Fashion Neurosis with Susie Cave

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:17Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Susie Cave. Hi, Belle. Can you describe what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? um well I'm wearing a this emerald green Moroccan dress which I never know if it's a caftan or a gelaba or you'll you'll know better than me and I wore it because um I love it first of all it's just so comfortable and also because of your you know childhood in Morocco I felt like it was appropriate to wear to honor your your moroccan life and um and i love i love these i i buy them on etsy and they cost like 100 pounds and i have a brown one and a dark red one and i often wear them when i'm i sort of want to be dressed up but really really comfortable and then I'm wearing a pair of Gucci Alessandro Michele little mules, gold mules, and Sophie Billy Bra diamond ring that Nick gave me for my birthday.

2:27That's so beautiful with the N. Yeah, and my little snake that Nick bought me from Bentley and Skinner. It's a 1920s little snake and my Balenciaga earrings. So that's what I'm wearing today. I love that emerald green kaftan because when I was a child living in Morocco, my mother had an emerald green kaftan. And she looked so beautiful in it and she didn't have many things. But when she wore that, I particularly loved it. and I feel like we have this synergy in your gold braid on the caftan and my gold stripe going down the arm of my jumper. So we're in harmony as usual. It's strange to be talking to you in this slightly formal way because you are literally my best friend and whenever I see you I feel better, like a lost limb has been restored to me.

3:31And you're one of the original supermodels from the 90s and you're the incredibly successful designer and founder of The Vampire's Wife. And I wondered what was the first piece of clothing that you became obsessed with as a child? Yeah, trying to remember the first piece of clothing was quite difficult because I think I had all these imaginary things that I didn't actually have. And I was sure I had a pair of red patent shoes, but I asked my mom yesterday and she said I definitely didn't have them. But there is one outfit that I had a party dress that I had when we'd come back from Africa where we were living and back to Cheshire to our home there.

4:24And I'd fallen in love with this sort of orange and white long skirt and a sort of ruched top. And I apparently used to wear it every day to the shops and anywhere, even though it was quite a party kind of dress. But my mom said I just wore it the whole time. And I think I wore it until it was literally up to my knees, having been long when we had bought it. I just didn't want to let it go. I know you had a complicated childhood and you ran away from school age 14 and then moved to Japan. What did you think your life was going to be? I didn't have particularly high hopes for myself, to be really honest.

5:10I was pretty terrified of the future. And I just felt like a bit of a disaster, to be honest. and so I've been very surprised how things have turned out it really wasn't in any way anything I could ever have dreamt all the good things that happened to me were things that were just in no way ever I would never have believed any of it if I could time travel and what felt like a disaster um I just felt pretty hopeless at everything I was always sort of dreaming and looking out the window and kind of in my own little world and um I was always being told off about that I don't know whether it's to do with because I'd lived for some of my childhood in Malawi in Nigeria and then I'd come back to England and I didn't really speak English very well and I kind of never felt like I really fitted in I always felt slightly awkward um very awkward and I went to a lot of different schools um and a lot of different types of schools I don't I don't know really you met Stephen Mizell on a plane to New York what did he say to you I was on a school uh holiday I think it was Easter holiday and my dad was living and working in New York and um my mom didn't was a little disappointed with me because I'd been naughty at school and so packed me off to go and see my dad and my dad was very sweet he um he just kind of let me go loose in New York and I was 14 and I just sort of roamed around and found myself in Carnegie Hall which I'd seen on TV and fame and I I thought oh I've seen that on TV I'm gonna go inside and have a look and I went inside and as I was walking up the stairs Bethann Hardison the famous model agent at the time she was just opening her agency that day and was hammering the sign on the door saying you know model agent and she just sort of happened to see me going up the stairs and I was only 14 but she she saw something in me and said would I like to be a model and I was like what you know like uh you know and she She said, I'll send you to see some testing photographers who are new.

7:43And one of those photographers that she sent me to was 18-year-old Stephen Wiesel. Oh, my God. And who, I went to meet him. He was in this sort of gorgeous apartment, and he looked so handsome. And I was just like this little 14-year-old, kind of completely unsophisticated. And, like, I just felt so out of my depth. And he was incredibly sweet and sort of said, look, I really think you need to go back to school. You're very, very young. Really? You know, so off I went, packed off back to England, back to school. And then many, many years later, well, not that many, but when I was 18, about five years later, he actually booked me for a job in New York.

