Fashion Neurosis with Jonathan Anderson

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:17Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Jonathan Anderson. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these clothes? what am i wearing today i'm why did i i don't know why i chose them um i am wearing a shirt that i really love that i found in new york um at this place called the front general store and then usual levi's and i don't know i'm wearing salomon trainers today um yeah it's everything usually is teamed with like a kind of jean usually for me i'm i like a uniform so it has to be something repetitive ultimately in the morning because you dress people in these beautiful quite romantic looks but how you dress yourself is quite locked down compared to your designs and is this a deliberate distinction um I don't know I grew up in Northern Ireland so when I went to school uh you always had a uniform um so I think I've been always kind of indoctrinated in this idea of like wearing the same thing and I find with the work that I do I I think it's nearly like cooking when you cook sometimes it's very hard to eat it um so I don't know I feel like I need to be some sort of like blank canvas to um project on to other people ultimately um I think yeah that makes a lot of sense I mean I've I've always been obsessed with the uniform We didn't have one at my school, but this container.

2:55And there is so much kind of chaos and hysteria in fashion that you have to have somewhere to keep it down. And I wondered when did you first wear something that made you feel different, like attached you to the feeling that clothes had power? How old were you? I think I must have been probably in my early teens. I remember there wasn't really big brand stores in Belfast. It was more kind of TK Maxx, which was like kind of where all the kind of clothing that didn't sell in stores went to. and I remember going with my mother there and buying like some crazy sort of like Jean-Paul Gaultier kind of denim jeans.

4:00I think they were jeans with jeans printed on it and there was then a kind of orange neon jacket and I'd always been kind of obsessed by him because in school there was this little tiny book in the library that had like um you know like the history of jean paul goetier there was one of vivian westward there was one in dolce and gabbana and um yeah they're kind of like a staple yeah and i just found the imagery so amazing in them you know there was like i think there's an amazing image of a guy in a kind of zebra printed double-breasted jacket smoking a cigarette with like eyeliner and blonde hair and I think there was something in that that for me I found quite alien from growing up where in Northern Ireland where it was not about that at all um I grew up in a family which was about rugby and on a farm so when I had when I bought these I never wore them randomly I think they were kind of more like the idea of owning it or something that you were part of it by owning it.

5:12And I think that was the first time I understood the kind of desire or kind of psychology around this idea of being a character or, I don't know. There was something in it that I think that we as humans are kind of this idea of decoration ultimately. And where did you, I mean, it's quite a bold statement in describing where you come from and you grew up on a farm, but had you seen something? Where do you think you made this kind of affiliation with showing your identity through clothes? I think it was, you know, I think maybe my parents used to always get the Sunday Times style, which was on the Sunday.

6:01They used to get these magazines. They would have like what's happening in London. It would be about fashion shows. it would be about, you know, I think at that point, maybe I'm wrong. I think A.A. Gill used to write for it. Oh, yeah. He was so good. He was so amazing. God. And I think it was this idea of like something which was kind of foreign and something that was sort of like where I felt like I needed to be able to express outside of like a kind of like uh of a conformist kind of environment you know i grew up in northern ireland you know i was born in 84 um between 84 and 90s it was like pretty uh uh quite a complex place to live you know it was you know the troubles were in full swing and um so in a weird I think it was just nearly, when I look back on it, I think it was more kind of the idea of dressing up to somehow feel like you were not in something or not part of something.

