There are some great skinny girls, but it's about characters, isn't it? That's what I find attractive. People who've had interesting lives and tell you something that you don't know or are really good fun.
Fashion designers seem the busiest people on the planet.
Cecil Beaton was Andy Warhol before Andy Warhol, really.
We design for a whole range of ages and body types, and we always have done. What's great about us is that the common thing that they all like is an accessible eccentricity of an accessible flamboyance, and I think the super thing about that, it isn't age-specific: you're not only dressing 25-year-olds; we're dressing women from 25 to 65+.
I don't like acres of faceless girls walking.
That era of designers being away with the fairies is gone... You've got to live in the real world.
I've been a fella in the fashion industry for a very long time now, and the industry has been very good to me.
People are always saying, 'You use irony,' and it's like, actually, we don't use irony: we use wit and playfulness and irreverence.
I like characters in life, generally; I don't like to see a collection modelled on a homogeneous look. That terrifies me.
I liked natural history. I liked the outdoors. And I found the sea quite interesting.
My friends and I used to take two-hour trips to the record store in Newcastle, and we started buying copies of The Face and i-D. And then I went to art school, and as time progressed, I ended up where I am now.
Single-sex private schools, especially in the middle of nowhere on a bleak hill in County Durham - I don't think they make sense.
Everybody's got a lot to their personalities. You're not just one element. There are some days you want something that can be a bit stricter or a bit more disciplined or something a bit more floaty and a bit freer.
I liked the fact DAKS was an unknown quantity. It's more like Gucci before Tom Ford got there. There's a lot you can do.
I went to public and state schools - not at the same time. I did my art foundation course at Harrogate College of Arts. This brilliant tutor suggested I apply to Central Saint Martins. I adored it.
