Fashion Neurosis with Princess Julia

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0:40Hi, come in.

0:47Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Princess Julia. Hello, Bella. I'm so happy to be here. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? So today I'm wearing a brand called Service and I'm wearing a dress from John Lawrence Sullivan. And you can't see it, but I've actually put my own belt over the top of the dress. Because you're a DJ and a writer and you have such an incredible, distinctive look that's always evolving. And when was the first time you realised the power of clothes and how old were you? Oh, eight years old, actually, thinking about it. That's when my passion really sort of sped up and I sort of had a sense of how I wanted to look.

1:44I remember begging my mother for my eighth birthday a smock top. I also wanted hot pants. And so this was about 1968, by the way. And I'd learned how to knit as well. my grandma taught me so um I was busy knitting and crocheting actually and I remember making a little hat to wear oh my god because you have always had such a distinctive style and and it sounds like you knew exactly what you wanted it was like it was almost born into you and you always give you still have that you you know you have this kind of incredible chic and it's very elegant and sort of seems like almost historical it's it's just so impressive and who who in your childhood did you admire for their style how did your mum dress and who's the Hungarian side is that your mother or your father my father was Hungarian and my mother from the UK and but really my style icon was my grandmother who was an opera singer and she was the flamboyant one and I remember going to her closet and rifling through all her Dior new look type dresses and sort of whipping them all out and trying on her hats and things so I remember really being quite mesmerized by Muriel Bowie that was her name And she was quite something.

3:44She was quite a curvaceous lady in her earlier years. And I have got an amazing photograph of her when she did sing opera in a very Viking-esque type get-up. She was quite something, really. And I used to go and visit her on my own because she was just amazing, really. And what formidable, I must say. She had a very henpecked, almost, husband. Although I think he just used to go off on his bicycle. They lived in Croydon. All the best people, it seems. And so my mother was very, her idea of dressing was very functional. It's that old adage, isn't it, that everything sort of skips a generation. And then my father, he was a refugee.

4:51I think in his younger years, he had quite a sort of snappy way of dressing. but later on he too was very sort of functional really. But, you know, functional is a good look as far as I'm concerned. I like a functional look. I like a uniform. To me, it's all dressing up. Yeah, it's the flip side of the same coin. Yeah. Yeah. And were you the only one? Do you have siblings? I do. I do. my sister she likes to dress but like she's not like me she's got her own look um and she doesn't like to draw attention to herself whereas I do sorry well I do up to a point you know also I sort of feel like dressing makeup it's almost like my shield in a way it's like it's a sort of reinvention of myself yeah because you've mentioned about being quite shy and I've seen you look shy and you have a demureness to you as well and I wondered about your extrovert introvert side and if dressing up is like you know when you have coffee to calm you down when you're kind of overhiked it's like pile it on and that creates a sort of neutrality when I left school like about 16 I sort of entered a whole new world and it was quite overwhelming and I just wanted to have like lots of nice friends and places to go the punk scene was sort of happening and And I really sort of found myself in that scene.

6:54But the women in that scene were a real inspiration to me. To me, punk was anti-fashion. It was sort of going against the sort of norms of beauty and how you could present yourself and create some sort of confrontation because, you know, the mid-70s was a dangerous time if you're female. And so the role models that I was seeing and the people I was meeting really inspired me to take a leap into a way of presenting myself. Punk was a game changer for me because it was the first time I'd experienced being young and sort of feeling insignificant as a kind of bit of agency or just being young. And it was the first time I realized clothes were a real asset, that if you had good clothes, you had so much you could project power that you never actually felt.

8:19And I always remember standing on the street trying to get a cab when I was 16 or 17. I was wearing a bondage outfit because I'd been working in seditionaries. Oh, my God. And then this woman just started screaming. and I hadn't done anything at all. Wow. And I thought, God, that's so amazing that I can be that scary and it's just my clothes even though I feel small. And do you remember that sort of moment of punk where you thought, God, this is something for me? Yeah, I do. And I think even just going into seditionaries was quite a sort of feat because it was quite, a daunting shop and you worked in there I can't believe that it was so forbidding the outside and then you could only look through this door and see two like two or three of us sulking girls in the background looking down our noses I mean I remember like with great trepidation sort of mustering up the courage to go in there and sort of rifling through the rails, selecting various pieces of clothing and spending my hard-earned tips money.