8:31but I was too scared to tell him that I was the one he sent back home to school. I just felt too shy to tell him that but I was very grateful for his advice because that was good advice. I didn't actually end up going back to school. You didn't. I pretended I was at school but I wasn't. Because is that when you went to Japan instead? I sort of went back to school briefly for about a day. I went to the local comprehensive in Catford. And no one really noticed that I was there or not. So there were such huge classes that I just started wandering around London and getting the train to London and stuff like that.

9:21And on one of those days, I was spotted by a Japanese agent who asked me to go to Japan, which was, again, completely sort of out of the blue and out of any kind of idea. I thought I'd just be working in Sainsbury's or, you know, I'd be lucky if I ever got a job doing anything. So it was quite amazing. And I was just like, yes, you know, and I didn't have any money. I remember getting on the plane, I had 20 pence and I think I was 16 then when I left to go to Japan. Gosh. Yeah. I was supposed to go for two months, but I ended up there for nearly two years because I loved it. Because back in the day, models would go to Japan and earn a lot of money and then come back and sort of be a bit more.

10:17Yeah. How did it work? Well, I sort of thought I got sent there because I was really the most unlikely model you've probably ever seen in your life. At the time, I was small. I was very skinny. I had a very short haircut with black and white sort of stripes. That's so great. And for some reason, you know, the Japanese people took me under their wing and I don't know what happened, but they were just so kind to me. And I worked a lot, sometimes like two jobs a day. And I kind of learned how to be a model because I was working so much and I was so camera shy. I was excruciating for the first sort of few months.

11:07I literally would just freeze in front of the camera and it was really difficult. And I'd have a sort of, I'd have like paranoic kind of, you know, just feeling like, what am I doing here? And I'm just no good at this. And, you know, even people used to say, other models used to say to me, I don't think you'll cut out for this because you're not very good at this. No. And, you know, I didn't, I really, but then on one of the, one of the jobs I was doing in Japan, Tien, the very famous makeup artist who was the creative director of the makeup of Christian Dior, had come over to do some work with Christian Dior for the makeup.

11:50And he chose me to model for him. And he did my makeup and kind of transformed me completely. I looked in the mirror, hardly recognized myself. and he said look if you come to Paris I'll shoot a Christian Dior makeup campaign with you and I just thought he was being nice but then a few years later when I came back to England and I went to Paris that's what happened and I was the face of Christian Dior makeup for about four or five years and worked with Tien yeah and that was sort of like I think that's what kind of helped me in my career you know having that endorsement because he see I've seen some of those pictures and it seemed like he just enhanced what you were capable of because they're so recognizably you with this incredibly elegant kind of aquiline profile and this this fineness and when you when you looked in the mirror what had what had he done did you notice what he'd accentuated that you almost stepped into seeing oh this is me and I I can be more of this I just I just I think on every shoot with him I always felt like how can I give him enough because he's so brilliant and it was just him and I in the studio he was also the photographer with me he took all the photographs so we were kind of on our own and it was amazing and we just you know sort of experiment but what fascinated me about was that um he was a vietnamese refugee and he'd come over to paris as a refugee and he had got a job at the opera and he was um he was nurev's makeup artist in the end so he did all the makeup for all the incredible performances with rudolph nurev and that's why a lot of the makeup he did used to sort of come out into your hairline like a lot of the makeup on me was like this ballet kind of you know incredible colors and you know it was really sort of something else it wasn't it wasn't just a normal makeup it was sort of like every color and sort of going into my hairline the eyeshadows sort of going purple and green and and he'd sort of put you know he'd have millions of accessories he'd tie around my head like a ballerina and flowers and you know so he just transformed me into these sort of flower kind of vibe ballet I don't even know they were just each each each campaign was so different I wasn't really recognizable at all um but it was really fun we had a lot of fun together doing those campaigns I really I was amazing to work with someone so talented god they sound incredible so interesting in the old way of working you know with just the two of you whereas now all the productions have you know 50 people or yeah oh my goodness yeah it's possible to be freer i think in that situation well i would imagine not yeah i i feel like i mean i don't really do many shoots any any more myself as in that way um but whenever I have in the last sort of 15 years I'm always astounded by how many people are in the studio because when I was modeling with Bailey or you know with the you know the more old school photographers and in my time in the 80s you know there would just be one assistant one hairdresser one makeup artist one stylist maybe maybe an art director and that's it and now there's so many people so it is quite intimidating it's I found it much easier to kind of lose yourself and get into the photograph if it's not so many people it's quite intimidating when there's loads of people I remember the first time I saw you um and you were standing in the doorway of of a Winnebago in Hyde Park and we were doing a Vivian Westwood shoot for Elle magazine.