7:08You know, it was like nearly like a fantasist act. And I remember being at school, like being like people, like those days where you could actually, I think it was every six months you could wear what you wanted to school. And I remember like wearing like the most craziest things at school and being completely harassed by it like as if like i was like a kind of alien in this whole situation do you remember what you wore i i remember it was like i think we had gone i think my parents drove us to the south of france um to go camping once from ireland and we went to it was that moment where like decathlon was like a thing and they were kind of like uh climbing trousers that had these like crazy like kind of 90s graphics on them and I think I wore that with like a kind of nearly like a smiley t-shirt like huge um and these sort of like baggy trousers that would have probably fitted my dad so um and I remember people just being like what are you wearing you know and I think that was the first time you I sort of realized that clothing can have this sort of divisive act somehow or like make people feel uh question identity ultimately i think i think that's what i've been always fascinated about clothing is this idea of the identity of what when we wear something what does it tell you about yourself ultimately um and i've always been kind of fascinated by this idea of gender i remember weirdly when i was a kid there was a little small shop in in the town i grew up macrofell and i remember my mom taking me there to get like she would buy all her clothing it was a woman's store and when there was a sale on there was this like puffer jacket like a kind of leather puffer jacket and and i remember wanting it and And then the shop assistants say, oh, but the zip goes the other way.

9:16So it's the woman's side, like the way in which was buttoning.

9:23And so in my head, I didn't care. And then I remember wearing it and then people saying it's a woman's jacket, not a men's jacket. And so I always was obsessed by this idea of like this sort of like the coding that you get in clothing that is enforced onto you as a child. And what that meant. And in a weird way, going back to someone like Jean-Paul Gaultier, this idea of looking at gender. And, you know, I think he really, for me, was like a kind of big influence on this idea of presenting men in a way that I was not seeing around me, ultimately. Indeed, that's so interesting about the zip and the button, you know, the women's side and the men's.

10:07And did you feel, was there any shame, like when someone made a note you know pointed that out did you have any shame feelings or did you feel like I'm in this I'm going to this place I think you know the natural thing I think when you're younger is that you want to fit in you want to be cool somehow at school um so this idea that you were doing something that you were trying to get away with but people were noticing kind of I think bothered me in the beginning I was very kind of uh quite sensitive when I was younger like very kind of I would take everything incredibly personally um and I think for me it was like a very sort of uh it was the first time I realized that there was like a you know that you could have judgment on wearing something that is not for your sex or something um which I think in a weird way, it nearly kind of made me more introvert when I was younger.

11:07Does that make sense? Because I think it was like you're toying with something that actually seems quite subtle in my head, but actually a bigger gesture in other people's head, ultimately. Yeah, it's so interesting that it challenged you. It exposed you, but you had to follow it through. And it's like that separation of protecting the introvert part by being extrovert. And it's like it doesn't make sense, but it makes sense to how you feel and how you've described it is so good. You either disappear, and especially what you were talking about, growing up in the troubles and there being so much division and separating yourself out by being a completely other.

