Kristin Scott Thomas Calls Erdem With Her Fashion Emergencies

11:28Erdem Moralioglu:We were so excited to have the dress on because it looked so gorgeous. We didn't want to take it off. You just looked really beautiful.

11:35Kristin Scott Thomas:But that was, we had so much fun.

11:37Erdem Moralioglu:I know.

11:37Kristin Scott Thomas:We did have so much fun.

11:38Erdem Moralioglu:Tell us about that night. I heard there was singing to Madonna, dancing for hours in France to Madonna. You're such a Madonna fan.

11:44Kristin Scott Thomas:I was. And we somehow, I don't know how, someone maybe tipped us off to get to the bottom of the stairs. Yes, yes, yes. Bottom of the big stairs in the Met. So we were like, you kind of do what you're told in those situations. So we were like, we promptly, you know, dinner finished and we both, you know, like good guests, made our way to the bottom of the big stairs. So we were in the front row of the bottom of the big stairs. And lo and behold, there is like a like a prayer, Madonna mega moment. And we were just like in the front row of a concert. Bliss. He was blissed out.

12:19Erdem Moralioglu:That was one of the best performances at the Met, I think.

12:22Kristin Scott Thomas:Ever. I had like Kristen on my arm. I'm looking at Madonna. I was, it was really, it was, that was good. It was good. It was heavenly.

12:32Erdem Moralioglu:It was in a heavenly bodies. It was a heavenly bodies exhibit.

12:35Kristin Scott Thomas:Literally a heavenly moment. Exactly.

12:39Erdem Moralioglu:Well, I know that there's a 20th anniversary dinner is happening tonight.

12:44Kristin Scott Thomas:Yes. It's actually, it's going to be, it's a very special dinner. and it was Ruthie's idea to come up with the idea of having a dinner, a celebration. Okay. And she...

12:55Erdem Moralioglu:Tell us, tell it for our listeners who don't know who Ruthie is.

12:58Kristin Scott Thomas:Well, Ruthie is an extraordinary, iconic, amazing woman, an amazing chef, an amazing... She founded the River Cafe, which is arguably one of the most famous, the most famous restaurant in the world. but she's also one of my best and most loved friends. She's an amazing woman and I love her very much.

13:24Erdem Moralioglu:She has a great podcast. Have you done her podcast? Yes, I've done her. It's really fun, isn't it?

13:28Kristin Scott Thomas:The best podcast in the world. Of course, alongside yours.

13:33Erdem Moralioglu:But also what she's really, really great at is connecting people, don't you find? Yeah, she's a real connector. She's so clever and she listens to everything so she has an opinion about everything. She goes to every single show you can possibly imagine. So she's seen all the theater. She's seen all the art shows. She knows the music. She's read the books. She really is a force to be reckoned with. She's extraordinary.

13:56Kristin Scott Thomas:I love her. She's like family, truly. And so she wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. And so we're having a very small dinner. And that's just to celebrate the 20 years. And that's it. I mean, I keep talking about these 20 years and it's just like... 20 years is nothing.

14:18Erdem Moralioglu:20 years is nothing. You're going to keep going for at least another 20. Exactly.

14:24Kristin Scott Thomas:Can we do this again in 20 years?

14:25Erdem Moralioglu:Well, I don't know if I'll be around, but you will definitely be around.

14:28Kristin Scott Thomas:You will absolutely be around.

14:30Erdem Moralioglu:But I mean, 20 years, it's great to celebrate it, but you've got a lot more in there.

14:36Kristin Scott Thomas:I feel like it just feels like the beginning of something.

14:39Erdem Moralioglu:I mean, you think I've been doing this job for 40 years.

14:42Kristin Scott Thomas:well you started as a child exactly yeah exactly exactly you're a child actress

14:51Erdem Moralioglu:so another major moment i've loved recently and we talked about this when we went to oxford which

14:56Kristin Scott Thomas:is really fun you and i did a uh talk at oxford um oxford union yes yeah oh my gosh yeah it was

15:03Erdem Moralioglu:it was good it was like real life hogwarts it was really fun and i and we were talking about Charlie XCX's amazing pink bridal gown that you made for the Weathering Heights premiere. Yes. Can you talk a bit about how it came together? Because I know that there were certain aspects of that dress, namely the veil that kind of came together at your suggestion.