9:46What did you buy? Do you remember what you bought? Yeah, I bought some bondage trousers, a t-shirt, a bondage top. Which t-shirt? I think it was the Cambridge Rapist, actually. I mean and at that time for a very small small amount of time I worked in after I did hairdressing I was a hairdressing apprentice for a couple of years and then for a very short amount of time because I wasn't working and I've got a great work ethic I like to be busy and And I took this job in a factory learning piecework, like sewing, basically, as a machinist, which was very enlightening. But I really wanted to learn how to sew properly and quickly.

10:48So I went in there and learnt very quickly how to put a cuff on and a collar and things like that so um it's actually um quite fascinating and i love looking at clothes and seeing how they're sort of constructed and i remember um wearing like a little kilt to work in the factory um just off hackney road and the bondage top with the confrontational sloganage on and um nobody really batted an eye in the factory but there were some quite odd looks on the bus to work I must say at that time um the doctors used to dish out um antidepressants willy-nilly so I had a good pocket full of those as well so I was quite sort of spaced out really not too bothered by what people thought that I was wearing and I the clothes really gave me um a sort of superhuman feeling of confidence and where do you start with an outfit when you're getting ready I think about a sort of general silhouette and I think about um what the fabric's gonna be I have dreams about what I'm gonna wear the next day especially if I've got to go somewhere but I'm inspired by people making things so you know I might go to bed dreaming of one sort of look and then wake up thinking oh actually that dress will work really well and And then sometimes I sort of take a few different pieces and then layer them up and sort of conjure up something a bit sort of newish.

12:43So I do have people coming up to me and go, God, you've got a different look on every time I see you. I never wear the same thing twice, but I do actually. It's just that sometimes I wear things in different coordinations. I've noticed with you that young people are really kind of appreciate all the experimenting that you do and like your references and that you that there's a lot of appreciation for what they can learn from you. One thing I particularly like about you is that when someone blows smoke up your ass, you just you're like, no. Well, no, it's not like that, actually. And I love that.

13:33You don't just take it because it's on offer. You seem to have a very kind of thing that I admire a lot, a moral compass about what's genuine. and I wondered have you always been like that since you were a child well I think when I was a child I was too frightened to say anything to anybody quite frankly but but um I mean I'm one of those people that sometimes doesn't think before they speak so I think that's probably a thing that um I I'm aware of um and try to monitor but sometimes um everything just sort comes out or yeah I mean well it's good um yeah sometimes I I do um make a few faux pas I think I don't I don't mean to upset people but also I'm very interested in sort of seeing other people's point of view of things and I'm not afraid to admit that I'm wrong either I think that's quite important or you know to take somebody else's opinion on board and that goes for like all sorts of things as you go through life really um you know I'm nearly 65 now and I never really thought that I would still be sort of knocking around quite frankly so that's quite entertaining um and I don't really see it ever ending I don't really see that um there's a sort of cut-off date because I'm still really enjoying myself and enjoying all these different facets and interests and entertaining moments that seem to engage me.

15:37I think they're things that sort of keep me going, really. And the people that I meet, younger, older, my own age, continually inspire me quite frankly and also like people that I've known for a long long time their sort of experiences and how they deal with their life changes really do inspire me I do meet people that fact their families have abandoned them and they've had to run away and they've had to find themselves somewhere else and they don't have the support of their families. I hope that, you know, our club family are there in a big capacity to support people. and I work in a lot of different sort of club areas as a DJ.

16:48They are a point for people to meet and make new friends and swap ideas and create new things, which I think is so important. So I want to be able to impart my knowledge and support to younger people because clubbing on the whole is, you know, a younger space for people to exist in. But I do see that a lot of spaces that I work in are very intergenerational. where does your name princess julia come from i'm sure you're asked this all time but did you create that for yourself or did someone start revering you as that do you know what i think basically because i was so shy i was sort of quite sort of reticent at like sort of speaking so I guess I could be quite sort of standoffish I worked as a cashier lady in the wag club and I remember one of the managers there always used to call me princess so I guess there's a bit of that there and then people sort of going god who do you think you are sort of idea and I'm like I'm just me I'm just me anyway so a bit later on in that decade of the 80s we I was DJing regularly by then at a club over in Brixton the Daisy Chain and we thought us the DJs that we should have proper DJ names rather than our own names because I think it was all the rage I became Princess Julia it was about 1986 but then also I had a sort of like um idea that um you know um you didn't have to be born into the upper echelon to be uh have a royal title so to speak so you know because I thought that was really quite unfair actually you know why do some people get to be lords and ladies and you know us on the lower rung um we can have heirs and graces too so that's my sort of way of thinking um so it was quite a sort of uh quite a statement really sort of almost like you know the nicknames at home I my dad was always big on nicknames and then I I invented my name not that I really called myself that as Bolonius the Great and that was my alter ego I love that as a kind of warrior and then I I love how old were you when you did that probably 11 I think that's when I I started being very interested in superhuman qualities, feeling untucked, you know, sort of unhurtable, I suppose.