12:00thing another kind of world really that you allowed people to see yeah I think it's this idea of like I think anyone who grows up on an island and has actually gone through kind of like a bizarre it's a very bizarre moment in Irish history um I think there's always this thing of getting out ultimately. I think when you live, you, you kind of, uh, when you're creative, I think you have this feeling of to try to see other worlds to see, is this world what it should be ultimately, you know, because it, you know, when, when I was younger, you, during the kind of troubles, it got very heated in the kind of between like 1990 and 1997, um, was a kind of a chaotic moment in Ireland because it was sort of like it was the kind of beginning of the end you know before the good friday agreement and I think when we were kids you had kind of become normalized this idea of like checking underneath your car you know you know you might go you know I remember going to school one day and driving to school and then on the way back the entire street was gone like the entire street was blown up um in macavel like quite a serious uh bomb that had gone off and then it was not the closest that it kind of got to me as a child was like i remember my my father's from six mile cross which is a very small town outside of oma and um i remember my mother going to a shoe shop in Oma to return shoes and um and she um she'd just got a new car and she'd parked the car at the top of the street and Oma's quite famous for having a cross it's a cross in the middle of the road um and uh and I remember it like she always tells us it was a kind of strange moment in life and um she was returning shoes and when she got out of the shop she went up to go get into the car and the police officer was like uh you can't go up there because there's a bomb at the top of the town or a bomb threat um and I think my mother was so like she just bought the car um I think she had done something where she I think she'd gone through like Woolworths to try to get to another car park to get to it um crazily and then as she got to the other side of the town the side that she was on completely decimated like and um which was it was that was that was the kind of pinnacle in in Ireland where it was probably the most uh grotesque kind of uh it was very a big moment which i after that things started to kind of realize that both sides were just destroying each other um but it was as a child it really affected me because it was sort of like this idea that within a kind of spit moment someone could just disappear um so it was it was quite it was you and we were on the farm all that time like it was that kind of like i think it was one of the half-term breaks or something like that and it was just a very strange moment in life because you kind of realize uh it was that this thing was real it was like it was not just like seeing it as like a street gone or a bomb threat everything you know there was always something it was the first time that it became real as a kind of reality um anyway so ultimately going back it's sort of like i think when you live in that period for me the idea of fantasy the idea of not fitting in and trying to get out was a kind of uh you know was a kind of a driving force i think in the idea towards creativity um certainly intensifies the urgency yeah now that I'm 40 and living in London and in Paris I like I'm I'm actually really appreciative that I did grow up in Ireland like my parent my whole family lives there still but I'm really glad that I kind of went through this process because I think you then realize it does toughen you but at the same time it makes you see things for what they are you know you don't kind of uh you never take it for granted you know in that way yeah i suppose if you can if you can survive that i mean literally and emotionally and really sort of even though it's inconceivable it seems you know to for things to be so extreme and so irrational yeah and i think we forget i think we forget about that period i think in british irish history somehow i think it feels quite uh foreign to people now that but it was like it was not that long ago um yeah i remember it really well i mean i you know it was such a hugely important thing in the news and and I I think it and when it now that things have changed and when it did change and there was a peace agreement it I suppose everyone wants to forget about it as fast as possible because it's so nice things being peaceful there's room for so much else and I always find it incomprehensible why is there so much investment in conflict rather than in in people living to you know in a peaceful way you know when i go back to ireland it's such like a kind of like cosmopolitan place now it's sort of like you know it's it's completely morphed which has been kind of amazing and you look at for example like cinema and things like that being you know they're more proud of what they can achieve ultimately which i find really inspiring and I find that it's very important for me that I did grow up there you know what I mean I think it's sort of like uh it it helps me to kind of understand how I get to where I am now today I think um yeah I've never been to the north but my family my mother's family are from cork so i feel very attached to ireland and all the poetry and it just feels like a powerful place of a creatively powerful place and that's where so many of the solutions have come from and the the language and the talk yes just like i think you know i think the greatest thing about ireland as a whole is it's about this idea of like storytelling i think some of my all-time favorite writers are from from ireland um interesting enough a lot of them went left ireland to kind of like reinterpret it you know if you look at oscar wilde i think we forget that Oscar Wilde was from there um uh or like James Joyce who like you know they go to kind of like reflect on it if you know I mean there's something about because there's sort of like there is a kind of colloquialness in Ireland but it's interesting how how rich it is in terms of literature like it's sort of you know near where i grew up it was uh an amazing poet um Seamus Heaney um it's wonderful and i remember like going as a kid to go and like listen to him read because my mother was an english teacher and it was sort of like kind of fascinating that in a weird way the poet in ireland or the writer in ireland was nearly like the rock star in other societies you like to be the writer the poet was such a kind of

20:31important thing you know it was a very kind of esteemed kind of job ultimately or like professional to me and how did you feel about your body growing up when you're so handsome and it's like you have seem like you have everything going for you, but a designer thing is really conflict about their own bodies and how they feel physically. I always feel it's a driver to kind of put your own sense of proportion onto other people and create something. And I wondered how you felt about yourself. I think, I think the, the, the role of the designer is like, you're kind of on this like idea of searching for perfection and unperfection people.

