Bella Freud

‘Clothes are your ally.’ Bella Freud on self-doubt, Vivienne Westwood and a very beautiful frying pan.

Photos: Courtensy of Zalando

Conversation

Bella Freud has never been much interested in fashion as camouflage. The designer, whose ‘upmarket irreverence’ has been taking shape since the 1990s, believes clothes should make a person more recognisable. That idea runs through her podcast Fashion Neurosis, a title her great-grandfather Sigmund might have appreciated, in which guests including Kate Moss, Zadie Smith and Rick Owens use clothes as a way into rather larger questions of identity and of the selves we choose to show. Here she talks about getting dressed as a remedy for self-doubt, and why comfort is an overrated place to begin.

Super Flattering

Why can a question as small as ‘What shall I wear?’ feel like a crisis?

Bella

I think it’s the wobble moment of self doubt: who am I? Who am I for this occasion? There can be such a crisis at that moment and clothes can resolve it. Clothes are your ally.

Super Flattering

When you dress in the morning, who gets the first say: comfort, confidence or effect?

Bella

I remember Vivienne Westwood saying something like comfort is overrated. I think what she was suggesting is that if you start with comfort you will never experiment with what could make you feel amazing and give you courage. I think dressing for comfort can trap you in a boring place, it should be the last detail. It is good to represent yourself with clothes, that people recognise you for your qualities through what you wear. Identity is everything, that’s what I’m going for.

Super Flattering

Has anyone ever given you style advice that stuck?

Bella

‘Don’t hide’ but maybe I gave that to myself. I have had an inclination to err on the side of not attracting attention but I don’t want to be anonymous! So now I think, if in doubt, do it. Rather than don’t do it. It is such a privilege to be able to dress up and wear great clothes so I’m doing it more and more.

Super Flattering

Still, you sound wary of style advice. Is there any rule you would put your name to?

Bella

I am wary about style advice. Maybe it would be ‘if you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror, something has gone wrong. You are either too anonymous or your clothes are wearing you.’

Super Flattering

What has fashion taught you about confidence that you didn’t know when you started out?

Bella

Fashion has taught me everything about those aspects of myself. It has taught me there is no retirement age, there are no frontiers, only horizons. The power of a good outfit is inestimable, it can make you more intelligent because it frees you from self consciousness. Fashion is a good tool for those of us who are more introverted. We can give clues about our nuanced personality, rather than just seem withdrawn or aloof. You can be in the foreground by being attentive to the background and the architecture of an idea. No one can see you yet you have created visibility.

Freud has spent decades making clothes, yet she talks about them less as objects than as accomplices. Her own formula for them, coined in the 1990s, is polished enough to know the rules and sufficiently uninterested in obeying all of them.

Super Flattering

And if you had to sum up your own style in a phrase?

Bella

I came up with something in the 90’s which I call ‘upmarket irreverence,’ I stand by that.

Super Flattering

Where do you go when an idea refuses to arrive?

Bella

I go back to the places I always find interesting: punk rock, Anita Pallenberg, David Bowie, cartoons from the 60’s and 70’s. But most of all it’s reading – I find the imagery that comes from reading is more three dimensional than looking at photographs or paintings. The more I have to feel it as opposed to see it, the more it directs me to something new.

Super Flattering

What do you find yourself hunting for online, again and again?

Bella

I often look for a certain style of jean by Pepe called Midonna. I sometimes find deadstock on Ebay. They aren’t cool but they suit me and I’m always hunting for them, they have to be non stretch too, I hate stretch jeans.

Super Flattering

Are you an impulse shopper, or do you go in with a plan?

Bella

I hardly ever go on shopping sprees but if I do I have a target and plan. I like to take someone shopping, that’s the most fun. If it’s for me I would prefer to go with a girlfriend I trust. I never do group chat.

Super Flattering

What would your friends expect to find in your shopping bag, and what might surprise them?

Bella

My friends know about my passion for shoes. I do like a beautiful frying pan, that might come as a surprise.

This interview was conducted by Zalando and appears here with their kind permission.