20:18I wanted to be invincible. Bolognese the Great sounded good. I always admired Alexander the Great because instead of kind of pondering over something, he'd slice through the knot. and I thought I'd love to be like that I'd love to not be hesitant and doubtful I'd love to know that the way to undo this knot is to slice through it with a sword it just seemed brilliant but it's taken me most of my life to be more connected to my decisive kind of attributes and now I'm quite decisive and I also loved how um like the way names come about um Judy Blame when he he worked for Anthony Price and his name was Christopher Barnes I think and Anthony would say oh blame Judy and then he just ended up as Judy Blame and it suited him so well and Princess Julia suits you.

21:25You do have, you have, you have innate elegance and class. I mean, I just hated my own surname because I was so ridiculed at school anyway. And then I do remember when I was much younger making up a name. I can't remember the name though, But I do remember doing that and like signing it. Did you do that as well? Like trying out the autograph?

22:00I used to write to my sister and sign off Valonia's the Great. Sometimes I still do. That's so cute. I love that. Oh, that's so nice.

22:16Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door. expertly cleaned and folded, so you can take the time, all that time once spent on folding and sorting, watching and waiting, to finally pursue a whole new version of you, like birdhouse building you. Yeah, the birds are going to love this. Or dollhouse building you. Yeah, the kids are going to love this. Or maybe house DJ track building to the bass drop you. Oh yeah, the kids are gonna love this.

22:59Do you love it? Oh, that's a good you.

23:09It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. You've also talked about how much you appreciate the identity of non-binary, and I wondered what that means to you. I sort of feel like, you know, it's something that our scene was doing in the late 70s at the Blitz, New Romantic, nightclub era times. there wasn't a definition or a way of defining being non-binary and I'm pretty sure that if I was 18 now I'd be non-binary and I just feel like we live in a society that's been so brainwashed into this definition of you've got to be one thing or the other and it doesn't allow for any doesn't allow for nature yeah that's a very good way of putting it actually how fluid nature is and everything isn't cut and dry like that and I and I feel like um society likes to keep people in their place and regimented to keep some sort of weird way of controlling the general public.

24:59Do you get my gist? Yeah, yeah, I suppose if you think of just in terms of, you know, everything is so connected to selling things to people that if you don't really know what they're supposed to be, who are you targeting? But there's so much scope within that. And I suppose there's a lot of fun to be had with playing around with your identity. Yeah. I mean, in a way, I suppose, like, the punk scene for me was that. Yeah, it was really non-binary. Yeah. And also what I liked was that you could be, I mean, not that I was, but you could sort of wear very little or you could wear this kind of bondage-y type of clothes, but it wasn't sexualised like you talked about in the 70s, it being more of a dangerous time when you're a young person and especially a young woman or girl or whatever that everything was so hyper-sexualised and it made you very vulnerable.

26:08and then punk was just, you know, it just did away with that and that was quite freeing. Were you friends with Lee Bowery? I was friends with Lee Bowery, actually, yeah. I first met Lee when they kind of arrived in the UK in Clubland and made friends with Lee almost immediately. I mean, they were very impressive, Lee and Trojan. Yeah. Obviously, they were sort of like a duo. I think when Lee first arrived, he had the intention of being a fashion designer and following quite a traditional route and creating collections, seasonal collections, and quite quickly realised that wasn't really the trajectory.

27:16Yeah, he seemed to realise that he was the creation and he did that so, so brilliantly. I mean, he was so funny as well, Lee. And he was, I think, one of the most exciting moments in my life was going to a club and being greeted by Lee. Because he had, the way he spoke, he kind of, he would just sort of talk to you almost as though he was at the WI, like, oh, hello. You know, just sort of very matter of fact. And you were being greeted by this, I mean, he was so gigantic. He'd wear those, you know, massive built up shoes and he was already over six foot. And so this amazing creature would bend down and grace you with a kiss on the cheek.

