Trinny Woodall is an English fashion

Fashion journalism

Fashion journalism is an umbrella term used to describe all aspects of published fashion media. It includes fashion writers, fashion critics or fashion reporters...

 advisor and designer, television presenter and author. She was raised in a wealthy family and was privately educated. After ten years working in marketing – and battling alcoholism

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 – Woodall met Susannah Constantine

Susannah Constantine

Susannah Caroline Constantine is an English fashion journalist, advisor, television presenter, author and designer. Her second book, entitled What Not to Wear, has won her a prestigious British Book Award and sold 670,000 copies....

 in 1994, whom she joined to write a weekly fashion column for The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

. This led to the launch of their own internet fashion-advice business and the release of their first fashion-advice book, both of which ventures ended in failure.

They were then commissioned by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 to host What Not to Wear in 2001.