← Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud
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- [00:00]
A
What is dadication? The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariona. We call him Dae Dae for short. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together. We did a good job. That's Dadication. Find out more@fatherhood.gov brought to you by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
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B
Hi, come in. Welcome to Fashion Neurosis. Alessandro. Michele.
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A
Hi, Bella.
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B
Can you tell me what clothes you're wearing today and why you chose them?
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A
I'm very casual because I really didn't think about it. I mean, it seems to be strange for me, but I mean, the only thing that I thought that it was a nice idea to wear because I just bought this T shirt yesterday. It's a vintage T shirt that is a merch from the concert in WEMBLEY in the 1992 Freddie Mercury, I think Memory memorial. I mean, it's, it's a. It's a match, but make me think about my teenager time and it's. It's like a little relic from the past. And a pair of vintage pants, Valentino shoes, flat shoes. And two necklaces from the 18th century Camillo necklace.
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B
And you're wearing my favorite style of sock as well, the children's one with a. With the Pontel holes.
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A
I love.
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B
I have those too.
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A
It's a. I did for my first collection in Valentino. They make me think such a romantic piece of my childhood and I thought that they. They still look so chic and so. Yeah.
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B
So these are Valentino pointelle socks.
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A
Yeah, Valentino. Yeah.
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B
That's exciting. You grew up in Montesacro on the outskirts of Rome and you've said that you felt like you were the child of Lana Turner and of Francis of Assisi. And this is such a fascinating combination of attraction between two people. And I wondered how did your parents get on to together because was he disapproving of your mother's glamour or even of your glamour?
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A
They were really different persons, you know One, my dad was a very simple but also very complicated person. Was like a hippie shaman with long hair. And he was also a sculptor. He played so many instruments and he wrote. He wrote poems. And my mom, yes, she was like the very glamorous mom from the 50s and the 60s. And they met just by accident because my mom, I mean, she had a twin and her sister had a date with a guy, and they. They used to go out together, the two sisters. So apparently the guy that was, you know, for my mom, you know, in that date of the. Of her sister got sick, and this guy, I mean, suggested to my dad to go out with her instead of him. And so it was a. I mean, I think that it's like, you know, the. The karma try to make something possible. So she told me that he was beautiful, but so different from her and so wild. And she felt so uncomfortable for the first year of the relation. But at the end, they spent all their life together.
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B
God, that's such a romantic story.
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A
I mean, they were together just for. I think, because they loved each other. And I think that my mom, that was very fragile, she thought that my dad was like a little God, you know, because he was so in conversation with nature, animals, the wind. He was really like shaman. So I think that when my mom lost her sister, there was like another mom for me. And when my mom lost their parents and everybody, I think that she felt so protected by him, you know. And I think that it's a really love affair, you know, maybe started from a very strange attraction. But she stayed very glamorous all her life. She didn't care. I mean, I went out many times with them as a little kid. My mom was always perfect and with this incredible, you know, sweet smell, surrounded by perfume and, you know, always perfect. And my dad, he was like a gypsy, you know, and he. He was beautiful in a way, but, I mean, so different from her. But they didn't change. They stay in their own, you know, world for all life. And, I mean, I understood and learned the lesson that you must be who.
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B
You are always so interesting because from what I've read, your father was like a hermit and had long, long hair down to his waist, which is really unusual for an Italian man in my experience of, you know, living there. And he seemed almost like he was from another era. And you said he didn't wear a watch because he declined to take orders from a clock, which seemed such a fantastic attitude. And I wondered how you had become so. How did you learn to be so organized as you must have to be working in a big fashion house.
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A
It's a complicated question. I'm gonna try to say that. I think that I learned everything, I mean, from my mom. She was really well organized. She worked in cinema, and she was the PA of the boss of this company. And she was the person in the family that was really well organized. But I learned from my dad the freedom, you know, And I'm pretty good because I grew up, like, working. And I learned maybe at the beginning from mom, but after also from all the, you know, the people that. That work with me. And it's a beautiful job, but you need to deliver something at the end. So it's. It came very natural for me. Yes, I understand what you mean when you say that by grow up with her dad that didn't care about the time, didn't care about, you know, the material thing. He didn't care about money. He didn't care. Yeah, he. He knew about the time, or he managed the time by the sun.
