The Incredible Women Podcast: A Women’s History Month Special

For 10 seasons, NET-A-PORTER’s Incredible Women podcast has been a space for thoughtful conversations with some of the most influential and inspiring women working today. The series has welcomed actors, authors, activists and entrepreneurs, and given them the chance to reflect on their careers, their craft and the people who have shaped their experience along the way.

This Women’s History Month, the podcast returns on Wednesday, March 18, with a special one-off episode – The Moment Everything Changed.

In this blockbuster special, host Natasha Bird brings together three Incredible Women – actor Simone Ashley, supermodel Bianca Balti and beauty entrepreneur Gucci Westman – asking them to reflect on the most pivotal time in their lives.

Some of those moments are dramatic, such as Westman’s do-or-die interview with legendary magazine editor Grace Coddington. Others are quieter, unfolding over months or even years. But each reveals how change takes hold and what happens when a woman begins to see her life in a different way.

Come back tomorrow to listen to the episode, as our three guests share defining stories from their lives – along with the unexpected lessons, relationships and turning points that shaped them.

Few people get to experience a rise as meteoric as Simone Ashley’s. The British actor first caught audiences’ attention as audacious It-girl Olivia in Netflix’s Sex Education, but it was her performance as self-assured Kate Sharma in global phenomenon Bridgerton that propelled her onto the world stage and made her one of the show’s most beloved stars.

Since then, Ashley’s career has continued to expand in exciting directions. This year, she made a return to Bridgerton, will appear in the long-awaited sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, and is embarking on a bold new creative chapter with the release of her debut music project.

For Ashley, the moment everything changed isn’t any single turning point. Instead, she describes how she’s coming into her era. Everything she has been working towards seems to be finding alignment right now, as we speak.

In our special podcast episode, Ashley reflects on the thrill of stepping into new artistic territory, the joy of working alongside screen legends, and the importance of building a circle of women who celebrate each other’s successes.

For more than two decades, Bianca Balti has been one of the defining supermodels of her generation. From the runways of Milan and Paris to the pages of the world’s most influential fashion magazines, her career has peaked at the highest levels of the industry.

But in recent years, Balti’s story has taken on a very different dimension.

After choosing to undergo a preventive double mastectomy following a BRCA1 gene diagnosis, Balti later faced an even greater challenge when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and underwent chemotherapy.

Throughout the experience, she shared her journey publicly with remarkable honesty, offering solidarity and encouragement to other women navigating similar battles.

For Balti, the moment everything changed did not come with her diagnosis, surgery or treatment. Instead, it arrived after her chemotherapy ended and when her remission began. At a time that many assumed she would feel triumphant, she experienced something more complicated: a profound reckoning with the woman she had once been – and the person she would now become.

In this deeply personal conversation, Balti speaks candidly about grief, identity and rebuilding a life with renewed purpose. She also extols the powerful community of women she has since built around her.

Gucci Westman has spent decades shaping the visual language of modern beauty. The makeup artist’s luminous, understated aesthetic has defined runway shows, red carpets and editorial shoots for some of the world’s most prestigious fashion houses and magazines.

Over the course of her career, Westman has also held senior creative roles at beauty powerhouses including Lancôme and Revlon, before ultimately founding her own brand, Westman Atelier: a consciously crafted makeup line that merges high performance with skincare-led formulas.

The moment everything changed for Westman came early in her career, when legendary Vogue creative director Grace Coddington took a chance on her after a meeting at the Condé Nast offices in New York.

What began as a single opportunity became the catalyst for a career that would reshape the beauty industry.

Today, as the founder of Westman Atelier, Westman reflects on that turning point not only with gratitude, but with a desire to recreate that experience for others – nurturing the next generation of creative talent and giving others the same sense of belief that once transformed her own trajectory.

To listen to this special episode of the Incredible Women podcast, subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and many more*.