21:24Um, and I think, you know, I actually, I think it's, I think it's very difficult for me to kind of, uh, because I'm looking at image making or, you know, I work with some of those beautiful people in the world. ultimately um and you're surrounded by this idea of trying to find perfection ultimately that you become more weirdly i would become more insecure with my own appearance because i feel i'm a realist in what i look like or something um maybe i'm wrong i don't know like i kind of look at myself and I kind of see my flaws and I understand where my, not my level, I don't know, what, like how I am in comparison to other people, which then does make you kind of a bit sort of insecure sometimes because you are being confronted always with something which is new.

22:30you know the idea you know when you're doing fittings with or you're shooting campaigns you're ultimately trying to find the beauty even in the strange ultimately um which i i do think is that as a designer that you know i find i sometimes it's taken me many years to try to put myself out in front of the camera somehow because i think part of me likes to kind of be the kind of puppeteer behind the scene of it um but then as media changes you have to sort of like i think it's uh important today that you have um authenticity um which is sounds like kind of useless word to use now but like it's more about you i think younger people want to know you and they want to believe that you believe in what you are selling that there is uh that there is a realness to it there is uh an honesty to it and that you believe in what you're making i think that's why i've i've you realize within the job that i do you've had to kind of media's changed you have to kind of lead a bit more than you used to i think i think today the idea of the kind of the hidden designer, I think, yes, I think it can work sometimes, but I think younger people are so curious to understand process and so curious to understand storytelling that I think if you kind of deny that sort of like connection, then you're just sort of sort of like selling some sort of like sterile dream ultimately which i think um which i think is what sometimes lacks i think when it gets very corporate then i think it becomes you know you and the others you know and i think i've never i've always wanted to kind of talk about my process because i'm hoping that you know in the end why i ended up in this industry is because i was inspired by other people so then i'm hoping that other people younger people look at me and then be inspired to try to want to do it as well yeah because i've always been interested by this idea of like replacement i always think it's important that you always realize that you have this period of time of creativity um but the ultimate is to be replaced because that is a good sign that creativity is healthy ultimately what that your you would be yeah i think it's important that there's always someone out there that is going to challenge you because i think i do think creativity has i think there's a moment where I think you can always be creative for your entire lifetime.

25:34I think there is a moment where you can be special within a moment to the audience you're talking to. And it can be different chapters, different periods. But I don't think you can. I think it's very different than being a painter or a poet. Because I think you are trying to look at, you're trying to sell something to a generation or design to a generation. There's either your peer or below or trying to gauge above, but there comes a moment where the reference points change or society changes ultimately. And so I always think it's important that you always in, in the back of my head, I always have to do what I feel is right, but I know that there will come period in time where it may not excite me the same or there is better viewpoints than what I can suggest, if that makes sense.

26:34I think it's important that you never think you're invincible. Yeah. I suppose it certainly keeps you on your toes. Keeps you on your toes. Yeah. And if you fancy someone and you don't like something that they're wearing does it kill your attraction no i think i think because i deal with clothing all day i actually kind of i'm more intrigued or attracted to people that have non-engagement with it because i feel that then i don't have to explain myself or something do you know what i mean um and i always think it's Sort of like you're always attracted to things and people that you don't do. You know, I think that or what they don't look like your world or something.

27:30Even sort of weird things to do with proportion or. Yeah. That doesn't faze you. No, never. But I always think in a guy when they, there is a, I always think even the kind of ugliness in clothing can always be a kind of like a fascinating thing to watch, you know. Because I think it challenges your idea of proportion or color or why people decide to put those things together, you know. And I think it's always curious. It always gets me more curious than someone because it's sort of, it's questioning my own idea of taste and reality or something. Yeah, definitely know exactly that feeling. It's either a squasher or an opener-upper.

28:25Yeah. And I saw in a little interview that you'd done that you have a shelf for awards. And I wonder how much gratification that brings you and how quickly it wears off when you've got them. Yeah, in the office, there's a shelf for the awards, but the shelf is in the CEO's office. First of all, awards are always incredibly ugly looking as objects. I always find them, they're usually like glass or some sort of strange material. I think it's only once I had a really kind of, one that was actually quite beautiful was actually the Neiman Marcus one. It was like this kind of beautiful, like long figure, like a kind of.

