warming up properly I stretched a leg on the barre and badly injured myself,” she explains. “The result was life changing, and I still feel the effects of it today at times, and ultimately I was never to realise my life’s dream to be a dancer.”

While one door had closed, another would shortly open when Annabel was taken under the wing of her then boyfriend’s sister, who encouraged her to make the most of her height and poise by becoming a model.

She started as a fashion house model, a job she describes as involving a lot of dogsbody tasks, before a friend encouraged her to take to the catwalk.

“From 1972 I modelled in fashion shows for Katherine Hamnett, Jeff Banks, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and many more, as well as doing photographic work and commercials,” she recalls.

“At the time fashion shows were becoming quite choreographed and my dancing experience came in quite useful for this.

“I never set out to be a model, I was rather pulled into it and enjoyed a career lasting 15 years, during which time I travelled to Israel, Munich, France, Italy, Switzerland and many other places.

“It was definitely fun and while there were some glamourous moments, it was certainly a time when we had to work very hard. During shows we had to do so many changes and used to end up sweating profusely. I formed many friendships and am still very much in touch with some of the girls I worked with back then.”

It was during Annabel’s catwalk days that she was given a piece of advice that she still passes on to her clients today.

“I was working for Courtaulds with a choreographer called Malcolm Goddard and one day we were concerned when some photographers turned up during rehearsals when we weren’t wearing make-up, but Malcolm said: ‘Don’t worry darling, just put on your best red lipstick.”

Annabel married twice and lived in London, Norfolk and Italy with her second husband, with whom she worked on renovating old houses, and was 41 when she had Isabel.

Doing up properties requires a great deal of money and frequently there was little for the family to live on, something that was to cause a great deal of stress over the years.

“At one point we couldn’t afford to live in our own house and went to work on an estate in Gloucestershire – I was the cook and housekeeper,” says Annabel. “All in all I think my life back then was very stressful and I lost a lot of my self-esteem over those years.”

Subsequently Annabel tried her hand at being a driving instructor, and went on to manage the shop at the Merchants’ House in Marlborough, during which time she discovered House of Colour.

“It all started when I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen for a couple of years who had completely transformed herself with a House of Colour stylist,” she explains.

“I had worn mostly winter colours all my life – my mother was a winter – but I started wearing autumn colours in my forties when I started going grey and wasn’t financially or emotionally confident.

“When I was shown my winter colours it was like coming home.”

Shortly afterwards completing her House of Colour training, Annabel found she had breast cancer.

“I found a lump early, thankfully, so I had a lumpectomy followed by radiotherapy in 2002,” she explains.

Seven years later, while going through her second divorce, she was diagnosed with leukaemia and underwent a bone marrow transplant using material taken from her brother, Patric Hosier.

Her treatment included chemotherapy, which led her to lose her hair for nine months, and all in all she didn’t work for a year.

“It as a long time before I recovered my strength, but I always tried to stay positive and I willed myself to get better for Isabel’s sake,” says Annabel. “I never bothered with wigs, preferring to put my knowledge of colour to good use and cover my head with a turban, something we used a lot during my modelling days.”

Today Annabel combines her House of Colour activities with working part time in The Merchant’s House and says she’s really enjoying life.

“Like many of my clients, I have been through a lot,” says Annabel, now 67.

“I see a lack of confidence and loss of way in so many of the wonderful people I meet; for example, mums often focus totally on the children and place little emphasis or importance on themselves.

“I love watching, and being part of, the transforming and life-changing effects that follow when clients realise the colours, styles and make up they should wear and seeing them flourish and become more confident and look so much healthier and better for it. It’s wonderful to see people blossoming and feeling empowered. Confidence is so important for life.”

• www.houseofcolour.co.uk/annabelczyba