The designer and the muse
The people making waves in our wardrobes – and the inspiring women that fire their creativity. By Laura Antonia Jordan
picasso had dora maar. Leonard Cohen had Suzanne Verdal. Virginia Woolf had Vita Sackville-west. Taylor Swift arguably has every ex-boyfriend in her arsenal. Behind every great artist is a great muse – a captivating figure who stirs unbridled creativity.
So no wonder designers, too, are wont to plug in to the power of the muse. It’s hard to think of Hubert de Givenchy without going straight to a mental mood board of Audrey Hepburn hits. Say ‘Tom Ford’ and you likely imagine Carine Roitfeld wearing his designs. There’s Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux, Marc Jacobs and Sofia Coppola, Azzedine Alaïa and Farida Khelfa. For the designer, this person doesn’t just evoke art, but can literally inhabit it. It makes for an irresistible proposition.
But does the idea of a muse still hold currency today among London’s brightest designers? As Molly Goddard says of the word, ‘I freeze around it a little bit.’ Her friend, model Edie Campbell, backs her up: ‘It’s not a very human term; the muse is always slightly “other”, objectified and slightly removed from anything happening on planet Earth.’
Quite – the origin of the term comes from Greek mythology (the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the Muses gave artists and philosophers inspiration for creation).
That’s perhaps why today’s designers want their muses firmly located in reality. As Richard Quinn puts it: ‘The way I see it is, because the collections are so theatrical, it’s more about bringing the clothes into the real world. The people who have an influence on the brand are the people I have a dialogue with all the time.’
Michael Halpern agrees, saying he’s always looking for someone who ‘will challenge you, push you, make you question what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. That’s what makes a muse – it’s a conversation.’
It’s the same for Rejina Pyo. ‘Maybe in the old days, it was more about looks and style and everything on the surface, but I feel with the modern muse, their mind and values are a huge part of it, because without that it’s too superficial.’ After all, what is style without substance?
roksanda ilincic and charity founder noëlla coursaris musunka
noëlla coursaris Musunka was already a fan of Roksanda Ilinčić’s designs before the designer became a fan of her. Roksanda first spotted Noëlla wearing one of her dresses at a charity auction at Bonham’s and thought: ‘Who is this beautiful woman, full of energy?’ And, sure, she looked great in the dress, but ultimately for Roksanda, Noëlla’s appeal runs much deeper than that.
Noëlla is the founder of Malaika, a non-profit grassroots organisation that empowers Congolese girls through education and health programmes. This resonates with Roksanda’s own definition of a modern muse as ‘somebody who has her own way of wearing her clothes, who adds personality into everything she’s doing and somebody who’s actually making a proper positive difference in the world – I think that point is probably the most important.’
Both women admire a femininity that is nuanced, at once strong and soft. You can see it in Roksanda’s sculptural designs, which manage to both enhance and encase the body. ‘I like the colours, I like the shape, it’s very feminine – but there’s something powerful,’ says Noëlla. ‘We can be very forceful, but also very vulnerable,’ agrees Roksanda. Just as her clothes are meant to empower, so is Malaika. They even teamed up with The Outnet earlier this year to create a collection in aid of the charity.
United femininity is essential to both women, who want to build and nurture other women, not least each other. ‘We have respect for each other on a personal level,’ says Noëlla. ‘With some people, you bond immediately, and I think that was the case with us,’ adds Roksanda. ‘Noëlla’s always there to help me, and I’m there to help her.’
molly goddard and model edie campbell
‘i find muses quite a hard thing to talk about,’ admits Molly Goddard, the designer who has single-handedly got cool girls out of jeans and into explosive tulle dresses. ‘It’s a bit narrowing if you’re like, “This is the person that is my one and only dream of wearing the clothes and that’s it.” It’s more like the people who I picture when I design something, and Edie is always one of them. When Edie wears the clothes, it just looks how it’s meant to look. It’s the personality that comes with it, the dress isn’t ever wearing her.’
That Edie is model Edie Campbell, who’s been friends with Molly for years, although they can’t remember how they met. ‘We’re just genuinely friends,’ says Edie. ‘We go on holiday together, go to dinner…’ ‘Don’t talk about fashion together!’ quips Molly.
