Pineapple Dance Studios’ Debbie Moore: ‘I don’t know why people have this obsession with retiring’

How does the space-letting and clothing work together?

It’s all one business. We’re a bit like pop stars making their money from merchandise at pop concerts. The branded fashion side has always subsidised the dance studios.

Was establishing in Covent Garden costly?

The estate I’m on with Pineapple Studios is owned by the Mercers’ Livery Trust and I pay them about £50,000 a month rent. I’ve got a full repairing lease and not long ago had to pay £60,000 on windows because somebody said they looked like they might fall into the street. Wages run a close second, then insurance and cleaning.

I’ve got 20,000 sq ft with 10 studios for classes from beginners to professionals. I started with 20 teachers and now have 130 to 150. The teacher rents the studio for, say, £20 an hour, and the students pay the teacher. And we have 250 classes a week.

Have you invested in property?

Yes. They wanted a Pineapple in New York, so I bought three floors of a 12-storey building in SoHo – not yet gentrified – and sold it seven years later for four times as much. I’d recently gone public and felt it would have been “times 10” if we waited another year. By then we had Madonna coming every day, all the ballet companies; we were selling our clothes in Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s. But the institutional investors said, “You’re not in the property business”, and I got bullied into giving in. That day I said I’m going to buy it back. It’s a private company now.

Have you saved for your retirement?

I’ve got a private pension I’ve had forever. People ask, “Why don’t you retire?” I don’t know why people have this obsession with retiring. I don’t want to go on a cruise. We’ve just signed another two-year deal with Primark.

Was TV advert work lucrative?

I’ve done lots of TV commercials for hair. In a Silvikrin one I had to “land” with a parachute, take off my helmet and flick my hair to show it looking fabulous. To do this I had to jump off the back of a lorry.

Another was for Rolo and a boy and I had to fall off bicycles and roll about. But I was pregnant, not that you’d know, and two months later they needed to redo a bit. By then I was about to deliver, so they changed it to being at a party. The most I was paid for an ad in the 1970s was £5,000 [£50,000 today].