Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Fashion designer known for her distinctive, boldly unconventional personal style and clothing designs.
On the island
Eight records
Pee Wee Hunt and his Orchestra
because I think it reminds me of my mother and when we first had a record player that played Seventy Eights as as it was then. And um it's a very cheery s I think I'd dance by myself on the desert island if I had this.
Again, it reminds me of my childhood and maybe it's because I can't play the piano and that wonderful I suppose really my first experience of the American voice, which I get very used to as I'm there about every three weeks now, but hearing this wonderful voice and and the mother not believing that he can play the piano.
Record number three is really to remind me of my days at college and I suppose a wonderful love affair
I went to Australia the first time and kept seeing this wonderful postcard of this amazing lump that I was then told was Ayers Rock. So I then went back in nineteen seventy three and spent time drawing in the middle of the desert in Australia. And then I came back and did my show based on Ayers Rock, and we projected this wonderful rock from a slide, and then a girl had to walk through the image of the rock, and for this we used this record
I think of records because of my shows. And this record says chiffon dresses to me because we used it for lots and lots of shows where all the chiffon dresses came floating on and in one show they had chiffon tied over their heads like masks and they threw flowers out into the audience and twirled around very majestically.
BoléroFavourite
Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Jean Martinon
I first used it in New York to launch the range of lingerie that I did in New York, and then after that we did a show in London where we timed a whole show just to sort of be a very quick show and end as it sort of crescendoed to its end. And I think that if I was on the desert island I'd actually play that very loud and I'd career round the um island sort of singing and dancing by myself to it.
really again takes me back to thinking of my sister and myself at home when we were younger, um just playing listening to this on the radio really
For Unto Us a Child Is Born (from Messiah)
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Colin Davis
I don't think it's because it's religious. I don't know if I'd turn religious on the desert island, but I think it would sort of feel you're in touch with something that will keep you going and give you hope.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:21How important is music to you, Sandra? Do you listen to it a lot?
I wish I listened to it more. It's nearly always associated with people that have moved into my life very closely that then put music on and very memorable occasions... I'm actually a Radio Four listener and I tend to I listen to all the talking. It's my talking newspaper and I work with that on as opposed to music.
Presenter asks
6:56Were you bright as a youngster? Did you do well at school?
I am a firm believer that it's more hard work than it is brightness. I mean, I'm sure there were a lot of other people at school that were far brighter. I was just as I said, I I think I was a very boring child and I was always working... And I wouldn't quite say I was a creep, but I would have been very annoyed if I hadn't been top.
Presenter asks
8:47Now what took you from the fabrics to the clothes?
Somewhere around my second year at the Royal College, I started to become interested in the fact that fabrics become distorted when they're worn and smaller patterns and people hadn't been designing dress fabrics for a long while... So I started to design for dress textiles. And then I used to go to the fashion school and I met with Janie Ironside and she arranged for various fashion students to make up my clothes and they were used in the dress shows.
The keepsakes
The book
Mrs. Beaton's Book of Household Management
Isabella Beeton
Um because I'd have to be able to find out how how how I think I could cook a lot of the things that would come along and try and uh work out what I could substitute and I wouldn't forget the things.
The luxury
sketch book and pens and pencils
I think really it would probably have to be my sketch book and lots of pens and pencils so that I could go on designing in the thought that it would be useful somewhere along the line. Right. I'd have the time, which I'm always complaining I haven't got.
Presenter asks
11:45Your first visit to America was very important for you, wasn't it?
Oh, yes. Um Well, my mother had died, and I got left a thousand pounds, and I thought, that's it, I'm not going to teach anymore. And the Fulham Road clothes shop had collapsed, and I was landed... And I thought, well, everyone's always said I'm far too extreme, and I've always tried to tone myself down and make myself acceptable. I think I'm going to do exactly what I believe in... I took the collection to America.
Presenter asks
32:32How good would you be at looking after yourself [on a desert island]?
The thing I find so intriguing about thinking about this desert island is the one form of torture to me is to be alone. To me that is the ultimate form of torture. And I think I would go to seed. I think I would deteriorate because I'd have to find self-motivation if there was no one else there. I've always found competition helps.
“I draw little lines on that look like fake eyebrows. I think they look exactly like eyebrows, but someone said I looked like something out of cats once.”
“I think my job is like a tightrope walker anyway. I mean I'm terrified that I'll never come up with another idea. That happens to me almost every day of my life. But if I on the other hand play it so safe, it's like rehashing a record again and again and again. No one's going to be interested either.”
“I would challenge that someone could put a dress on inside out. And people would still know that it was a beautifully made dress... I feel that I'm creating works of art for people to wear.”