29:12And what was the award for? I think it was like Design of the Year or it was something like, I think that one was for Design of the Year. I don't know. Awards are, I'm very grateful for awards ultimately because I think it's ultimately about recognition and maybe it's not actually just for me, it's maybe for the team because I think then it's sort of like praise of what's happening. I think the minute it's done, the evening is done, you get into war and it's done, I feel like it doesn't really change anything. You know, like it doesn't really, I don't know. I have a very, for me, it's just, I don't know how to explain.

29:56Do you have a come down? A come down? I don't think I even come up from it, if that makes sense. I feel like it's just part of, it just happens. And then I think I never really want to over process something because I feel the minute I kind of feel like I know where I'm at, it's like nearly kind of like vertigo. You're like looking down and you're kind of like, oh, this is what's happening. and I think it would prevent me from like going forward because I think you'd be like oh I'm really happy of who I you know I think my which is not a good thing either probably but my whole thing is it's never done I think my I always feel like no matter what I'm doing no matter if it's like building a house being at the buffet being at the project is never finished um I think the minute it would be finished then i think i would be done do you have a kind of superstitiousness or a fear of complacency or even the hint of complacency so you've got it are you afraid of enjoying it too much in case you become kind of passive i think that's my sometimes my biggest fear that you kind of enjoy it and then you forget who you are you know that you morph yeah so in a weird way it can always be better for me i know and that's probably not great in the long run um but for me it's sort of like i think the minute you the minute you see yourself for where you are then it's so difficult to kind of like be creative because you can't break it i think for me every time i start a collection i feel like i'm destroying the entire thing to restart again um and i even have that in my in in the house like i the minute i have the house like everything perfect within like a week i've already like loaded up more stuff and like it's like a it needs to always feel like a kind of uh continual working progress yeah because i think for me that's what excites me it's this idea that you are always trying to rebuild so that you do not feel like you are there you know and I think it's I find it healthy some people it might not work for but I I find it healthy because it kind of stops me from I think it helps to keep your ego down a bit not down but it keeps it contained because I think fashion has a tendency for you to get completely sucked in.

32:48You seem to do an enormous amount. And I wondered, how did you meet Luca Guadagnino because you're doing this incredible work together? We met a long time ago, actually, a PR in common introduced us. We went to having coffee, and then we ended up talking the entire evening about art and film fashion and and he I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and he had this and it was really nice because I was quite shocked that he had the same curiosity and respect for me um and it was just someone that I had met that I felt like I'd always known you know I think we had such a kind of similar type of sensibility.

33:38And we just talked for ages. And then we were about to do a project. He asked me to kind of do costume on a quite large project he was going to do. And then the pandemic and everything kind of, you know, the world went into itself, fell into itself. And then he got in contact and was like, I'm going to do this tennis film. Would you be interested in doing the costumes for it? And I think it was during the pandemic, as it was coming to an end or kind of the kind of like the part where you could travel. And I was kind of thinking to myself, why not? Like, I have never done this. Let's, why not? Let's try it.

34:25Completely petrified because it was like with MGM and it was with Amazon. And it was like this whole, like Zendaya, like Joshua Connor and Mike Fyter. It was like the whole thing was like, I felt like a complete novice going into it. I just loved it. It was an amazing experience. Were you on set quite a bit? Yeah, I was on set a lot. I just felt like it was so easy to work with Luca. Like I didn't feel I had to over explain. It was nice that I wasn't the boss for a bit. Yeah. Um, and, and it was such an amazing experience. And then through the process, the, uh, the writer, Justin Kriskas, who had written Challenges, Luca had decided that he wanted to do queer by William Burroughs.

