When I won the title of Miss Transliving International 2019 at the Haddon Hall event in March this year, one part of the prize was a free makeover at Sophie’s in Plymouth. Well I am perfectly capable of doing a fairly decent make-up on myself and as Plymouth is a 270 mile drive away for me, on the face of it, it seemed hardly worth my while to take up the free makeover offer (and for this reason I didn’t take up other ‘free’ offers which were also part of the TLI prize). But I had met Juliette, the person behind Sophie’s, some 16 years ago, and had got on really well with her then so I didn’t need much of an excuse to go and meet her again. Also I needed to make a visit to the Dumbleton Hall Hotel in the Cotswolds to sort out some details for our Dumbleton Days event in November, and as this was about half way to Plymouth, by combining both trips it wasn’t quite so crazy to go the extra distance to Plymouth.
My overnight stay at the Dumbleton Hall Hotel was wonderful as always. I met up with Jasmine there but unfortunately a few others who had said they might meet me there did not make it. I had a few things to do at the hotel the next morning, including a meeting with the events manager before driving onto Plymouth.
It was pouring buckets when I arrived at Sophie’s late afternoon but Juliette quickly welcomed me in. I had booked in to spend two nights at her house to give us plenty of time to have my makeover and photoshoot during the day I was there. Actually, there is no such person as Sophie – it is just a clever device by Juliette to refer to the place where she does her business as opposed to her own personal home. When I first visited Juliette in 2002 the Sophie’s dressing service was in a separate house to Juliette’s own home. Later Juliette with her dressing service moved to Bath for a while but subsequently she moved back to Plymouth where Sophie’s is now located in the lower floor of her own house. Besides an extensive collection of clothes, shoes, wigs, etc., rooms for the makeovers and photography, there is also a self-catering room for overnight stays.