Today, Edie is part of the extended Molly Goddard family, which also sees her sister Alice style the shows and her mum do the set design. This sense of familiarity translates into the clothes. ‘The way you feel in them is not how you think you will. They’re easy things to wear despite them being giant, multi-layered performance pieces,’ says Edie. ‘What I like about the big dramatic dresses is you take up space. They announce themselves, and I find that when I put them on, I kind of grow into them.’
You get the sense that Molly and Edie ground each other; they’re just good mates muddling along in the bizarre world of high fashion (Edie was Molly’s Met Ball date). ‘What inspires me about Molly is her ability to actually enjoy her work and not to have an infated sense of grandiosity as more success comes her way,’ says Edie. ‘It’s nice that she’ll take the piss and be quite normal.’
richard quinn, his sister grace bond and print designer freya richmond
long before the Queen sat front row at his show last year, Richard Quinn hosted fashion shows for an even more exclusive audience. Growing up, he and his older sister Grace – the youngest two of five – would dress in bin bags and model them for the family in their South London home.
Today, Richard credits his big sister’s enjoyment of fashion with stoking his own interest in design. Grace did Irish dancing as a teenager, and Richard would make the hairbands to go with her costumes. This brotherly favour made him aware not only of the practicalities of putting things together, but ficked on the glamour continued on page 160
roksanda on noella
‘with some people, you bond immediately. that was the case with us’
MOLLY ON EDIE
‘HER PERSONALITY COMES THROUGH – THE DRESS IS NOT EVER WEARING HER’
ignition switch that’s become synonymous with his brand – think acidic, OTT florals and couture silhouettes.
‘Grace really “got” it before I’d graduated,’ says Richard now. And just as he helped with the hairbands, she leant him a hand pulling together his BA and MA collections. Today, her support has been channelled into an official role: she looks after sales for the brand, making up part of a tight-knit team that also includes print designer Freya Richmond, their desks all butted together in his Peckham studio.
Richard credits them with never dismissing his ideas – ‘those people I’m allergic to’ – however farfetched they might seem, and giving him a vital female perspective. ‘It’s all well and good me having this “vision”, but it’s nice to actually see it in the context,’ he says. ‘It becomes really real.’
And how does Grace feel to see her little brother’s runaway success today? ‘It is really surreal, but because he’s always been the way he is, it also doesn’t shock you. These things always happen to Richard.’
simone rocha, poet greta bellamacina and models romy mukerjee and evangeline ling
‘i’ve never designed my collections around one muse,’ says Simone Rocha. ‘It’s always an exploration of femininity in some form, so it’s identifiable in a group of women.’ Indeed, you might say that womanhood itself – nuanced, contradictory, authentic, endearing – is the designer’s muse. Simone wants her clothes – poufy, puckered pieces that are at once romantic and rebellious – to speak for themselves (a message she is so committed to, she didn’t even want to be photographed for this piece). For the designer, this isn’t about crafting mystique, rather a reminder that her woman could be any of us – you just have to get the essence of the brand.
And there are plenty of women who get it. Poet Greta Bellamacina, who likens the pieces to Russian dolls, says, ‘Simone has that amazing ability to put the magic into the mundane. All her clothes are beautifully theatrical and they’re a pleasure to wear, because you feel transported into being another character.’ And then there’s Romy Mukerjee, who walked in the A/W ’19 show in a mannish overcoat with an organza dress over the top; a look that made her feel ‘so powerful. I think that’s really important thing, especially from a female designer.’
Model Evangeline Ling, who also walked in last season’s show, adds, ‘There’s an innocence to them, like when you’re a child in a dressing-up box. But then they have this sophisticated element to them.’
So, can Simone narrow down the type drawn to the brand? ‘A woman with a personal sense of self and quiet confidence.’
emilia wickstead and her mother angela
when emilia wickstead was growing up in New Zealand in the ’90s, her mum Angela wore tailored blazers and miniskirts. ‘As you can imagine, that was very fashion forward in Auckland!’ she laughs. ‘She was always the mother at school who looked completely different. Everything was put together, but very effortlessly, which is quintessential to our brand.’