15:26Kristin Scott Thomas:Yeah, well, it was, you know, we were approached to create something for Charlie. And I just think she's an amazing, an amazing person. And I'd met her earlier. She'd come to one of my shows earlier. And she's, I just think she's extraordinary in Wuthering Heights. Of course, I love any kind of Bronte situation. And actually, what she did wear to that premiere was one of the looks from this show. But we created this veil and, you know, originally there was going to be there was it was actually kind of a mashup between this new season and the previous season that had this kind of very distinct black embroidery that looks like almost kind of like running paint.

16:13Kristin Scott Thomas:And there was this idea of doing like the year that Wuthering Heights was published. But she kept I thought this idea of like a kind of gothic kind of bride with the veil felt like a really interesting idea. But maybe what was interesting about that day is I was talking about my kind of 24 hours and someone asked me about who's the woman that you designed for. And I was, you know, at that time, the fitting had just happened. And within 24 hours, I'd done a fitting with Charlie XCX and Glenn Close. And I was like, I was kind of like, you know, the woman that I designed for is somewhere in between those two extraordinary women and everyone.

16:53Kristin Scott Thomas:And so it was a really interesting kind of 24 hours.

17:01Erdem Moralioglu:More with Erdem and Kristen Scott Thomas after the break.

17:14Erdem Moralioglu:What's up, rich people? It's me, Hayley, a.k.a. Mrs. Dow Jones. Money is juicy. That is why I have taken upon myself to start a new podcast called Financial Tea. Every single week, I will break down what is happening in money right now. Plus, I'm going to bring on experts, entrepreneurs, and influencers to spill their financial tea. Think of it as your new weekly financial gossip column. Financial Tea is out now wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

17:52Erdem Moralioglu:Thinking back now to your first show, what do you remember about that first London Fashion Week show in 2006? Oh, my gosh.

18:01Kristin Scott Thomas:Well, Philip was spray painting. I really had no money, so I had to buy these kind of like really quite awful kind of satin bridesmaids shoes that were like kind of white. White. And we had to, we spray painted them black for the show. And Philip had like a little mini model painting brush. And he was painting the sides of the soles gloss black. So it looked like they had proper leather soles when she walked. And so that was happening the night before. But London was a very different place.

18:38Erdem Moralioglu:Tell us who Philip is.

18:39Kristin Scott Thomas:Philip is my husband, Philip Joseph. And he's an architect. So he's very precise. With his model painting brush.

18:46Erdem Moralioglu:How many pieces did you make for that?

18:50Kristin Scott Thomas:I made, you know, to be fair, I think there were around 40 looks in the show. So it was a lot. I went back to the Royal College and had all the seamstresses that sewed my graduate collection helped put together and sew that collection. And so, you know, I had these kind of, it was all inspired by George Sand. So they all had these kind of like neckerchiefs and kind of very kind of high.

19:13Erdem Moralioglu:So framing the face. Exactly.

19:15Kristin Scott Thomas:Something I still, I'm obsessed with. But it was this George Sand kind of idea, push and pull between masculine and feminine. And you had these wall dresses covered in like kind of sepia colored lovebirds and all of these things. And London at the time was, you know, it was like Robert Carey Williams. It was, you know, it was Boudicca. It was kind of very black. It was, you know, it was London was like, it was tough, you know. And it was at the beginning of this like kind of generation. I mean having said that Giles Deacon was already showing Roxander was already showing Jonathan Saunders was already showing and then eventually Richard Nichol Christopher Kane and then of course like Simone Rushas and then Jonathan Anderson etc so London kind of was it was interesting it was like just pre it becoming this thing but that first collection is what I sold to Barney's in New York and Beverly Hills And, you know, really, truly, I sold to those stores before I sold to anywhere in London, really.

20:17Kristin Scott Thomas:So it was kind of how I started. It was how I started.

20:22Erdem Moralioglu:I mean, I love that you told Sarah Moa in a conversation in your fabulous book that you knew early on that you were going to take the path that you expected to grow up and become a designer while you were growing up in Montreal. What brought you to that realization?

20:40Kristin Scott Thomas:Well, I think like, I mean, I feel sorry for my parents. I was like such a strange child. I think my dad wanted, my dad, Turkish, my mother, English. She was from Birmingham and my dad was from Eastern Turkey. And although my dad was like obsessed with hockey from quite, you know, really once he, when he moved to Canada. So I think he had hopes that maybe I'd become a hockey player or something. Sorry, I have to laugh. A hockey player or a chemist. I don't see this for you. Something like that. But I only drew women. From a very young age, I drew women. There's a picture in the book of a strapless little blue kind of circle dress that I made for my sister's Barbie when I was six.

