TALES FROM BELLA'S WORLD...

Dad and Me on Horses

Dad and Me on Horses

This is a photograph of me and my dad. I wish it wasn’t so blurry, but it is immediately recognisably me and him. Funny to think of dad in a yellow jumper. I...

Letters

Letters

Today I received a letter – a rare occurrence. This one arrived in a pale grey envelope with elegant spidery handwriting. It reminded me of being at school and the intense relationships between...

Dad and Restaurants

Dad and Restaurants

My early memories of getting to know my father took place mostly in restaurants. As a tiny child I remember mum taking my sister Esther and I to meet him in Marine Ices...

Favourite Words

Favourite Words

When I was a child and living in Marrakech, my sister Esther and I entertained ourselves with obsessions about certain words. We settled on Hideous and Kinky as the favourites. We would chant them,...

The Art of Dressing, in Film

The Art of Dressing, in Film

I have always found that clothes in films are the key to bringing a character, especially a heroine, into the focus of thought provoking fascination. People’s gestures and actions, the small details of how they...

Ideas Beyond

Ideas Beyond

‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ The screen in my mind shows a desert. An uninterrupted undulating horizon of nothingness. The question of where do I get my ideas prompts the fear...

Breakfast with Christian

Breakfast with Christian

Once, when I was in Paris for work in the late 90’s, I arranged to have breakfast with my friend Christian Louboutin. We ambled down the Rue de Rivoli and wandered into a smart-looking...

From Fashion to Film

From Fashion to Film

In 1999 I did my last catwalk show. I had shown every season since soon after I launched my label, always up for nights in a row before the shows. It was such...

Wellness Rituals

Wellness Rituals

When I reached the age of 25 I gave up alcohol and drugs and I have stayed that way ever since. Without these stimulants to regulate my thoughts and feelings, I turned to...

Returning from Morocco

Returning from Morocco

Here is a picture of my mother Bernardine, my sister Esther, and me. We had just returned from living in Morocco for two years. Even though we were ‘home’ everything was hard to...

Mum & Dad

Mum & Dad

I only have one photograph of my mother and father together. This image is from when dad had taken my mother to the South of France, I think a few months after I...

NEVER ON TIME

NEVER ON TIME

I don't remember when I started to be someone who was late for things but it became a signature, a horrible one, which I both dreaded as inevitable, and on some level relished. It is ironic...

FRAGILE BEAUTY

FRAGILE BEAUTY

Here I am striking a pose in a room full of Nan Goldin prints at the Victoria and Albert museum. This room is part of an amazing selection of Sir Elton John and...