Fashion | NEW YORK - LONDON
What made that one so seminal?
It was at a time when the British art scene was still full of the energy that had been kicked off by Sensation, the touring exhibition of Charles Saatchi’s collection, and there was a lunacy around collecting. “VOSS” had the real feel of a mind collecting things. Lee wasn’t scared of an idea coming from anywhere.
One day he came in with handfuls of mussel shells, and he said, “We’re going to make a dress out of this.” Another day, he said, “Get a student to buy a jigsaw.” Then a week later, he went to his house in Fairlight, on the East Sussex coast, and came back with razor-clam shells and said, “We’re going to make a dress out of these.”
Another time he went on a trip to Brighton and brought back some beach mats. The pack of cards, the glass surgical slides we hand-painted, an old screen that he brought back from Givenchy in Paris and tore apart, were all highlights of the “Asylum” collection.
Was “VOSS” the first collection in which he allowed his imagination to go anywhere, to do, and to make anything possible?
No. Lee always had a way of bringing ideas from anywhere, but this show to me really seemed like so many completely different juxtapositions that all worked well together. It was about finding beauty in everything. He often challenged people’s perceptions of beauty, like in the “No. 13” show (spring/summer 1999). Lee liked to shock people because he wanted them to feel something.
Let’s talk about Lee’s process, especially in relation to developing new fabrics. After he’d request a damask, for example — treated like no one had treated that fabric before — it would be the duty of a design assistant to go away and make it happen. How long would that process take?
Lee was immediate. It would have to be quite quick. The studio had a fabric girl, an embroidery girl, and two design assistants on shoes and bags. I’d delegate, and they would immediately go to the mills in Italy to find similar techniques that they could start to develop.
If Lee’s idea was the genesis, I’m curious about the rest of the research process.
Lee would sit here and stick Post-its in books from our studio library. For “Plato’s Atlantis,” he said, “I want thousands of aerial views.” Basically, the world’s surface from the sky — views of cities, oceans and
mountains. I would delegate to each department, and he’d expect the results the next day. It had to be the next day because he was so immediate.
And if it wasn’t? It always was [laughs].
Would Lee look at visual sources all the time, or only if he had to for a collection?
I don’t remember him sitting still that much. He’d always be doing something — getting out all the fabrics, all the embroideries, all the leathers, and all the furs. There would be all these mounds of things. After an intensive day with him, you’d be left with a list of about 50 themes.
He usually worked with that kind of intensity, though there were days when he’d come in and just flip through books or when he’d work three-dimensionally on the stand. He used to love Michel Frizot’s A New History of Photography in particular. Quite often things would come from this book, normally at the beginning of the season.
Did Lee always work in the studio?
Occasionally, we’d design collections at Lee’s house — for instance, “Supercalifragilistic.” He wanted all his books and all his fabrics sent to his home. He had just moved to Aberdeen Road at that point.
Do you think Lee was provoking himself to find different ways to working?
He just wanted to work when he wanted to. Sometimes, we’d go down to his house in the country with bags and bags of fabrics. He was a really good cook. He’d make an amazing roast lunch, then say, “Oh, let’s look at everything next week in the office.”
Given the historicism in his work, was Lee more inspired by pictures and books or by his raw materials?
With him, it was definitely a case of getting his hands into things, touching them, draping them. When we were working on “Plato’s Atlantis,” we turned all the research boards around so that there were just big pieces of printed fabric hanging on the wall.
Usually, his research boards consisted of an eclectic mix of images based around a specific theme. These images could reference nature, historical portraits, the
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