21:23Kristin Scott Thomas:I kind of did paper dolls of the kind of the cast of the Nutcracker when I was a child. But from a very early age, I was really preoccupied by how women dressed, how they looked, how they moved, my mother's lipsticks, her Shalimar perfume bottles. Just the codes of anything that implied the feminine I found so exciting and really powerful. I also wonder if maybe I grew up with a twin sister so you grew up with a twin it's a special thing it's someone who's totally a part of you and to have someone who's kind of the opposite of you and the same as you is really interesting so I wonder if my view of the feminine was something that was quite close to me from a very young age

22:17Erdem Moralioglu:you had very easy access certainly to Barbie Yeah, so brilliant. I'm wondering, Kristen, if that resonates with you, have the same feelings about becoming an actor? I remember exactly the moment when I thought, gosh, people do funny things and I really want to copy them. Which was, I was playing in the back garden of our, we lived on the Patch, which is a military base. Military bases are always called Patches, don't ask me why. Where they put all the people, you know, the officers and everything. And so I was playing in the garden with a girl called Susan Gould, who was our next door neighbor.

22:56And we were playing cowboys and Indians. And I was an Indian with a bow and arrow.

23:04Erdem Moralioglu:And she had a gun. And she shot me. And so I had to die. But I had been brought up as a Catholic. And the only image of death that I have was Jesus on the cross. So I tried desperately. I must have been about four and a half, five. To put my arms out straight, you know, like this. And cross over my feet. And then I thought as I was doing it, no, I don't think it's like this. I think it's, you know, you've got to just crumple. So I stood at that. And then I thought, God, this is really interesting. Seeing how people, why people do that? Why does she wear her headscarf like that and not like this?

23:40Erdem Moralioglu:Why does she open the door in that funny way? You know, I just remember being really interested in how people behave.

23:47Kristin Scott Thomas:Amazing.

23:47Erdem Moralioglu:So maybe I could have done something else with that. But I'm not very good with, I wasn't very good at reading and writing and all that sort of thing. It was a school. It was a disaster at school. So I ended up being an actress. Wow.

24:00Kristin Scott Thomas:I love it from the crucifix to Elektra

24:02Erdem Moralioglu:I know exactly

24:04Kristin Scott Thomas:there's a connection there

24:05Erdem Moralioglu:yes there is I mean my first ever film was with Prince which was Under the Cherry Moon of course yes I remember that and so that was quite an eye opener what a way to start well exactly it was this big movie Warner Brothers He had all these amazing HODs, head of departments. I was working with Francesca Anis. I mean, it was just sort of very, very, very, very glamorous and completely different from anything I'd ever done before. Previous to that, I'd been doing a Marguerite Duras play in a field in Burgundy in an open-air theatre. And suddenly there I was, you know, doing this incredible thing.

24:50Erdem Moralioglu:So that was impressive. But I think the first time I really sort of understood what it is to be in the big game like that was when we did, when I did the auditions, not really the auditions because the auditions are done, but the screen tests for the English patient. When I got on the clothes and they did my hair and they did my makeup and I stood in front of the camera. And that was like, this is it. This is the portal. Wow. Everything up until then, I mean, I did Four Weddings before then and I did various other films. I'd done quite a lot of films. But this one was, it just felt really, really important.

25:35Erdem Moralioglu:Even though we hadn't even made it yet, I knew that the script was beautiful. The actors were amazing. Willem Dafoe, Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche. It was just extraordinary. and to be part of that, that was really quite something. It's interesting that you said that putting on the clothing, do you relate to your characters through the costumes, through the fashion? Yeah, definitely. I think when you start building the character, basically when you find the costume, you're looking for the character as well and you're building it together with the costume designer and your own ideas and your knowledge of the story, your knowledge of the personality of the person you're about to play and the situations you're going to be in because you might say, well, why am I going to have a red dress in this scene?

26:28Erdem Moralioglu:And the reason is because there are 150 other people in the scene and we want you to stand out. But I do find it, I mean, it is one of the fundamental moments of finding the character is getting its costume. And it's really fun to do in period costumes when you have, you know, the corsets. The experience of just moving in the world is different than it is today. Yeah, it's totally different. And I love that. I really, really love that. And you feel because you've got this whole sort of shell on, which is all this clothing that is applied to your body, you move differently, you react differently, you look different.