28:16And oh my God, it was just like being greeted by God. It was so fantastic. I always sort of think the turning point for Lee was when Lorcan O 'Neill had Lee perform in the Doffey Gallery. Yeah, I remember that. That really gave Lee serious leverage into the art world and really made people sort of stop and consider what Lee was all about, actually. You went to that, I went to that too. And I remember thinking, wow, this is really quite a moment. Yeah, it was so interesting, even though he wasn't doing much. He just, everything was interesting. And I suppose I got to know him when he was sitting for my father.

29:12And my father did these incredible paintings of him. And I used to go around and we'd go out for lunch or breakfast or something. And he had a kind of off-duty look that was really good. And he'd sort of be in like, you know, some slobbish type of track pants or something. And then he had this amazing wig that was like a, he was like a prodigy child, like with this sort of muted blonde curls, like you would imagine someone's sort of seven year old that they were grooming for being a concert pianist or something. And he just, and he had such, you know, these blue eyes and he had so much charm. And then just, he was so hungry for culture.

30:02And we'd go to restaurants and he'd be really interested in the food and how it was made and developed all these tastes. And he was so, oh, he was just so wonderful. He loved sitting for Lucy. They really got on well. they were just sort of made for each other yeah yeah yeah yeah who's got the um the cloths you know that because lee stole loads of pieces of um canvas and made it into like a shawl oh yeah he took the rags yeah he took the rags right um used to clean his brushes yeah and it does exist somewhere yeah and maybe it'll be in that show yeah the tape that's coming up right yeah in February there's a big show at the Tate isn't isn't there which I'm I can't wait to see that I think maybe Lorcan's got it but I'm pretty sure that'll be in it it's got to be in it hasn't it because I mean that that show really is sort of like a signifier of that chapter of Lee's life I feel he just took it and made some you know the next phase of his career out of it which was then cut short by his death but yeah I'll never forget I never saw my father cry but when Lee died he cried and oh I can still feel the pain it was just so yeah I never knew that yeah Yeah, it was a real, they were really kind of, they were great friends.

31:44And Lee had a huge effect on my father and on everyone, really. So it will be really exciting to see the show. I can't wait for that. You play music for a living. And I wondered if you ever, what's like the most unexpected music that you might listen to? My tastes are really wide. And I just love listening to all kinds of music, quite frankly. So, you know, I do listen to classical music on occasion. And then, and I even have friends that sing classical music, actually. So that's really exciting. And then I'll delve into the camp realms of musical theatre. There's nothing I like more than a show tune.

32:39And then, you know, regarding, you know, club music and DJing, I'm lucky enough to be able to get away with playing quite a sort of eclectic mix of music on occasion. and my heart is lying in the realms of like electronic music. I don't know why I love it, yeah. And so that is a really wide scope of music to listen to. It can go from ambient into classical, into camp, into post-punk, electronica, into all sorts of realms. I suppose it's finding music that appeases a different part of your soul than I know I love like Lizzo Boys or Britney, you know. I just love that stuff. Yeah, I mean, I love a bit of pop and I like to keep quite up to date with the sort of latest sort of pop stars going on.

34:03And I think there's some really brilliant ones and there's some really brilliant performers. Who do you love at the moment? I'm obsessed with things that sort of go viral because I think to, like, make a hook and make it an earworm. Is that what it's called? I think that's a real talent. Yeah. How do you, you know, like, if you get a hook like that and the right singer with the right production and the right moment, I think that's just quite beyond how a little hook can engulf a whole nation of people. Yeah. Did you like, I had that really intensely and it's still going on with Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish, Guess.

35:06Yeah, it's so good, isn't it? it just sends it just makes me feel so happy and so wild and I play it in the kitchen in the morning and if I'm having a downer and I put that on I just feel like someone's giving me a mission like Alexander the Great like I can cut through the knot I just need this this running through my bloodstream um yeah it's so beyond yeah before you arrived I was watching the video fade to grey that you did in 1980 and Steve Strange's legendary video and um it was so amazing and I hadn't realized at first that it was you and um it's it was such a good song and I remember I remember Steve Strange um and I remember going to a club night of his called Bangs in Tottenham Court Road that was before the blitz I think so bangs wasn't actually Steve's no but I used to go to bangs with Steve Strange funnily enough as well so maybe we were double dating I remember it was so funny I think I only went once or twice but I yeah because it was when I I was working at seditionary so I was about 16 or 17 and I I remember what I was wearing and I was wearing this micro mini dress and fishnet tights and these really high shoes and my feet got so hot that I poured my half pint of cider over them oh my god I love that oh Trying to cool down.

