“I always tell my kids, the more you play around, the more you figure out,” she said, using a fruitier term than “mess.”
“I realized pretty quickly that work was something I needed,” she said, “and I think I had a feeling that it was actually going to be in the fashion industry,” even though she knew that wasn’t what she wanted wanted to return, had done what she wanted. In most large houses, a designer’s work ends on the catwalk. They do not oversee the advertising campaigns, merchandising or store design. Ms. Philo wanted to be involved in all of this. Even if independence and a start-up meant not flying first class or having a driver or lots of orchids in the office.
“Fundamentally, that’s not what makes me happy,” Ms. Philo said. The things that make her happy include baking, galleries, horse riding, going to clubs, her family, her friends. She said she constantly walks the fine line between ensuring downtime and finding inspiration. “Once she knows she can trust you, there are no barriers,” Ms. Rogers said.
After Ms. Rogers’ husband, the architect Richard Rogers, fell during a trip to Mexico and was hospitalized for months, Ms. Philo came over for breakfast one day wearing a large gray tweed coat that Ms. Rogers admired. “She just took it off and gave it to me,” Ms. Rogers said, refusing to take it back. “It has kept me safe and warm ever since.”
Edward Enninful, the former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, who has been friends with Ms. Philo since they were children in west London, said he pestered her endlessly about when she would do menswear. “I always expected that I would have to buy one of their women’s coats and have it tailored,” he said.
Then, just before the Fashion Awards in London last year, she gave him a gray double-breasted suit “just because she wanted me to feel good,” he said. “I always wear black. I had never worn gray in my life, but I trusted her. It was very liberating.”
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2024-03-17 14:21:10
www.nytimes.com
