Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Fashion designer who co-founded the punk movement with Malcolm McLaren, creating its anarchic style, and won Designer of the Year in 1990 and 1991.
On the island
Eight records
favourite for its irony and use in fashion shows to prevent people taking things too seriously
the first ballet she went to see and the first time she got excited by classical music
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
the subject is obviously an erotic afternoon in pagan Greece; very sexual piece of music
The Sleeping Beauty: PanoramaFavourite
National Philharmonic Orchestra
the most perfect ballet ever done; the prince's vision of the sleeping beauty
Ondine (from Gaspard de la Nuit)
a very difficult piece that he pulls off
Scherzo No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 31
another piece of perfection
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:24Why do you think it took so long for you to be formally recognised here?
One of the explanations of this is that my designs aren't commercial and therefore they have to be watered down by other people later on. It's not that they're not commercial, it's just that they're new and so it sometimes takes a little longer for them to for people's eye or sentiments to get used to them.
Presenter asks
4:54How did you arrive at [the punk] invention? What was the thinking behind it?
Punk rock was essentially an exercise about rock and roll. … rock and roll is the jungle beat that threatens white civilization. And it is essentially the idea that youth wishes to attack authority. … punk rock was a really fantastic and heroic attempt to understand whether there was such a thing as an establishment that like a kind of door that you could almost sort of kick and have some sort of effect on.
Presenter asks
15:10Malcolm McLaren said that when he met you, you were desperately looking for something to do, you wanted an escape. Is that how you felt?
I agree. I don't know I wouldn't call this an escape. I desperately wanted to get into a world where there would be some ideas. I just needed brain stimulation, and I didn't know how to find it.
The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
I haven't read it all. They say that it's the greatest novel that was ever written. They also say that if you try very hard to understand every word that Proust is saying, that by the time you've read it, you would be changed. Because he would have demolished every one of your illusions. And I certainly think that would be an experience.
The luxury
I did consider taking a dictionary because then I thought I could go on to study Greek and Latin by use of the French dictionary.
Presenter asks
19:22How do you feel when the general public laugh at your creations? Does it hurt?
On the particular show when you were standing in for Terry Wogan and the audience laughed at my fashion show, I learnt something from that. There is a wider audience out there. I mustn't just relate to the thing in front of me. I've got to remember that there are some people who might actually think the clothes are wonderful.
Presenter asks
22:06Have you made much money out of fashion?
No, is the blunt answer. … my shops do very, very well and every year the takings just go up really quite dramatically. … the point is that what I'm doing is spending all the profits on doing these fashion shows. … I did start at more or less the same time as Gianni Versace … he has just made an absolute fortune. And I didn't and perhaps one of the things is that being Italian, there are the opportunities in Italy much more than there are in England.
Presenter asks
28:13Are you seriously saying you would be prepared to sacrifice some of your fashion career towards the creation of this cultural salon?
It's reasonably easy for me to do fashion … I'm so sure that the genius of the human race is to use their conscious intelligence, that I would feel that unless I contributed to that possibility, that I wouldn't have done anything. If I were to die only having done my fashion career, I wouldn't feel that I've achieved at all what I would want to do.
“punk rock was a really fantastic and heroic attempt to understand whether there was such a thing as an establishment that like a kind of door that you could almost sort of kick and have some sort of effect on.”
“On my first day at school I got slapped for going to the boys' toilet instead of the girls' … I got branded as a sex maniac at the age of four.”
“I really was very keen to listen to Malcolm, and at first when I met him, he was almost like a god. He did know so many things that I wanted to know.”
“I always feel quite heroic in my own clothes as well because they're … they have this wonderful joie de vivre also”
“I would feel that unless I contributed to that possibility, that I wouldn't have done anything. If I were to die only having done my fashion career, I wouldn't feel that I've achieved at all what I would want to do.”
“They say that if you try very hard to understand every word that Proust is saying, that by the time you've read it, you would be changed because he would have demolished every one of your illusions.”