Great creative minds have always intrigued Bella Freud – so much so that you can feel their presence in every corner of her namesake label. Her ‘Ginsberg is a God’ jumpers pay tribute to the raw freedom of the Beat poets, her gamine tailoring riffs on the uniforms of underground icons like Patti Smith, and a teenage rebelliousness to her scribbly slogans can be traced back to her days working as Vivienne Westwood’s assistant on the shop floor of Seditionaries. When it comes to the figures who have shaped her, she’s never shied away from her family history, either. The dog doodle that has been her logo since the brand’s founding in 1990 was scrawled by her father, the artist Lucien Freud, and so inextricably linked is her work and her personal world that the brand’s website also includes a digital diary. Here, tales of all-nighters with Kate Moss mingle with heartfelt accounts of Freud’s life, from her bohemian upbringing to the shock grief of losing both her parents in the same week in 2011.
This is all to say that everything Freud does is personal, and her latest project is no different. Wryly playing on her relation to the father of psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, Fashion Neurosis is a new podcast that sees the designer invite notable figures into her London home to ‘lay down on the couch’ and dissect the ways that fashion has shaped their lives. In conversations that are funny and surprisingly deep, industry gods like Rick Owens and Kate Moss, celebrities like Courtney Cox and literary figures such as Zadie Smith answer Freud’s therapy-style line of questioning with a genuine openness. Despite its set-up, the podcast avoids straying into the realm of cliche, perhaps because Freud herself is such a dexterous interviewer. Both softly spoken and brazenly curious, she playfully guides her guests into the patient role, sharing childhood memories sparked by fashion and reflections on the ways clothes communicate our identities, obsessions, fears and desires.
Here, Bella Freud speaks on the making of the podcast, why a good interview is like winning a battle, and dressing to think more clearly.
Orla Brennan: What made you want to do a podcast?
Bella Freud: I think there’s a lot more to fashion than meets the eye. It’s so much more complex and interesting than how it’s portrayed in the media. I thought about different ways to tell stories in fashion better, and I came up with this.
OB: The format is really great. Approaching style through a Freudian lens, you touch on subjects of ego, obsession, fears and parental dynamics. How did you land on the therapy set-up for the podcast?
BF: I suppose [it’s] partly that I wanted to have a setup that automatically suggested that it was going to be not just about clothing and, you know, ‘What’s your favourite outfit?’ kind of thing. I wanted it to be a little more about how people feel and why clothes are a useful tool to deal with your self-consciousness, your insecurities. I find as a designer, I’m figuring out something that’s an essential tool for someone’s life – to make them feel safe so they can be more intrepid. That’s what I’ve always found [clothes to be].
OB: I love that you were unafraid to lean into your relation to Sigmund Freud. It could have been cheesy but isn’t, I think because there’s a self-conscious humour there, but also because the conversations are so intimate. Did you have any concerns about the angle?
BF: I just thought, well, someone’s going to do that at some point, I might as well play with it. Obviously it’s tongue-in-cheek and I’m not taking myself seriously in that role, I’m just using some of the aesthetics, some of the strategies. I like when things reveal themselves through inquiry. That’s what I enjoy, and so hopefully I can set it up so that we both enjoy it and have a laugh.
“I think there’s a lot more to fashion than meets the eye. It’s so much more complex and interesting than how it’s portrayed in the media” – Bella Freud
OB: Can you talk about the mix of guests you have and how you decided on the line-up?
BF: I wanted very much to have different people, not just people in fashion. I wanted it to open up so that someone coming to it, who is let’s say an Eric Cantona fan – who I’ve interviewed – could discover the podcast too. He’s really drawn to style and so I knew I could have a great conversation with him. I love an unlikely discovery.
I’m interested in people who are clearly stimulated and switched on by style, the way they’re attracted to it, and if it opens something within them. The magic of clothing, of outfits, is how you can go through a mirror. I always love that expression and that thing in the [Jean] Cocteau film Orphée where he disappeared through the mirror. I feel like if you have the right outfit you can go places: it frees you up. It can be a suit of armour, but also a soft thing where people get to see a part of you that you’re hiding internally – you give them a little glimmer of it through what you’re wearing.
OB: You have such a gentle way of speaking to your guests, but you also ask them really personal questions. How did you find stepping into the interviewer-slash-therapist role?
BF: I enjoyed it very much. I love asking [questions], I love finding out about people, I love a bond. If I go to parties, my best evening is if I sit in a corner with one person the whole night. I just function better like that. It feels like a natural set-up for me.
OB: I loved your conversation with Rick Owens, which ranged from being ashamed of his nipples as a teenager to his father being a bully. Were there any stories or moments you felt particularly moved by in the making of the series?
BF: Rick was so open, he was so tender and revelatory as well. I don’t think it’s the first time he’s talked about his authoritarian father, but the way he talked about his body was just so funny. It was incredibly vulnerable but there was no shame there, I loved that he could talk freely about how he’d wanted to change himself.
OB: And your other guests?
BF: Each person I’ve spoken to, there’ve been particular moments where I felt very close to them. I wanted very much for it to have a feeling of intimacy. I think that’s something that I want in my clothes and my work and as a whole, my ethos and how I show myself as a person. It’s like the same feeling as winning a battle. I mean, not that I’ve been in one, but the idea of succeeding in connecting with somebody.
“If you have the right outfit on, you can stop thinking about yourself and your intelligence is more available to you. That’s where clothes are useful – they can set you up for freedom of thought” – Bella Freud
OB: In one interview you said, if you have the right outfit on you can think better. How do you think clothes affect our psychic worlds?
BF: I think if you have the right outfit on, you can stop thinking about yourself and your intelligence is more available to you. That’s what I mean by that. That’s where clothes are useful – they can set you up for freedom of thought. Clothes are associated with vanity and self-regard, but there’s a whole other thing they do – they take care of you. They have your back. And as designers, we have your back. That’s what I like to think, that people come and buy my stuff because my clothes will take care of them.
OB: Fashion is often dismissed as superficial, but these conversations reveal how it can communicate so much about our identities, our cultures, our inner desires. As the podcast is released to the public, how do you hope it will inform or inspire others?
BF: I hope it’ll be entertaining and funny and give people an insight into fashion that’s more than The Devil Wears Prada, which is what I think most people think our world is like. My world couldn’t be less like that. I mean, I’m a tiny person with my brand, but I want to show things are much more faceted than that. We are discerning, we have a philosophy about things, and we look deeply at why they work and they don’t. I hope people will find it fun and interesting – that’s the most I could wish for.
Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud is available to listen to now.