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B
Gosh.
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A
So I was always waiting for him. Maybe there is a part of me that refuse to. To be so disconnected in a way, from everybody, you know, because we were all slaves of him. Because an appointment with him would be a hard thing. You know, he was always late. And I remember him saying, oh, it's not me, it's the. This city. So many buildings. They covered the sun, the shadows. I mean. I mean, he was always, like, refusing, in a way, the urban life. He was like a wild child in town, you know, so. But I think that I got the. I learned, in a way, the lesson about freedom. About freedom, yes.
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B
So interesting about punctuality and timekeeping, because my father was kind of had a wildness about him, but he was very punctual. And I suppose he didn't want to waste any of this time that mattered so much to him. And then my mother was very late, but she wasn't late in a kind of, you know, poetic way like your father. She was just late, and it was very confusing. And then I was late for a long time. And then I remember when I started with my therapist, I said, why am I always late? And he said, I think it's a love test. And I thought, oh, yeah, it's, you know, will they still be there? And it is a very passive way of controlling people, isn't it? Everyone is just obsessed with what time you'll show up. But it's a very boring subject in the end. So it seems very, like, marvelous that you. You went against that you found your freedom through exactly the opposite.
- [12:11]
A
I'm the one that, you know, I used to. To be always very precise and very punctual with everybody. I'm always five minutes before the appointment. And yes, I think that people that are late, you're gonna wait for them. You started to think about them before the appointment.
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B
Yes.
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A
So it's a kind of, you know, they asking you to be patient in a way and to love them more than the other people because they late. And. And all my friends are late. And one of my best friend is one of the most unbelievable, you know, late person on earth. Her name is Francesca and she's famous because she's late always. And I think that it's. I'm very good with late people. It's because I'm really good also loving people. So I always. I try always to be. Yeah, I'm very. I'm open to understand always the new reason why they're late because they're always a very fun excuse. They're very creative sometimes, you know, they pretended you believe to all the incredible, you know, accident stories. And I love my friends and I love laypeople because I loved my dad, as you said before about your mom. My dad was also very creative and romantic in the way that he was, you know, trying to cover his attitude to be always late. But. And I was so happy because in the time that you're waiting from this person, you are also. You are maybe angry, but you're also dreaming to see him just, you know, coming from the corner of. Coming from the distance, you know. And I was a child, so seeing my dad coming, you know, to pick up me with his car always late was so sweet and because it was pretty rare, you know.
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B
And do you remember a piece of clothing that you became obsessed with as a child?
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A
I remember so many clothes. Clothes that have been obsessed because I always very fascinating from the thing that all the friends of mom and dad they were always wedding when I was a child. But it was a. A specific place in my memories that I dreamed about that was the closet of my mom because as a very cinematic lady, you know, because she worked for such a long time in that business. She had many beautiful dresses, gowns and outfit that she wore where when she went on the premiere of the movies and you know, all this kind of thing. And I remember this beautiful 1970s long dress, black, very simple, very sophisticated because was just one piece of fabric with this high neck and long sleeves, black. But on the back this huge butterfly embroidered on the back. So Colorful. And I thought that this dress, you know, was so beautiful. And as a child, I dreamt about how a dress can be fabulous in a very simple way. And. And I became, like, obsessed with the idea of zoomorphic, you know, image of this butterfly, you know, and I was maybe thinking about the nature and the things that my dad was very. I mean, was a fan of animals, and I loved animals. And I thought, how could be evocative an animal embroidered on a dress, especially on an evening dress, you know, the idea of a butterfly. So when I was alone sometimes at home, I try always to run in the closet of my mom full of beautiful shoes and beautiful things. But I think that this dress in particular changed my life as a little.