27:10Erdem Moralioglu:I remember going to the hairdressers once and Catherine Deneuve walked in and said, you're doing a period film. And I said, yes, I am. How do you know? She said, because your eyes, you've got huge dark circles under your eyes. And that's because of the corset. It compresses your innards so much that nothing can move around. So it changes the color in your eyes. That is wild. I can totally believe that. Your skin tone changes. I can completely believe that. Your back hurts. Gosh. Oh, my gosh. It is really impressive. Thank goodness we don't have to wear those on a day. Well, I know.

27:46Erdem Moralioglu:But, you know, it has its advantages. Yeah, it does. It does. It does. It does. It does. We'll be back after a quick break.

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28:42Erdem Moralioglu:Now that your 20th anniversary show is out in the world, I wonder what to you is your favorite process of putting together a collection. Is it like for me when I'm writing a story, it's just like when it's done? Yes. What is it? Do you like putting together the research? Because I know you go so deep on that. Or what's your favorite? What's your favorite part in the creative process?

29:05Kristin Scott Thomas:I think I would say two extremes, the beginning, the very beginning and the very end. I'll start with the very end. Yesterday when I was at the show, you're backstage and you have this kind of fleeting moment where the entire collection is together and each outfit is on an amazing character and the casting of each of these extraordinary models. you know they're like actors they kind of bring something to life and there's this fleeting moment where this this kind of idea this kind of manifesto is alive on someone so you see you know every single look together and that that I find extraordinary and it's the moment just before you kind of it kind of the first model walks out and it goes into the world that that's my favorite moment.

29:58Kristin Scott Thomas:It must be terrifying. It's a fleeting, tiny moment, short. And then the other moment, I think, is at the very beginning because of the possibility.

30:08Erdem Moralioglu:You like the blank page stage? I love the blank page.

30:10Kristin Scott Thomas:I find like the sketch, that first idea, sketch, conversation, that whole, that first beginning of where you're kind of starting to paint a picture of who this person might be or where you're going to go and where you're going to take everyone on the team, where you're going to go with the collection, I find really, really exciting.

30:30Erdem Moralioglu:Does it happen the day after the show, or when do you begin to think about the next one?

30:33Kristin Scott Thomas:The next one's already started. Yeah, so they're all happening in town. That's what's crazy.

30:39Erdem Moralioglu:But I wanted to ask you about your team.

30:42Kristin Scott Thomas:Yes.

30:42Erdem Moralioglu:So you must have quite a few people working with you, and you tend to use the same seamstresses and things, do you?

30:51Kristin Scott Thomas:Well, the seamstresses in the atelier, absolutely. they're part of the permanent team. And then there's, you know, everything, you know, in order to even to create everything that you saw yesterday is an extraordinary, amazing team. So everything happens from everything from the extraordinary design team, pattern cutters, seamstresses, embroidery designers, print designers. Pattern cutting. Pattern cutting is extraordinary. I mean, sorry, it's probably,

31:23Erdem Moralioglu:I'm just really interested in pattern cutting because where does that go to? That start, it's a piece of paper, basically. Yes. But who designs that? You say, I want this line, and your pattern cutter will say, I know how to get there.

31:38Kristin Scott Thomas:So it's a process where it begins with a sketch. You know, the sketch really informs the silhouette. from sketch from a very loose sketch it might become more of a technical drawing where you're really drawing more of a flatter drawing against a kind of kind of quite a stricter illustration where it really shows bust line hip waist and then that along with the sketch and the technical drawing that is then explained to the pattern cutter who will then create an initial drape You then look at the initial drape. That drape is then unpinned. The drape is done in calico. You unpin the drape. From that, a paper pattern is created.