35:14And then suddenly he had always tried to get the rights. And then suddenly he rang to see the rights were available and they were. And then he got, he actioned that straight away and then got Justin Kriskas to write, screenplay of it from the book. Yeah, I loved Challengers. I mean, the costumes were fantastic. They were so great. It was super fun to do. It was like, you know, Josh is a very dear friend and I had known he had been working with me at Loewe for a while and it was just really nice to kind of be part of not a fashion project with him, but actually something, watching him do something which he is a master at.

35:56and and that's when I met Zendaya and Mike Feist who were they were just an amazing trio together to watch and just really caring people and people who are just like like incredibly talented it was nice to do something that was I don't know like it was an escape from my own reality of my own day job which I think is what I enjoyed the most and then obviously queer we shot at Cina Cita in Rome which was a period film which was another kind of like can I do this and Luca has this incredible ability to put people into situations where they're in the deep end and kind of he trusts a lot I think which I think is very rare to find in people, to be able to trust and let go and bring people that you feel like are going to kind of create an interesting soup ultimately.

36:59I'm dying to see queer. I mean, I read the book when I was a teenager and I loved William Burroughs, but I was reading somewhere that you got ideas for the costumes for some painters, Paul Cadmus and Jared French who I'd never heard of and I looked them up and you got everything I mean it was so powerful the atmosphere in those paintings and I mean I just watched the trailer of Queer and you had it all there and um how did you find and also you captured the atmosphere of their queerness so well now did you how did you find out did you already know those painters Yeah, I've always been obsessed by that group of American painters and photographers, you know, because it's such an amazing moment, like where you have like Paul Cadmus, you've got George Platt Lyons, Jared French, you know, you have all these kind of amazing queer artists in a period where being queer must have been incredibly divisive in America.

38:12creating just incredible work. Like I think George Lyons is one of the most underestimated photographers in history because I think he was one of the greatest photographers in terms of lighting. He understood lighting, I think, better than any contemporary photographer today. And I think he really kind of mapped out like a roadmap in terms of like shooting the male form, you know shooting ballet shooting performance and you know I don't think you would have had someone like Mapplethorpe or even Peter Hujar without someone like George Pat Lyons yeah and and me and Luca on the film we discussed it a lot and it there's these amazing images that he had done where he had done like these surrealistic images where he kind of like cuts negatives up and then kind of montage them together like man ray was experimenting with it and and but i i just felt like you know it was you know with burrows it's sort of like you know the film sort of set in end of the 40s beginning of the 50s and and i just felt there was something so kind of you know with like someone like cabinet so painterly but realism and there is a kind of desire like I think the male gaze on the man or the boy there is something about this that I think in that period there was there was such naivety in terms of image making in terms of queer culture um that I find really fascinating so it became a kind of like a bedrock for like Allerton which is played by Drew Starkey uh that's how I kind of got to the kind of characterization of him was like it was looking at that period as well as looking at um another amazing british painter called glenn philpot oh yeah i've heard that name yeah and he has got these he does it he did these beautiful paintings sort of society pictures where they're kind of like they look like pastel but they're kind of oil but they're kind of like stippled and they're usually like kind of pale there was this amazing one i found that was like of like um a guy in a kind of yellow shirt and these sort of like um pale gray trousers and i when going to find everything for the film uh it was like this is who i was trying to i was recreating this painting into this person um but i this is the most rewarding part of being creative is actually being curious in other people's creativity this is what i love i agree yeah so exciting to find things there's every day i find something in creativity that i have never seen this is the most amazing thing about the time we live in there's like there is so much resource to be able to find new things that I've I've every day I've come across a new artist I'd never heard of music that I've never heard before writing that I had never writers I've never even heard of and I love that I love actually I love when someone goes oh you know this person I love being able to say no I don't because it means that you found something in a day that you never knew existed, you know?

41:46And I think... You seem to have a real talent for that. In your work, what everybody loves about what you do is that you're always showing that, you know, your curiosity about other mediums and the craft thing that you've brought into high fashion. And when you do so much, you've got your own brand, J.W. Anderson, Loewe, Uniqlo, which I love, and the film work. And I mean, it's a huge amount. And how do you cope with the pressure? And how do you handle extreme feeling? Because it's so intense. in, I mean, you're right at the top and the intensity is very mood altering. And I wondered how you deal with, you know, with the feeling.