- [17:26]
B
Child, because that theme seems to run through your work a lot. The butterfly, the animals, the insects. It seems very much part of your kind of aesthetic that you bring to your work. And you studied fashion at Accademia di Costume e di Moda in Rome, where. Where I went there too, and it was very conventional, I found. And I want. I mean, I was there in the early 80s, way before you. But was your work very different from the other students?
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A
Kind of. But I mean, I've been very precise in the way that I started, you know, to think about fashion. I felt. I mean, I felt myself very different from the very beginning. Also not at the academia and. But. But yes, the. The. The first of all. I'm so happy to hear that you went there. It's so strange. At that time was pretty popular at the school, especially for costume designers.
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B
Costume designers. That's.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Interesting.
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A
And I went at the beginning for that reason because. Maybe because I grew up with this beautiful idea of movies and cinema. Yes. But I felt myself always different. I mean, I've been very eccentric when I was young. I don't know if conventional or not conventional because I didn't have really the idea of what was conventional. Still now, thank God, I'm not so good, you know, with conventional. I mean, I like conventional thing because I love to make them in a way, different.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know what I mean?
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B
Yeah. Well, you bring so much beauty to conventional rituals. You bring all this kind of romance, which is why everybody loves your work and you so much, because you also seem to embody that. And it's. It's so much. It gives so much pleasure.
- [19:58]
A
I mean, I'm very open to everything. You know, maybe I'm not conventional, but sometimes I like conventional things. I'm very fascinating from the bourgeoisie, and I like the ritual of the bourgeoisie of the very conventional things. My mom, in a way, was very conventional, in a very glamorous way, but she was conventional. And I grew up between a person that was very conventional and another one that was totally against the conventional thing.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So interesting, because my mother was probably the opposite. She was very unconventional. And I was fascinated by the bourgeoisie. It seemed so luxurious to know what was going to happen and to have more, you know, have this amazing food and on a lovely table. And these kind of ordinary things seem very exotic to me and highly desirable. And, in fact, when I was living in. I went to live in Rome to live with this man who I was madly in love with called Dado Ruspoli, who I wondered if you'd ever heard about him. And he was much older than me, and he had these amazing clothes from Saint Laurent, the 70s that he gave me because they were too small for him. And he showed me how to tie a tie in a particular way. And he was incredibly handsome. And I think he was supposed to be a kind of reference for Fellini in La Dolce Vita film. And I wondered if that part, that Roman World, had influenced your work and your thoughts at all.
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A
What a beautiful story about Dado. I know him. He was being very popular, so I know the story of the family. I know him, and he's been a very, you know, eccentric and very attractive, intelligent and smart playboy. And I think that everybody. I mean. I mean, he's very. Been so popular in the 70s and 80s, so I didn't know that he's been the inspiration from La Dolce Vita. That's so incredible.
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B
That's what people used to say, because there was a story about probably, yeah. Him living in Capri with a parrot on his shoulder that he said was totally rubbish, but he didn't really care.
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A
Yeah, no, but I'm sure because he's been so famous, and I think they reflect the. That time. So precise. And so you had such a beautiful experience with him. Yeah. See you in St. Laurent in the 70s. That. What a beautiful, you know, closet you. It's incredible. I mean, I know. I know very well that building because I. I worked for Fendi in the 90s, and we had our office in the mezzanine of the beautiful palace. So I know very well and about Rome what. I mean, what I can say. I mean, I grew up in such a crazy city because, I mean, Rome, it's been so, I think, important for me. I mean, I grew up in a city full of, you know, very decadent things, beauty, dust. You have also this beautiful relation with naked body because saints and God are almost naked everywhere in town.
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B
All the statues.
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A
Yeah, the statues. So I remember that when I was like 18, I went, I was a young guy and I fly in New York and I went in Minneapolis to visit this friend of mine that she was studying there and I saw a documentary in television and. And I saw that they censored the nipples of a picture of a lady. And I thought that was crazy, you know, because as a young guy, I mean, I used to see nipples everywhere. Also in TV, in TV show in the 70s, they were not, you know, never censored. So. And, and also my idea of nudity and be naked and that crazy life, you know, without rules. I mean, because people, they did what they wanted to do always. You know, there were no rules and people were always again, the rules. And they were all, you know, yes, the Pope is in town and we belong to the Catholic Church. But also I think that Roman people, they really believe in gods. And you can still feel the power of that society in town.
