November 10, 2025 |
When we meet in Bella Freud’s store in Marylebone, central London, it looks immaculate, with not a beer bottle in sight. Why would there even be a beer bottle, you might ask. The previous evening, said flagship had been thronging with friends celebrating Freud’s 64th birthday, with Damian Lewis chatting to David Furnish chatting to Gary Lineker chatting to Honey Dijon chatting to Sam Taylor-Johnson. An eclectic group, but Freud is nothing if not eclectic.
And also successful. I ask whether she thinks successful people have one key trait in common. She ponders this. She likes to ponder. “They don’t give up pushing,” she finally says. “They keep working at it, even though it feels horrific, appalling, impossible. Tenacity is such a big factor, otherwise how on earth do you make it in the world? It’s certainly not only talent. It’s hard work and then tenacity, where you’re prepared to go on even though you’re not getting any results – then, somehow or other, you have these breakthroughs.”
BELLA FREUD
As someone who’s been in business for 35 years, she could be describing herself. Since launching her eponymous label in 1990, she’s been at the vanguard of British fashion, but in a self-effacing way, quietly producing hit after hit, her trademark pinstripe tailoring and slogan knits worn by friends and fans including Kate Moss, Rebecca Hall, Little Simz and Sienna Miller. It’s never been tougher for British fashion designers, especially independent ones. Yet here she is, with thriving womenswear and homeware collections, a recent sell-out collaboration with M&S and a hit weekly podcast, Fashion Neurosis. “You never really know what’s going to happen, but being a small business has been very much to my advantage. People will always want clothes and even with all this tax [tariff] stuff, we’ll find a way through it, because this is what we’re best at.”
BELLA FREUD
Launched last October, Fashion Neurosis delves into the connection between fashion and identity and has rapidly established itself as an insider favourite thanks to Freud’s rare ability to ask probing, ponderous (that word again) questions that prompt her guests to dive into unexpected topics with a depth and honesty not always found in the podcast sphere. Participants have included Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Courteney Cox and Kristin Scott Thomas, as well as less Hollywood-focused names such as Bethann Hardison, Nick and Susie Cave, Hanif Kureishi and Marina Abramovic.
She won’t be drawn on who has surprised her most, saying she’s found everyone wonderful in their own way, citing Jonathan Anderson’s articulacy (“brain like a planet”) and the honesty of two early interviewees, Zadie Smith and Rick Owens (“so marvellous that they cemented everything I’d hoped for and fantasised could occur in a conversation”). Moss was another surprise, not least for agreeing to participate in the first place. “I knew she hated being filmed [the series also goes out on YouTube] and only showed her the format to amuse her. When she said she’d do it, I realised I was on to something. She was so funny, but also showed the breadth of her intelligence. What she said about your body not being your own, that it was a vehicle for other people, was so eloquent and thoughtful.”
BELLA FREUD
With the designer being the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud – the inventor of psychoanalysis – the ‘on the couch’ element of the pod is a knowing stroke of genius. The couch was originally envisaged as a comedic prop, but the act of lying down on it, and being filmed from above for the video version, seems to lend a different tenor to the interviews. In the same way that parents are urged to go for a walk or drive with teenagers to encourage them to open up, does the absence of direct eye contact have the same effect on her subjects? “I think it does,” Freud muses. “Something different happens because we’re not sussing out who’s going to say what next. It takes the pressure off. It also means some people talk for a long time, which I like.”
Freud’s languorous pace during these interviews does help. “When I listen to podcasts, which isn’t very often, I hate the chattiness,” she admits. “It’s too much clamour in my head.” Does she find interviewing easy? “It sounds naff, but I’m really interested in people. My idea of a good party is to be in a corner with one person. I love that feeling of connection. In that respect I enjoy it, but I suppose nothing worth having is that easy. I do think, ‘God, how can I do this person justice?’”
Freud’s standard question to her guests being “What are you wearing and why?”, it feels remiss not to pose the same one now. “Well, I had a late night,” she begins. “So I considered how my face was going to respond to certain colours. I’m wearing this star [print] shirt, an old classic that I haven’t worn for ages because it’s been so cold, and I feel the cold a lot, so I usually wear millions of jumpers. It’s a bit of a spring day today and it feels like I’m wearing something very me-ish. And then I’m wearing this denim coat, which I really love. I remember, when I was 14, going on a very rare shopping occasion with my dad [painter Lucian Freud] and my sister [novelist Esther Freud], and he offered to buy us something to wear. He never did things like that. We were walking through Chinatown and saw this denim coat with a sheepskin collar. I tried it on and he said, ‘That’s really nice. Do you want it?’ And I thought, ‘Maybe I can get something better,’ and didn’t get it. I realised his patience was wearing out, so I got these awful, frumpy clothes in some other place instead, which I never wore. I thought about this for the rest of my life, until I made this coat.” The poignancy of this anecdote – the thrill of being accorded time with a busy parent, the knowledge that their patience is thinning – is one you’ll either relate to or find alien, depending on your circumstances.
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
Since this is the Transformation issue, I ask if she can name a transformative experience. Freud ponders some more. “What I like about being in fashion is that it’s always changing. If you have a lot of self-doubt and conflicting feelings about yourself, it’s a good world to be in, because your action is always to be transforming. Being dissatisfied is not a great feeling, but with fashion, it’s possible to go through the mirror again and again. I love that. It suits me. And if I’m not doing that, I feel like I’m drifting back down the stream towards the waterfall, where I’m going to get drowned.”
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
Maybe to be human is to constantly transform. “Yes,” she agrees. “If you’re not inching forward, you’re stuck and that’s a very stale place to exist. But there’s transformation and looking for certainty, which is more of a fallacy. When you’re a teenager, you think you need an anchor because everything is transforming hormonally, which is overwhelming. But now I’ve found the flip side. In not looking for certainty now, I’m more decisive and know more about the things that I need or want or enjoy. [Renowned relationship guru] Esther Perel wrote this thing about how security doesn’t always make you feel secure. That was a real lightbulb for me. I imagined that when you feel secure, you’ll feel liberated, but then the things associated with security don’t necessarily make you feel secure.”
Such as the loss of it? “Yes.”
PRADA
Today, Freud seems more secure than ever. She’s truly content and has plans to do more with her podcast, as well as possibly write a book (anyone who’s read her Sunday Stories blog will know that she’s a natural writer). “I suppose I just want to make more of what’s working now,” she says of the future. “It feels like such a fun moment in my life and I just want to make the most of it. Time is zooming past and there’s not a second to waste.”
Taken from 10 Magazine Issue 75 – BIRTHDAY, EVOLVE, TRANSFORMATION – out on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
BELLA FREUD: ALL IN THE MIND
Photographer JERMAINE FRANCIS
Talent BELLA FREUD
Text LAURA CRAIK
Hair PAUL DONOVAN using MOROCCANOIL
Make-up ANDREW GALLIMORE using DIOR BEAUTY Forever Foundation and Capture Le Sérum
Fashion assistants GEORGIA EDWARDS and TALIA PANAYI
Production SONYA MAZURYK
Special thanks to LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
shirt by PRADA, trousers by BELLA FREUD