42:46It's like a juggernaut. Yeah. I think there's sometimes, I don't have a reality of how much work I am doing. There is moments on weekends where I do stop where I'm kind of like, I can't be around anyone. um i don't know i feel that first of all i i have two incredible teams of people you know when i work on a film i build and get to work with incredible people so you have to trust um i think for me i'm i'm incredibly curious about everything i feel like I want to discover everything and I want to kind of learn from it, but I don't micromanage. I feel like I let people do their thing because I want them to kind of be able to feel part of it.

43:44So for me, it's a kind of, I feel like if you have the right people around you, it prevents you from blowing up. um and i think you have to be continue continuously curious or then what would be the point yeah in in the kind of creative act of it um it is high pressured um i think i quite i think as i get older i get more used to it which is probably not healthy either um but you have capacity i mean it's interesting you seem to have quite a lot of agility i mean it's a lot but you know the more you do the more you can do so i think it's a it's like a muscle it's like exercise as you kind of keep practicing it you then work out different bandwidths of how to achieve more or finding people that do the things that you cannot do i'm in a very kind of fascinating moment because I feel like I've kind of built up a kind of stamina to be able to have like people around I have teams that worked for me some people have worked for me for 11 years some people work for me for 15 years I have a very kind of loyal group of people that have always worked with me um because I want people to feel invested in what in the project itself and i feel like when people are not feeling that they're contributing and getting the recognition from it then then why would they want to be part of it you know so i think i want people to be proud of the project yeah and i think this actually helps because i I think, you know, it can be incredibly intense.

45:39I can be tough. I'm sure a lot of people who are my dear friends would probably say that. How does that come out when you say you're tough? I think I'm tough because I kind of, when I hire people, I always hire people that I admire and I can see potential in. And I want to push people to the point where they feel free enough to express themselves without feeling any judgment. So I don't like yes people at all. I like people to challenge me. And I want people to contribute without feeling embarrassed of what they want to creatively show. so I being surrounded by yes people always can really really irritate me because you're kind of then you're not challenging the situation or challenging the fashion show or challenging the image making like I work with a stylist called Benjamin Bruno who's like one of my best friends who I've worked with for like over 15 years now.

46:48And we're both very good at kind of agitating each other to kind of make sure that we are trying to find subtlety in newness. Yeah. And I think that is one of the most important things in a creative process is that you have to find people that are going to keep you on the ground and to continually keep challenging yourself. Yeah, you can't trust the sycophant. Yeah. And I think that's what I love about what I do. I love the people I work with. It's like a family of people. And everyone's going after this thing, which is to try to find newness in something that already exists. You know, you're trying to reinvent a trouser.

47:37You're trying to reinvent the dress. these sort of like archetypes you're trying to reinvent sometimes eight times a year and I kind of love that with when I work with people for me the team for me is the most exciting thing because like there's nothing better when you find someone that challenges you in in what what can be new um but yeah the job can you know sometimes I actually think it the only part when you are working a lot is sometimes you can get quite isolated you know it's sort of like you're trying you know even like for me sometimes even just trying to organize dinner with a friend becomes like such a mission that you're trying to work out are you in Paris are you in London are you traveling are you not traveling and you're trying to find these like windows to be normal in in terms of like just even having dinner with someone it can be this sometimes is probably the most frustrating part you know because you're kind of uh your your time can be can be quite consumed with the the creative act yeah and the huge things you know going back to what was i was talking about earlier is that the minute you know where you are then i think you become self-reflective and then you in a weird way get sort of scared that uh scared that you won't challenge yourself or something because you kind of feel at one with what you produce or something and you're a francis bacon fan yeah i think and And I mean, I've got that print.