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B
Yeah.
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A
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- [26:16]
B
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- [26:59]
A
Yeah, I think that the idea of fashion is always, you know, I started to work and fashion was dying always, you know, because compared to the 1950s, 1960s, 60s, the Golden Age, you know. So I think that fashion has always to deal with the present. That's why I said that it's yeah. That fashion is like an old lady dying because it's such a. An easy way to express your. I mean, what you feel, who you are. So I think that it. It's a never die. It will never die. Also, if we're gonna decide to be naked to tomorrow in the street, will be fashion.
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B
Yes.
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A
I mean fashion is. It's life, you know, so it's like that we. When you say that fashion is gone is like that. You're saying that we are not alive anymore because. Yes. It's so well connected with life. I don't care is. I mean, I'm not that person that think that, you know, fashion is something disconnected, is in a box and it's in another planet. You know, fashion, it surround us, surround my body. This T shirt that was a match. It's fashion. Yeah. Because everything is fashion and it's fashionable. You know, it's is the mission of clothes.
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B
Yeah. I suppose it's what you choose to make. You know, it's as simple as what you choose to make a look. And then that's. That's fashion. And you describe the clothes that you design, that they should look like they've been lying in a suitcase for a few days. And yeah, it's a very poetic approach. And I feel that a good suit should be able to be worn sleeping on the side of the road like, you know, one of the characters from a 19th century novel. And then you dust it off. But if the suit is good, it doesn't matter if it's creased or rumpled. And you were talking about Rome being this bourgeois place, and you have this quite a revolutionary approach. And it needs a certain amount of courage to go against this. This kind of big conventional attitude that specialized in Rome. And I wondered where that. How did you nurture that? How did you build that in your self and your work?
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A
I think that it's been very easy for me because I didn't belong me and my family to that, you know, word. So I saw everything from the whole of Adore spying.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So I got the best. Maybe I create my own story, you know. And I think going back to the suitcase, that clothes are beautiful and they beautiful because they belongs to a body, because they lived with that body alive. And there is no a good dress without a good story. Or I mean, a dress could be just a piece of fabric and could be a piece of life and could be a piece of, you know, a body, a pleat that came from a suitcase, from a closet. It's. It's a sign of the time that it's also a legacy, you know, of something. And I like, I used to pleat when I work on. On a dress, to pleat in a strange way to make the dress a strange, you know, shape. Because it means that you seated somewhere, that you did something, that you had a conversation moving your legs and you know, and pressing a piece of that dress, a piece of that fabric. And as a little guy, a little boy that wanted to be a costume designer and being now a fashion designer, I still think as a costume designer there is no difference between a costume and a piece of fashion. I think that is the same. And I would say in Rome, not in Milan, that I think that is the capital of bourgeoisie.
- [32:05]
B
Yes, definitely.
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A
Rome is most the capital of, you know, of mass, of Fellini, of city of decadent, you know, decadent aristocracy. It's beautiful to act and put on you and wear the dress of bourgeoisie and making strange things and changing and just some details of that coats that, you know, uniform to make a very strange look. Because when you have something that belong that is like the uniform of a certain kind of, you know, class, it's so sexy and so also easy to make it strange.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
And punk.
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B
Yeah, I know. In fact, you said this very interesting thing about vanity. That vanity is the strongest productive power, you know, and it keeps the world buzzing because it incites people to want to be beautiful and to impress others. And without vanity there would be neither seduction nor rockets flying into space. And do you find people's approach to fashion sometimes is quite reductive, that vanity is always bad? That to be humble you have to dress in an anonymous way?
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A
Yeah, yeah. Because also it's very intellectual thinking, you know, fashion is not vanity. But I think that vanity is such a big thing. You know, sometimes people think that you need beautiful things, you don't need fashion, you don't need to be flamboyant, you don't need to be vain. I think that that's life.