16:15And you were standing on the steps and I remember you were wearing this tiny little silk skirt and a breeze came along and just blew it up. And then you'd smoothed it down, but so slowly. And I was totally fascinated because I thought, God, if that happened to me, I would have smacked it down. but you just did this kind of incredibly slow smoothing, and I've never forgotten that. Oh, wow. That's such an interesting memory because I can't remember that at all. I think living in Japan, I kind of learnt to try and do things elegantly because naturally I was quite a clumsy kind of person, always falling over and walking into lampposts and things like that.

17:14And I noticed the more sophisticated models did things slowly. So I kind of, they were a bit older than me and I used to look up to them and the beautiful Japanese models and they sort of were so graceful. So I think I tried to take a little bit of inspiration from them. But I remember you mentioning once how you had a boyfriend who was always looking at other models. I think you decided to do things slowly to attract his attention. Yeah, that's true. I remember being backstage at a fashion show in Tokyo and my boyfriend was doing, he was a hairdresser and he was doing the hair on the show. and I was very excited to be in a show that he was doing the hair on and I was very new at doing fashion shows.

18:07So I think it was probably like my second fashion show I'd ever done or something like that. It even could have been one of the first. I think it was the second. And I noticed that he kept on looking at this girl who was undressing really, really slowly, this model, beautiful model who's older than me. And, you know, he kept sort of hanging around her and kept re-combing her hair. over and over again. And I, and I remember just watching him and how captivated he was by her. And I think it was a painful moment for me because I felt so unsophisticated next to her, but it kind of was a little lesson after that.

18:46I thought I'm going to be like that from now on, whenever I'm changing or doing anything, I'm going to do it like that. And maybe my boyfriend might pay me more attention so I don't know those weird things that you sort of pick up when you're young and insecure and seems very silly now but it's interesting because it's almost like being in the theater and learning a technique and you've always been able to kind of recognize these moments in day-to-day life and turn them into some of your artistry and I mean this when I saw you for the first time and I remember your black hair and it was very similar to how you are now and your pale skin and just this languidness that you had and And anyway, it worked on me.

19:43I've been captivated ever since. Oh, thank you, Belle. That's so lovely. Thank you. And when we met, I was working for Vivian, and you and Sarah Stockbridge were her favorite models. Do you remember, what were the things that she asked you to do? um well there was always sarah and um you know the incredible sarah stockbridge and um some reason vivian liked us both together maybe because i had such black hair and sarah had such blonde hair and i feel like we were like the white swan and the black swan or something yeah and so she'd come with these little stories for us just as we're about to go on.

20:33It was pretty chaotic. I mean, none of us really knew what we were doing, except I think Sarah knew what she was doing. She was always brilliant. I was just sort of following on, following along, going along with whatever was happening type of thing. And anything could happen on the catwalk. You just never knew what was going to happen. And it was just fun. It was a lot of fun, actually. So I remember one show where you were swapping clothes and it was almost like doctors and nurses. Oh, yeah. Was it you listening to Sarah's heartbeat and then going? Yeah, I think I was the patient because I had to limp and have a walking stick.

21:16And then for some reason I had the stethoscope. I don't know. It was just all funny. It was so much fun, those shows. It was really, it really was fun. We really had fun those days. I remember being at the casting where Sarah Stockbridge, where Vivian first saw her. And I remember her walking and going back and forwards. And then after Vivian went, I've got tears in me eyes. And she was just so, she saw what Sarah had to offer. and I was thinking, I wonder why she chose her out of all the people. And she was right. You know, Sarah was, she just was so responsive to Vivian. Yeah, Sarah was, I mean, she was just magnificent.

22:09I mean, she still is. But I remember just being like, I don't think I've ever met anyone ever again as sort of incredible performer. The way she, and just everything about her, She was just so charismatic and magnetic and so beautiful, so incredibly beautiful. You were an amazing team. You were incredible because you both had this intense atmosphere and you seemed to have almost a sort of symbiotic understanding of what each of you would do next and you just responded to each other. So it was so fun to watch. Thank you. It was amazing. I kind of liked being a little bit in the background with Sarah.

22:57I often think about that. I always feel a little bit more comfortable if I'm not the center of attention. And, you know, I don't really like being the center of attention at all. And I think with Sarah, you know, I love to see Sarah do what she does and I just sort of stay back and sort of support whatever it is she's doing type of thing. and I think it's quite similar now being married to Nick you know I'm married to someone who's incredibly charismatic and you know I like being a little bit behind the scenes um I like watching them and him and Nick being Nick and but I don't feel very comfortable when And I sometimes end up being, getting, if I'm with Nick, sort of that attention that he gets, the spotlight on him.