36:54But Steve was, he was pretty kind of haughty. And he definitely embraced his status. And so. Did you meet him in the sort of punk era? Yeah. So that's when I saw him around in the punk era. And I had a friend, Vi. and we always used to be so fascinated of how he could always be dressed in head-to-foot seditionaries and how he could afford it because it wasn't actually really cheap or anything. No, it was really expensive. You know, it was a definite statement and, you know, right down to the pixie boots and we were always really fascinated and we could never work it out and somebody said that he he used to sell speed is that true I don't know that wouldn't surprise me I mean do you write every day no because there's a lot of um conjecture about inspiration which seems the least important thing because if you waited for that you could be waiting forever but there's something about doing something when you're not in the mood and finding a way to do it which that's inspiring and all the writers how do you do it bella uh I think of a first line I think vaguely oh I don't know what to do and then I think of a first line that if I read that I'd carry on reading and then I've hooked myself back in I've sort of got myself interested and I know that if I write something I've got something to shape and the worst thing is that if I don't write anything or I try to make it perfect before it comes out then then it never comes out but so the best bit of advice I got from my ex-husband who's a writer he said just get it down on the page so I know that sometimes it's just the act of you know however you write putting on the computer getting the word dock up and then just something comes out and then there's something so you apply the same sort of rules to when you're creating clothes yeah i i read this book actually about how to further an idea and it was it's written by this man john george saunders and it's called a dip in a swim in the pond in the rain or something very similar and he he uses examples of russian short stories written by chekov and tolstoy and to Gheniev and and he breaks down why the writer has left things in and what he's taken out and when I read that I thought oh I know how to do that when I'm designing what do I add what do I take you know instead of it was I found it incredibly useful and I find that it all inter interrelates and that the act of making something will make something else happen and and you know that's what makes life worth living for really it's it's kind of to find some kind of joy yeah and fulfillment in whatever task you undertake yeah and also like you were describing about the club community and friends and, you know, abandonment to look out for other people and, you know, care for each other.

41:04That's a very kind of stimulating thing in itself. And I wanted to ask you, if you fancy someone and you don't like what they're wearing, does it kill your attraction to them? Yes. Yes. Yeah, it would make a difference, I feel. I know it sounds vacuous. I don't think so. I do think the art of dressing is a reflection of your inner spirit. You know, it sounds like vanity or prejudice, but it's a message, isn't it? It's can I go beyond it and does it matter or it's a kind of warning really like this. We're not supposed to be with each other because this kind of vital strand of communication is missing.

42:06Have you ever been with someone where you thought, I can overlook that actually, and then sort of like, not try to change a person, obviously, but sort of like suggest that they maybe try on a different look? Yes, I can think of one person. And was it successful? not really because in the end they didn't want to be different from how they were but the way they dress was so bad and it wasn't like clumsy bad it was really there was a lot of love gone into these hideous clothes and earrings and just shockers and so I tried to change him and of course that you know no one wants to be changed no but obviously inside you know the person must have been a lovely person there must have been something about them that I don't know that you adored in a way I think or did it just in the end it overrode everything it wasn't just that but it was definitely a warning and it was a sign to me but I needed to do that and I did and And ultimately, it didn't.

43:26You learned something out of it, though. Yeah. Yeah. I did. That's what I love. You know, everything's like a learning curve. And I'm still learning. And I just never want to stop learning. I always want to be finding out about things, different ways of putting things together, making new things. I'm not one of those people that is, I've seen it all before. You know, I'm not going to be one of those people. I'm not one of those people.

44:02And actually, I have called myself saying that in an ironic fashion. But, you know, I want to be on the up of going forward. I think you are. You're a modern woman. and that's why you have such an appeal because, you know, people do project their nostalgia on and I've heard you, you just don't go along with that and you seem, you know... I like the trad with the rad. I love that. Oh, that's great. Well, thank you so much, Princess Julia, for being on Fashion Neurosis. It's been illuminating and wonderful to have you here. I've loved it. I'm so thrilled. I am.

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