Amanda de Cadenet

Amanda de Cadenet – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Discover Amanda de Cadenet — English photographer, media personality, and advocate. Explore her biography, creative trajectory, projects like Girlgaze, and her inspiring Amanda de Cadenet quotes on art, identity, and womanhood.

Introduction

Amanda de Cadenet (born May 19, 1972) is an English photographer, media host, author, and creative entrepreneur. She first came to public attention as a television presenter in the UK, later shifting her focus to documentary interviews, portrait and fashion photography, and advocacy for women and nonbinary creators through her platform Girlgaze. Her work bridges storytelling, representation, and empowerment from behind the lens.

Early Life and Family

Amanda de Cadenet was born in Hampstead, London, England. She is the daughter of Alain de Cadenet, a noted British racing driver and television presenter. Amanda grew up in England and moved to the United States in the early 1990s.

Her upbringing involved being around media, visibility, and creative circles. Over time, she began questioning the nature of visibility, identity, and how images are shaped by perception—questions that would later inform her photographic and media work.

Youth and Media Beginnings

At age 15, Amanda de Cadenet began her media career in the UK as co-presenter of The Word, a late-night music and youth culture show on Channel 4, which she hosted from about 1990 to 1995. She also co-hosted The Big Breakfast in the mid-1990s.

Her on-screen persona during those years earned her significant tabloid attention, in part because she navigated youth, fame, and media scrutiny while still in her teens and early twenties.

She also experimented with acting, appearing in smaller film roles (e.g. Four Rooms (1995), Fall (1997), Brokedown Palace (1999)).

Over time, she grew weary of fame’s distortions and sought a shift toward more authentic creative expression.

Career & Achievements

Transition to Photography

In the 2000s, Amanda de Cadenet shifted her focus toward fashion and portrait photography. Her portfolio includes work for magazines such as Spin, Jane, Harper’s Bazaar, and other editorial and celebrity portraiture.

In 2005, she published a photography book titled Rare Birds, a collection of over 100 portraits from her work up to that point.

Her photographic approach often emphasizes authenticity, nuance, and resisting overly retouched or idealized portrayals.

Media and Interview Work

Amanda created and hosted The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet, a television and podcast series that features long-form interviews with influential women and nonbinary figures. Her guests have included figures such as Hillary Clinton, Lady Gaga, Zoe Saldana, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alicia Keys, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and more.

She has used that platform to elevate women’s stories, address identity, gender, and personal narratives—linking her creative and advocacy ambitions.

She also authored It’s Messy: On Boys, Boobs, and Badass Women, a collection of essays reflecting on womanhood, motherhood, body image, identity, and cultural pressure.

Another of her published works is #girlgaze: How Girls See the World, tied to her Girlgaze project (below).

Founder of Girlgaze

In 2016, Amanda founded Girlgaze, a global multimedia platform that connects women and nonbinary creatives (especially photographers, artists) with brands and companies seeking diverse visuals and voices. The goal is to open doors and challenge visual norms by supporting underrepresented creators behind the camera.

For this work, she was named by Fast Company as one of the “Most Creative People in Business” in 2020.

She has also been involved in initiatives aligned with the #MeToo Movement and sexual violence prevention, using her platform for advocacy.

In 2021, she became one of the founding members of Victoria’s Secret VS Collective, alongside women like Priyanka Chopra, Naomi Osaka, Megan Rapinoe, and others.

Legacy and Influence

Amanda de Cadenet’s influence is felt through multiple axes:

• Visual representation & inclusion
  Through her photography and Girlgaze, she challenges dominant aesthetics and opens space for diverse creative voices.

• Narrative of authenticity
  Her shift from fame-driven media to reflective, intimate storytelling signals possibilities for reinvention and integrity in public life.

• Women’s media & creative entrepreneurship
  As a media producer, interview host, and facilitator of creative economies, she demonstrates women can shape their own platforms rather than be passive subjects.

• Mentorship and infrastructure building
  Girlgaze is less about her as an artist than about building structural support for others to thrive within the industry.

Her legacy is still evolving, with impact in photography, media, gender discourse, and creative networks.

Personality, Talents & Values

Amanda de Cadenet is often described as:

• Courageous and vulnerable — She shares personal experiences (body image, motherhood, relationships) openly, bridging vulnerability and authority.

• Empathetic storyteller — Whether interviewing or photographing, she tends to bring compassion, listening, and curiosity to her subjects.

• Visionary connector — She sees gaps in creative ecosystems and builds bridges (e.g. connecting creators to opportunities).

• Resilient & adaptive — Reinventions from TV to photography to media entrepreneurship reflect agility and resilience.

• Values-driven — She emphasizes social responsibility, women’s empowerment, inclusion, and integrity over superficial success.

Her talents include visual composition, narrative interviewing, brand building, creative direction, and community curation.

Selected Quotes by Amanda de Cadenet

Here are some notable Amanda de Cadenet quotes reflecting her perspective on art, identity, and womanhood:

“I don’t raise my daughter differently than her twin brother … She claims it’s because she needs to be 'comfortable and functional' … I would wear a tracksuit seven out of seven days if I could.”

“I love photography — I fell in love with photography, I think, because it was my own thing, it wasn’t something I needed other people’s permission to do.”

“Retouching is an incredible tool but can also create unrealistic expectations for women who don’t understand that an image is not how the subject really looks.”

“I try to make things that are not elitist. There’s enough places in the world where we’re excluded. I do not ever want to be contributing to that. I want to be contributing to opening the doors and gates for women.”

“Some people would say having a feminist perspective is political, but I don’t think it is. I think it’s just having a female perspective.”

“Freedom is... not to be bound by my wounds. And to be able to eat cake every day.”

“When you’ve worked as hard as I have to form your identity, the last thing you want is to blur where you end and someone else begins.”

These lines reveal her concerns with agency, representation, identity, and the complexities of womanhood under scrutiny.

Lessons from Amanda de Cadenet

1. You can evolve your public identity
   Switching from on-screen personality to photographer and media entrepreneur shows that reinvention is possible at any stage.

2. Create your own platform rather than wait for permission
   Girlgaze is a prime example: instead of asking mainstream gatekeepers to include women, she built a structure to uplift them.

3. Authenticity invites connection
   Her openness about struggle, imperfection, and introspection invites deeper engagement from audiences.

4. Representation matters both behind and in front of the camera
   She not only seeks to photograph differently, but empowers others to hold the camera.

5. Advocacy and creativity can coexist
   Her projects are not just aesthetic but purposeful — pushing toward equity in creative industries.

6. Boundaries are essential
   Her reflections on maintaining identity, not losing oneself in others, show the importance of self-care and clear personal lines in creative work.

Conclusion

Amanda de Cadenet is more than a photographer — she is a storyteller, advocate, bridge-builder, and creative provocateur. Her journey from youth in media to mature expressive practice demonstrates resilience, purpose, and evolution. Through her images, interviews, and platforms, she seeks to shift how stories are told and who gets to tell them.

Her life and career invite us to ask: Who’s behind the lens? Whose stories are amplified, and whose are silenced? How do we claim our identity in creative spaces?