23:53But if it goes on me a bit, I'm quite shy. I find it quite scary. It's so interesting because people are obsessed with you and fascinated. And the more reticent you are, the more intrigued people are by you. you have such a presence that you you you have a lot of privacy about you as well so yeah I sort of don't know how I ended up where I ended up I'm sure I would you know it's just so strange because my personality doesn't really go with the kind of life that I have you know or that I've you know since since I left home I always think um you know I'd probably I I don't know it's strange I mean I feel I I love I love my life obviously but I always think um I I should be a bit more outgoing but I as I've got older I've got more and more uh quiet I think and also the fact that I don't drink alcohol for the last nearly 30 years I think you know when I used to drink I was a little bit out of control a bit wild but um you know I'm I'm yeah don't do that anymore and we reconnected in the 90s when I started my own brand and um your then boyfriend Ralph rang up and said that you'd had a dream about some shoes I'd made and could he bring you round and And I was so excited because I was making a film and I wanted to ask you to be in it.

25:37And we've been friends ever since then. I'd had a dream about these blue suede shoes and a bar of chocolate. And I'd woken up in the morning and told Ralph. And he said, that Bella makes those shoes. My friend Bella makes those shoes. I'll take you around then. We'll go and buy you some shoes. and, you know, he was very sweet. And then we'll go and buy you some chocolate. He was so sweet. And anyway, so we went round and I met you properly then because we hadn't really properly met when you worked with Vivian. We'd sort of met that day but not really had a conversation. And from that day, you know, I feel like that dream was magical because, you know, I had the lovely shoes and then I never stopped wearing your shoes for the years and years and years to come.

26:29And we, you know, we became such close friends and through thick and thin, through everything. Yeah. I'm enormously grateful to you for everything. Well, I'm enormously grateful to you, Susie. Do you remember, there's so many things we've done together, but I remember this time in Paris

26:56when Linda Evangelista gave you the key to her room at the Ritz and we went upstairs and we just stood in it. We were just absorbing Linda. Yeah, I was doing the only couture show I've ever done. It was for Chanel and it was at the Ritz. And there were two shows, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. And in between, I didn't know what to do with myself. So you were in Paris. So we said, oh, let's meet at the bar at the Ritz. So you and I were sitting there having a cup of tea. And Linda came over, who I didn't really know very well. And she said, oh, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm just hanging out until the next Chanel show this afternoon.

27:41She said, oh, just use my suite. Here's the key. And you and I couldn't believe it that Linda had given us the key to her suite. We were so amazing. And, you know, I mean, Linda, even though I kind of worked with her quite often, she's still Linda Evangelista, like the superstar, and just so incredible. And, you know, no matter how many times I'd worked with her, I was still completely in awe and fascinated by what would be in her suite. So you and I spent the rest of the time in her suite. It was really fun. And we were looking at all her creams and things she used, taking a few notes. sorry Linda anyway but that was that was very sweet of her I always loved her for being so kind and we had fun you and I was she had like your big sister model in of the supers well to be honest um all of the supermodels I felt like they were in their own kind of realm you know untouchable um I think I barely even spoke to any of them I'd often be in the same shows and things but I felt you know they they were like this incredible group um always together and not not in a bad way but they were just so and they were so beautiful that all of them together it was kind of mesmerizing to see them all they were so so lovely it's funny because looking back You know, obviously that's such a famous time for those models.

29:17But even at the time, it was amazing to sort of see them all because they were just so, you know, incredible. Yasmin Gowry, Helena, Cindy, who you didn't see Cindy very often at shows because she didn't really do the shows. Christy Turlington, Yasmin Le Bon, Linda, you know, And then came Kate, who just cast a spell over everybody. And amazing. The whole change. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?

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30:46It was really something. I mean, like you said, seeing all the supermodels together, and it was just staggering, like this just moving cloud of such spectacular beauty. And Naomi as well. Yeah, Naomi, wow. She was the queen of them all. Yes, she is. I mean, it seems to have continued as well. All of you seem to have your own sort of trajectories very much in the world. And I remember that time in Paris as well, because we went for dinner at that restaurant called Natasha that everyone used to go to. And I said, oh, I think there's someone who maybe I could set you up with and this writer. And we went for dinner and I seated you in between me and James, the writer, James Fox.