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B
I thought that was such a great kind of analysis or interpretation of the scope, the vanity. Obviously it can be limiting, but it can also be this driving force which you described so well and I really enjoyed that. And you also said the word sexiness is old fashioned in your world. And I wonder in which way is that a limiting term?
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A
I think that, I mean, I changed just the point of view of being sexy in a very natural way. When I started as a creative director. I think that I tried to tell something different that is not against to, for example, the word that Tom created that it was so interesting because, I mean, he spoke about sexiness, but also he spoke about ambiguity between the two genders. And I think that he opened really a strange conversation around beauty and me. It's more that I. I mean, I thought about more than the idea of sexy about Eros, I try to Erotize the beauty. I try to open to the old and very interesting idea of Greek philosopher, that Eros is almost everywhere. You know, you can erotize a painting, a skirt, a glance. Also the approach with life, that can be very sexy in a way, you know. So I think that it's interesting to. Being more. In the idea of Eros, there is less connected with. With sex.
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B
Yes.
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A
I just show in my way to the people that you can be in a way attractive in a different way. And it's also my way to live. You know, I. I try to advertise the thing that I love. My house, my bed, a book, a word, an empty space, a color. So it's like that you can make sex multiple times.
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B
Yeah, because you've talked about the masculine and feminine side, and you said anyone can choose the hue that suits their sense of self. And I wondered, what is the sense at the moment that you're developing at your work at Valentino?
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A
Yeah, I mean, I think that I'm. I. And bringing myself also here in this brand, you know, I think that it's. I mean, I. I grew up as a. As a. As a guy in going through the 80s and the 90s and 2000. And I understood that. I mean, being free to. To put on you what you. What you feel, what you think that is the best for you. It's such an easy thing. I mean, and I think that is not really complicated. You know, people, they still think about me as a very exotic animal, like the one that decided to create this word that is gender fluidity, that I didn't do it. Never. I didn't know also at the very beginning. So I just try to. To do my job, to reflect and to be connected with life. That's just life. You know, people. When I started that, you know, long trip in fashion, people were doing what I show to the world already. It's not my creation and what I'm doing here, you know, in Valentino, I think that there is something that I like about the brand and what I'm doing and what I'm bringing. It's that I'm like opening a very interesting conversation with the idea of dream with the idea of beauty because Valentino himself, it's been obsessed with beauty and, and with a kind of perfection, you know, in beauty. And I'm just trying to explore the idea of beauty in 2025 is the same thing from a different point of view. Yeah.
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B
And if you fancy someone and you don't like what they're wearing, does it kill your attraction?
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A
Oh, I don't think so. No. No, no, no, no. I think that there is always very interesting in the way that people dress themselves. I'm very attracted from the people they don't know what they wearing.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I think that is very fashionable. Yeah. I think that that's really the real seed of fashion. No, I loved many people that they didn't care that apparently they were very bad dressed. And I like also wrong things. Yeah. Because I'm still fascinating from that butterfly that I saw embroidered on the back of the evening dress of my. My mom. So I know very well how look a beautiful thing and I like glamorous thing and. But I like also the very natural way that fashion or the way you dress is expressed, you know.
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B
So even something very self conscious and deliberately fashion, you're fine with that?
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A
Yeah, absolutely. I mean I met my partner years and years ago and he didn't care at all about clothes and. And the way he looked was so chic and beautiful. Maybe in a very strange and simple all wrong way, but I'm very attract from the that kind of universe, you know.
- [41:24]
B
Yeah. It's interesting when. I suppose it's like when you were saying before that what's attractive is the person and how they affect the clothes and how they make you become drawn.
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A
Towards them and is the gestures, is the voice, is the way you move, is the air that surround you. It's. What are you saying? You know. And they changed the game completely.
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B
I know because I find I think I'm put off by cheap trendy clothes. On a man who's obviously thought, oh, this is trendy, I'll get that. And then it kind of emphasizes all the worst points of his body. But then I find if I like that man, I kind of quite like this bad choice as well. Which is like an extra bond.