32:23Kristin Scott Thomas:And then you sew the first twirl. And that twirl might become one twirl, two twirls, three twirls. Could go on forever. Yeah. So we'll do a fitting every Thursday. So you're in a fitting every single Thursday. We're in a fitting. Sometimes we have fittings twice a week. but and certainly when it's showtime it's every single day but it's interesting you know even in the simplest things that you know even to achieve that kind of a pure shape or silhouette there's just such a complexity to the act of pattern cutting you know even when you look at you know tailoring and the armhole and the shoulder and how how how things fit and when you're also doing things bespoke that's a whole other layer of of creating that shape for a very specific body and

33:15Erdem Moralioglu:proportion as well sorry no it's fascinating i honestly like to be honest even even though i've spoken to so many designers i've actually never had it explained in detail exactly how it all comes together so it's quite interesting to hear you break it down for us um in your book uh you say that in two decades everything has changed and nothing has changed in what way I think um

33:40Kristin Scott Thomas:well the everything that's changed you know when I started um you didn't even have online shopping you didn't you know something like net-a-portrait didn't exist um or something you know Instagram or how we interact with you know all of exact all of all of that world just never, you know, just simply didn't exist. So in that sense, everything's changed. I even think, you know, when you were a designer, being in the window of Colette during fashion week was, you know, really important being in somewhere like Barney's was really important, where you were within Barney's was really important. The things that matter and that mattered then might not even exist now.

34:24Kristin Scott Thomas:But the things that haven't changed, you know, the idea of, of what inspires me the idea of continuity of language is is you know remains constant I can look back at my graduate collection I can look back at sketchbooks from when I was 21 and still see a connection between the who I was then and who I am now and and that kind of line I can see a connection so everything's changed nothing's changed you know I really believe that.

34:55Erdem Moralioglu:That's so true. Kristen, can you share with us what's coming next and what fans can look forward to? What fans can look forward to? Well, I'm still, it's a very popular TV series that, which for Apple TV, which is called Slow Horses that I'm still involved with. Yeah, epic. So we've got some more of those to look forward to. And then in April, on April the I think you'll be able to see the film that I made called My Mother's Wedding with Scarlett Johansson, who I rediscovered thanks to you because you took me to the Met Gala and I saw her at the party and we reconnected after many years. And so, yeah, so that's in part thanks to you.

35:43Erdem Moralioglu:And so Sienna Miller, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Beecham, me. And it tells the story of a mother who's on to her third wedding and her three daughters whose noses are all slightly out of joint because they don't approve of the new husband. So that's coming out in April. And then in October, I'm going to go back on stage and I'm going to do The Cherry Orchard.

36:11Kristin Scott Thomas:Oh, how lovely. Very exciting. Yes. Very exciting.

36:14Erdem Moralioglu:Yes, that is very exciting. And then after that, I'm free. You've got a big, busy year ahead. Do you prefer stage or do you have a preference or is it just a different? It's such a different animal. I mean, we are pretending to be other people, but that's where the similarity stops, really. It's a completely different set of muscles that you use. You have to be incredibly fit to keep going on stage. Even if you're not doing running around, it still requires an enormous amount of energy just to be able to speak every night and sometimes twice a day, a three-hour play to 800 people. You know, that requires a big engine.

36:56Erdem Moralioglu:So you have to keep that engine really sort of tuned up. And, yeah, I really, really, really love stage. And I'm lucky enough to work a lot with Ian Rickson who chooses his projects super carefully and casts them brilliantly and has a great designer. And it's all really, really fun.

37:17Kristin Scott Thomas:Wonderful. Yeah. I'm very excited. Yes, I am too.

37:22Erdem Moralioglu:Well, we really look forward to that. Thank you so much both for coming on. It's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I'm so glad we can make this happen in such a busy week. So yeah, let's look forward to the next 20 years. Yeah, exactly. We've got a date in 20 years right here.

37:39Kristin Scott Thomas:I'll meet you right here.

37:49Erdem Moralioglu:That's it for The Runthrough. See you later this week. The Runthrough is produced by Chelsea Daniel, Alex De Palma, and Alex John Burns

37:58Kristin Scott Thomas:with help from Emily Elias. It's engineered by Pran Bandy and James Yost. It is mixed by Mike Kutchman.

38:09Kristin Scott Thomas:In a time when the United States military is being sent into American cities, when civilians and soldiers are being pitted against each other, it's strange that we've never dressed more alike. We all wear performance clothes.

38:24Erdem Moralioglu:We all wear outdoor clothes, whether or not we're outside, civilians and soldiers. I'm Avery Truffleman. I make a podcast about clothing called Articles of Interest.

38:34Kristin Scott Thomas:And in this new season, I trace the interwoven histories of the military and the outdoor industry and how they built each other.

38:41Erdem Moralioglu:Find articles of interest wherever you get your podcasts. And the season is called Gear. From PRX.