31:47but then funnily enough I ended up marrying him and you went on to meet Nick at one of my shows because when he was on Fashion Neurosis he talked about the first time he saw you sitting when you were sitting together at my show and I I wondered what it was like for you so I wasn't in your show normally I would have been in your show but for some reason I wasn't in the show. I think I said I wasn't feeling well or something. It's an excuse because I didn't really like doing shows very much. I think you decided you didn't want to walk in shows anymore. To do shows anymore. Yeah, that's it. You were the front row guest instead.

32:34So I was sitting in the audience and Nick was sitting. I think there was someone in between us, maybe James. we kind of both kind of did this like this sort of look over at each other and it was sort of this really strange immediate connection very strange like this sort of we both moved our heads to each other I think at the same time and kind of you know it was a strange kind of deja vu or something and then after the show I remember I came back to talk to you and see you and you know hang out with you after the show backstage and I noticed Nick just leaning against a wall just sort of looking at me in a way that I've never been looked at before and I remember thinking of this sort of the way he was looking at me was so intense that I I felt quite shy and wasn't quite sure why he was looking at me like that.

33:39And, you know, there was sort of like all this unsaid stuff going on between Nick and I. And then I remember we went out for dinner that evening after the show with you and Nick came. and I remember just this feeling every time I went near Nick I felt like this kind of magnetic force like around him I felt so drawn to him like the strangest feeling I've never felt like that in my life and I felt also this which seems I don't mean this to sound demasculating or whatever the way I say that. But I felt this incredible protection towards him, like he was my family. And I don't think we'd even spoken at that point.

34:26And it was, it was, it literally gives me goosebumps now to talk about it. It was, it was so incredible, really. And then we sort of slowly started dating over a period of like a year or two after that so it was a long a long romance before we got married a long lovely amazing really and I I was the honored one to be chosen to make your wedding dress and no one else could have worn that dress it was a because it was a fine knit viscose sheath dress with a long train and a kind of sailor collar at the back and it was quite sheer and we could all gaze at your perfect bottom as you walked up the aisle oh thank you Belle it's such a beautiful dress and you were my maid of honor and it was just and you and I spent the night together the night before I remember we um shared a bed and I remember Nick saying why are you sleeping with Bella the night before our wedding.

35:36I was like, what?

35:40He was quite worried. It was very funny. And anyway, thank you, Belle. And yes, you made me the most beautiful dress. And I just, it was just such a beautiful, perfect day and in the middle of the woods in the countryside and this gorgeous dress, which was a little bit outrageous. It was pretty see-through. and was so beautiful and I've still got it. I treasure everything. And Philip made me that incredible hat. And Christian made me the beautiful silver shoes, which I've got. I've got all those things. They're my absolute treasures. They really are. Wow. When I had the vampire's wife, you know, some of my team used to ask to see that dress and I'd get it out and they'd all gasp and just be like, oh, my God, it's so beautiful.

36:36And, yeah, it's such a treasured piece because you made it for me. It was you because I don't know. When I used to think back on it, I sent off the measurements to the factory in Italy to make it and then it arrived a few days before maybe we did one fitting. And, but it was almost like a cobweb that you inhabited and you transformed it into this amazing thing on this special day. And I felt like I didn't really have much to do with it. I just had the, I had the privilege of making some threads that clad your form when you got married. It was such a, I mean, it was more than an honor. It was a responsibility.

37:32And, you know, all these things that have formed part of our friendship, which is so deep. And whenever I meet up with you, I wonder what you'll be wearing. You're so unpredictable. You don't have a uniform. And the only thing is your incredibly shiny black hair. and I've never seen you dressed like a slob. And I wondered what that could mean. I mean, I've never seen you wear a pair of jeans. Yeah, I don't think. I very rarely have worn a pair of jeans, I think. I tend to wear, when I'm not sort of outside, I tend to wear a lot of like dressing gowns. I love wearing those kind of cotton men's dressing gowns.

38:26I love, so that's kind of my casual stuff. And I like wearing like night dresses with a coat on. Yeah. That kind of thing when I'm not sort of dressing for something. I always feel like I'm really scruffy though. I'm surprised how you describe me because I don't feel like that because you never you never dress down you never seem casual because I remember years ago meeting you to go for a walk with the dog Hoover and you were wearing a floor-length Aussie Clark dress and these high-heeled platform mules and it was 10 10 in the morning and I wondered how you decide what you're going to wear? I put very little thought into what I'm going to wear, to be really honest.