It’s true that Emilia’s collections still luxuriate in nostalgia: not just of her own childhood, but a bygone era of elegance. She founded her eponymous line at 23, but, as she says, ‘I never had a 23-year-old in mind, even when I was 23.’
Angela’s influence has been as much practical as aesthetic. Emilia would sit in Angela’s studio after school, and when they’d go into boutiques ‘she’d turn clothing inside out and show me good finishings and ones that needed improving’. Just the two of them, Angela also taught Emilia the value of working hard and doing it for yourself.
Today, Angela is drawing inspiration from her daughter’s success and work ethic. ‘Emilia and I have a great intuitive and creative relationship,’ says Angela. ‘She was the inspiration and driving confidence for me in starting my interiors business, Angela Wickstead Home, at 60.’
And now Emilia’s own six-year old daughter, Mercedes, enjoys dressing up: ‘I just let her go wild. You are very much your mother in one way or another.’
rejina pyo and chef skye gyngell
‘i design for the women around me,’ says Rejina Pyo, a go-to for offbeat classics in delicious, deliberately weird colours. One of those women is the Michelin-starred chef Skye Gyngell, owner of Spring restaurant in London, who has known Rejina for over a decade. Food is important to Rejina, who proclaims to feel like a ‘beautiful cabbage’ in her vivid green dress here (she’s even co-authored a cookbook, My Korean Kitchen with her husband Jordan Bourke). For both, there’s a synergy between fashion and food, the two accessible arts. ‘You get dressed every day and you eat every day,’ says Rejina. ‘They’re the two essentials,’ adds Skye.
Rejina also sees parallels between the way she designs and the way Skye cooks ‘without too much embellishment’. As Skye puts it, ‘Sometimes it’s about what you dare to leave out, not what you dare to add in – it’s what can I take away? And then it ends up being so much stronger.’
Theirs is a close relationship and they share an understanding that there’s more to what they do than the awards and accolades. ‘I express my creativity through food, and Rejina expresses her creativity through clothes, but it’s about carving out a world that works for you in the chosen medium,’ says Skye, turning to Rejina. ‘And I love seeing you living life on your own terms.’
michael halpern and dr ghalia ashoor al mahri
‘i think about muses a lot because the collections are so based around the women I admire,’ says Michael Halpern. They are the kind of one-name icons you can easily picture in his extravagant creations – ‘Barbra, Cher, and Donatella, of course, who was a mentor to me’ – as well as the women he knows and loves, like his mother and sister. ‘Those women are the reason I do this. Why would you do this if not for them?’
His friend Dr Ghalia Ashoor Al Mahri – a foetal medicine specialist – also encapsulates his vision. They met when Michael was at Central Saint Martins and have been close ever since. ‘He’s genuinely interested in the well-being of women, and making them feel good, empowered and fabulous. When I wear his clothes, I feel like I’m on top of the world,’ she says. ‘I’m in scrubs all the time, so when I go out, I want to go all out’. It’s this dichotomy between the day and night, real life and fantasy, that Michael enjoys. ‘To be able to give women escapism is hugely important,’ he says.
Still, don’t think they spend every night on the dance floor. You’re more likely to find them in and ordering takeout (‘I don’t cook ever,’ admits Michael). ‘I’m trying to be a good influence,’ laughs Ghalia. ‘She brought sprouted rye bread the other day,’ smiles Michael. ‘I’m not going to eat that.’
One suspects that might be the only thing they disagree on.
RICHARD ON FREYA AND GRACE ‘THEY GIVE MY VISION CONTEXT AND HELP IT BECOME REAL’
SIMONE ON GRETA, ROMY AND EVANGELINE
‘I NEVER DESIGN AROUND ONE MUSE – IT IS ALWAYS AN EXPLORATION OF FEMINITY’
EMILIA ON ANGELA
‘SHE WAS ALWAYS THE MUM AT SCHOOL WHO LOOKED COMPLETELY DIFFERENT’
REJINA ON SKYE
‘FOOD AND FASHION ARE SO SIMILAR. THEY’RE THE TWO ESSENTIALS’
‘TO BE ABLE TO GIVE WOMEN ESCAPISM IS HUGELY IMPORTANT’
MICHAEL ON DR GHALIA