- [42:31]
A
It's so true. I like the wrong choices.
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B
Yeah.
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A
There is always something chic. I mean if you think that also being chic, it's that you have something wrong on a perfect look. No, no, you need the wrong thing.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But it's. It's a. Such a. Could be a very long conversation about it. You know, it's it's interesting. It's the secret of fashion, I think.
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B
Yeah. And I loved your Valentino show that took place in the, in the set designed to look like the public toilets, all painted blood red. And I find all the best information, especially fashion information, is exchanged in the bathrooms, in the toilets of backstage and of parties and clubs. And that moment where people drop their guard and compose themselves in front of the mirror. And I wonder, did you want to show that vulnerability of the person as they come out of the bathroom in this outfit? It's a very, very particular moment. And I found it totally seductive and exhilarating. I mean, I just watched it on YouTube, but those cubicles opening and then those girls and boys coming out was amazing.
- [43:57]
A
Thank you. I was trying, you know, to make this, you know, conversation, open conversation of who. About who you are and what's the stage. It's when you are dressing up yourself, you are, you are in front of the mirror. Who is the real you? Because maybe it's the one that is outside that came outside from the toilet and not the one that is in the toilet. I mean, it's, it's. I think that it's, it's, it's very interesting, you know, also because fashion is always, you know, hidden in the very specific place. I mean, it's, it's such untouchable part of our life and it's so very well connected who with who we are. And so I was just trying to figure out who we are inside, outside, and who is the original one. Because sometimes we think that we are who we are when we are at home alone, just in front of the mirror, then maybe it's not true. We are the person that you show to the other people. Yeah, you're more authentic. And the other thing, and it's the funny thing was also to talk about, I mean, that the toilet, they've been always very fashionable, you know, I mean, I met the most interesting people in the toilet. Always club, the Met Gala, you know, big party.
- [45:51]
B
Yeah.
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A
I mean, there is always up opening conversation in the toilet. And we are all the same in the toilet. Yeah, the toilet are for everybody. So it's, I mean, you can be who, who you want to be in the toilet. It's like that you have to take off the mask and, and you can become in a very quick way, friend of someone in the toilet.
- [46:19]
B
Yes, it's so true.
- [46:20]
A
And I like the toilet. I mean, I, I think that it's such a specific place. You know, they can be also very beautiful. The One that we built. It's been. I mean, it came from my memory about clubs and, you know, and people were always. I mean, you went also in the toilet to show to the club how you glamorous looks looked. So. And Valentino is very glamorous. But I mean, thinking about Valentino in a club and. And how he built in such a specific way, the way that many very glamorous ladies and men look in the past. I mean, like Hollywood divas and, you know, so it's my personal interpretation on a strange kind of, you know, imaginary space that open this conversation about, you know, personality and ego and. Yeah. Beauty and authenticity and many things. I mean, it's such a specific place. The toilet.
- [47:41]
B
Yeah. I loved it. I thought it was such a clever idea. Brilliant and so evocative. And when you were at Gucci, you made a lot of films with Glenn Lutchford and you seemed to share a special language. And he's quite a subtle person. And I wondered why he was the person you turn to to interpret your fantasies.
- [48:06]
A
I thought about Glenn at the beginning because I'm obsessed in photography with light. Because, I mean, I like the light and the way the light shapes the. The word in the photography. I'm obsessed, you know, I'm really fascinating from photographer that, you know, captured the light. And I thought that he did in the. In the best way this job, I mean, in the past. And he captured the fashion in the 90s in such a cinematic way that I thought that was the best partner in crime.
- [48:59]
B
Yeah.
- [49:00]
A
At that time, I mean, he was the God of, you know, fashion photography. But not many designers were using him anymore in. As in the 90s. I mean, if I think about Prada and many others.
- [49:19]
B
Yeah.
- [49:20]
A
So we started again, a new story. And I think that he did a great job because I. I think that we built together a very different way to see fashion in life and in, you know, 2015. And we did many, like, little movies and we created the most crazy image, you know, and we. I think that we show to the people how powerful is fashion. You can. You can create what you want and you can. The people believe also in things that apparently are not possible.