49:25I know. I wish it was a real thing, but it's a fantastic print. And I quite often used his colors as references for interiors. And in that room over there, there's a carpet, which when I saw the swatch, I thought, oh, that's real Francis Bacon oranges. And you use color in a very nuanced way. And I love the way you use pink in your collections. I just find there's something very kind of, and Francis Bacon uses quite a lot of pink in his work. Do you look at things for ideas or do you read for ideas or is it kind of a mixture or is there no specific? I actually love putting combinations of colors together.

50:17I don't think I do it in a kind of no actually sometimes I did a collection straight after the pandemic I'm obsessed by the painter Pontormo never heard of him the like renaissance painter and he they had cleaned the descent of of Christ which is in I think it's in Florence is it Florence? I think it's in Florence Maybe I'm wrong. In the Uffizi, is it one of those? And it's in a church. And it was like, I probably got the church. Maybe not. Anyway, my brain's gone. It doesn't matter. But it's this amazing altarpiece. And they cleaned it. And it looks like the most cacophonic motion of chiffon and color and pink and blue and purple and red.

51:17This is the most incredible painting. It's probably one of my all-time favorite paintings. And they just restored it. um and there's very little works by uh by pontormo um in the world and i remember actually being like after the pandemic which i felt like i had re-found a new type of creative energy because i think it was like the idea that either you do a show and it hasn't mean something or you do a show and it has to work because then you'll keep your job i think it was one of those sort of things and i based an entire collection on one on that one painting um because i just found that the colors were just the most i think for me painting i don't paint but for me i am so fascinated by brain to hand this idea that you can do brain to hand color paint and be able to kind of take the world and like reflect it into some sort of like emotional like output do you draw yourself i kind of i will if i get frustrated if i can get an idea i will start to kind of roughly sketch out something if i'm trying to explain something to someone but i don't illustrate fashion um i do a lot of it on the body and a lot of it's sort of uh experimenting through twirls ultimately and that's where the brain to hand i'm a real believer in that so when i look at painters i'm always like mesmerized by it because i think it's you're doing your the brain to hand is then doing these crazy things to mix color and to kind of work out how to build up you know if you look at bacon you are creating a visual language which is like writing that when you look at it you know it's bacon yeah which for me I think my brain doesn't work that way so I find it so inspiring this for me is like you know I could be at museums all day I you know I could there is nothing better than looking at painting because I think it's sort of it it makes you uh i think it makes you realize where you stand in the world somehow i think it kind of you know for me it's that whole thing there's always better you know it's sort of like when you look at a turner or you know you see a you know holbein for example i find i find it mesmerizing like a holbein for me when you go into when you go to the national gallery and you see works by Holbein it's sort of like you're like we think we're modern today but are we you know I think you know somehow they always hit the spot somehow don't they yeah I think it's sort of like I think it's so attractive as well I think it's so I think it's very sexy someone who can actually imitate life or paint life you're very good at images which represent your work like The penis key ring, I loved that.

54:38That was so good. And the bag, the bird bag. And I always remember a car on a jumper that you made in a circle. Yeah. I remember that so well. And I think about it sometimes when I'm just stuck somewhere and think how beautiful that was. It was so simple. I always remember thinking, God, I wish I'd thought of something like that. how do you know when something will translate i i know when it translates in front of me because i feel like when we're doing a show you know what is new in your own repertoire you know what you've pushed something it when you know something is going to commercially work it's very difficult to know like for example if you take the pigeon bag at jw annison that was like that was me that was a kind of joke at one point um when we were doing styling it was it kind of there was this like bird and I think it just helped with like articulating the look I never knew it was going to kind of turn into the thing it did I think you could never predict those things you know like sometimes at the welfare you know like it's about designing handbags and we're trying to come up with new leather goods and you'll have a bag which you think is going to be a massive success and it will be a total failure um and then the one that you least expect will be the one that works so for me it's sort of like in in my own creative process when i'm doing a show or creating a range of products in front of me you always know that there is a kind of you're trying to find this like tension in how far you can push something within the normality of the structure.