Paris

I got back from Paris a few days ago after the kind of two day fashion trip that people assume designers always have, but in fact rarely do. This Paris experience was thanks to the generous heart of JW Anderson who invited me to the launch of his beautiful recasting of his namesake brand. I was one of the chosen people to appear in his look book, wearing the new collection and holding a cup which is also part of the lifestyle ‘objets’ which have added to the desirability and variety of the JW range. I love how a pair of wellingtons or an old copper watering can from 1900 can make a person desperate to buy a yellow cashmere sweater with Anonymous Faggots written across the chest.

From my heavenly hotel room, listening to rain pounding down on the huge skylights, I thought about times spent in Paris throughout my life. As a teenager I used to visit my friend my London friend Dominie who had ended up in there after setting off on a cruise with her pet rat hidden in her hair. The rat was discovered quite quickly and she was deported to her native Australia. Her friends collected enough money to buy her a plane ticket to Paris and when I came over we used to go to The Palace nightclub together, emerging in the morning and sometimes going to the zoo which was a good place to experience some kind of re-entry after the alcohol-fuelled no sleep intensity.

Paris is beautiful, and I have had many good times there - but I always feel lonely. As soon as I arrive, I am longing to leave. I remember discovering a broken phone box in the square outside the Pompidou Centre. It was long before the time of mobile phones and the internet. I went to make a call to London and discovered it worked without putting money in. I spent a lot of time in this phone box, queuing as others discovered it’s magical properties of linking us to home. Most people were calling Sierra Leone and Senegal but we all craved that connection to those people we missed. Even though we were thrilled to have escaped.