I faced full force of SPG and it’s not an experience I want to repeat
Interviewing Sir Philip Green isn’t something that comes up that often. “This is rare,” he grunted, waving his hand at me and my Dictaphone when I was dispatched to talk to him about the launch of Ivy Park, his joint fashion venture with Beyoncé. We are in his boardroom. Decorated by his wife, Lady Green, the shiny black-clad penthouse space sits at the apex of his empire off Oxford Street. The windows look out across the London skyline. From his mission control, you can see to Parliament and beyond.
His staff all refer to him as SPG. He is a formidable man, despite his diminutive stature (he is perhaps as tall as his belly protrudes).
Green is alternately charming and aggressive, often within the same barked sentence. Sitting across from him while he distractedly toys with his famed Nokia phone is intimidating. I’ve sat in a tiny room alone with Karl Lagerfeld, interviewed Donatella Versace in her gold office-annex and been to Victoria Beckham’s house (makes a nice cuppa). Walk in the park. Being in front of Green is an entirely different prospect. And not one I particularly want to repeat.
His attention span is short. Ask one question and he pulls a sneering face and dismisses you; ask another and he becomes enlivened, happy at the opportunity to boast about his business acumen and power. He is a boisterous show-off. He’ll remind you how long he’s been in the business, how much he can do at the snap of his fingers – he has the suppliers, the logistics, the clout. He breaks off when his phone rings and he launches energetically into a fiery debate with the caller. He reminds you that he’s friends with Simon Cowell. “Kate (Moss) is a mate”.
Ask a question he doesn’t like or thinks is basic and he looks at you like you’re a moron, screwing up his face, offering a sarcastic answer. Being in conversation with him is a battle, firing shots back and forth. I ask about Brexit. “I don’t do politics. Tell them fashion is hard enough.” The PR sitting in on our interview is treated with the same disdain; at one point it feels like he is almost belittling her in order to amuse me. It isn’t a comfortable half hour (or is it 20 minutes?).
It’s enough, that’s for sure.
Back at the office I send over a couple of innocuous questions asking for corroboration on some background information. Minutes later my phone rings. It’s one of his famed calls.
“Vicki, Vicki.” He launches a tirade at me on how I should only write about the launch. “That’s all this is about” and nothing else (this slightly prior to the unveiling of the full BHS debacle).
I’m not particularly surprised. Stories of Green’s obnoxious, dominating behaviour are ten a penny in the fashion industry.
Journalists have long rolled their eyes at the antics of SPG, sometimes offering an almost weird affection for the hi-jinks of a man who, at one point, centred himself at the industry’s core, funding the shows of emerging talent in London Fashion Week.
These young designers would then be signed up to produce Topshop capsule collections. Lots of hype for them, fashion kudos for Green. Money, you see, buys you anything. When he
attends an Arcadia event you watch as his staff gently scatter themselves to the corners of the room, avoiding face time at all costs. One ex-employee tells me: “We all knew he was a bully. He’d call people in the middle of the night and scream at them. His rudeness was legendary.”
But then I have been told (on good authority) that this is just his way, he talks like this to his wife, children… He’ll blow up and move on.
A journalist remembers a dinner where Green spent the entire night castigating and mocking his PR because, to his mind, she had no idea how to choose a good red wine.
Another former head office employee explains: “I don’t think I ever had a pleasant exchange with him. There was always a heightened sense of fear and panic when he was in the building. He would walk around the office screaming at people if their area was even a little untidy.
“He would march into a meeting where he didn’t know what was happening and put someone on the spot. Once he used someone’s country of origin against them in an argument – he didn’t even have the right country, though. I became the target of a rant at one point. I tried to reason and answer back, which I had been advised was the best way to deal with it, but he just shouted that ‘there’s no need to be argumentative’.
“He was a classic bully. It was like walking on eggshells constantly. I can’t think of any other workplace where that kind of behaviour would be acceptable. After one gruesome week of major showdowns, I went to speak with someone more senior, thinking we might be able to talk about it. But it was brushed under the carpet. By the end, I was suffering from anxiety, which I think that atmosphere really perpetuated.”
That he was a regular attendee at the notorious Presidents Club events isn’t particularly surprising. The man who kicked out Scarlett Curtis and her feminist book from his store? A bully? Shocker. The fashion industry is rife with stories of his notoriety, some affectionate, some – especially with the hindsight of Metoo – now viewed through a different lens. It will be interesting to see how many come forward to talk about their experiences.
It is a small, incestuous world. One that generally likes to keep its dirty laundry to itself.
Equally, Green has been courted and feted by everyone – and being left red faced is never a good look.
‘I don’t think I ever had a pleasant exchange with him. There was always a sense of fear and panic’