- [50:06]
B
Yeah. Because I remember one of your brilliant little movies was set in a psychiatric unit. I love that you showed. It's like what you were saying before. Fashion is everywhere. You know, people don't stop being interested just because they happen to be in these strange circumstances.
- [50:28]
A
Yeah. I mean, I was starting, you know, to. To look at the obsessive things that people do. Especially people that work in fashion, they collect crazy things. And. And I was also thinking about how could be very psychological, the obsession with objects, you know.
- [50:50]
B
Yeah.
- [50:50]
A
And the people that like fashion, they. They love material things in a way, but in a very poetic way sometimes. And so we were, like, thinking about what could be if someone that is really obsessed with things, I mean, go mad and became like a Socratic patient of hospital. We went outside Vienna in the middle of nothing, in this abandoned Grand Hotel in the middle of nothing. I mean, we were covered by snow for a week, and it's been so crazy. I love that campaign so much.
- [51:40]
B
Yeah. I love. Glenn is a great. He's a great friend, actually, and I love him. I think he's so brilliant and gifted.
- [51:50]
A
And I think that he's one of the most talented in a. In person yet. He has so many incredible things in just one body and just one brain, and. And he's also a very sweet person.
- [52:07]
B
Yeah. I remember once I. I went to the Chloe collection when Phoebe Philo had done it, and my son was 2, and he was starting to get ill. And then Glenn took us to lunch at Breath Relip, and he. You know how upstairs is very unfashionable, but he said, we'll go upstairs and then we'll be peaceful. And he was very like a. He was very leadership. And we had this magical lunch there. We even, you know, we had roast chicken. I remember every detail, because Glenn had taken charge and gone against the French etiquette of what's chic or not, and totally owned it.
- [52:51]
A
He belongs to that incredible golden era.
- [52:54]
B
Yeah.
- [52:55]
A
Of fashion. But he's. He's a great photographer, by the way. I mean, the way that he. He. He created his own word also, you know, it's unbelievable. I love him, by the way.
- [53:13]
B
And you've collaborated with some of the most enigmatic stars in the world, including Harry Styles and ELTON John and A$AP Rocky and Susie Cave. And I wondered how you're feeling about the muse for Valentino, and how's your look for yourself in this new incarnation?
- [53:33]
A
I don't know. I mean, it. You know, I'm just trying to live. It's more that I'm walking and I'm just looking around. I would love always that what I'm doing is gonna be alive in real person, you know, and fashion is about. You know, it's simple. It's about hugs, smiles, dinner, conversation, and. And I met Elton the first time, and we became friends in a couch, just chatting and laughing. I think that we have to enjoy life, you know, and fashion is about enjoying our life with beautiful things. And I met so many amazing human beings in my life, and I learned many things, you know, from all of them. We are still friends. And now I'm just trying to live. I mean, it's. I don't think that I belong to that. The idea of that, you know, like, shining. Jad. Sat. I'm not talking about Valentino. I think that it's like that I'm still going on in this, you know, long walk.
- [54:59]
B
Yeah.
- [54:59]
A
And, yes, Elton is still there because he's a friend, and Harvey is there and lan is there, and decor is there. I mean, he's still in my life. And I think that my job is like a gift, you know, because I came so from such a strange place, very disconnected, with this glamorous, you know, image that you can get from my, you know, life. I mean, what I'm doing now. And so, yes, now I'm working in Valentino, and I don't know what is gonna be. That's the beautiful thing.
- [55:54]
B
Well, it's very exciting, Alessandro, And I can't wait to buy a pair of those socks. I'm definitely obsessed already. And thank you so much for coming on Fashion Neurosis. It's been wonderful to.
- [56:08]
A
Thank you so much.
- [56:09]
B
Thank you.
- [56:10]
A
This conversation, so strange and interesting. You know, in a way, I think that I'm going remember this moment forever. Thank you so much.
- [56:23]
B
Thank you, Alessandro.