Christopher Bailey - Conversation taken from TTA13

Interview  Edward Paginton

Photography  Juergen Teller

Christopher Bailey has a profound love of Yorkshire, his place of birth and a source of endless inspiration. Contrastingly, for the 46-year-old Chief Creative Officer of Burberry, it is also a place of physical and emotional estrangement. Navigating Bailey’s career from Donna Karan, to Gucci, to Tom Ford, during which time he moved between Milan, Paris and New York, it becomes apparent that he is drawn to the convergence of differences and polarities. His shrewd synergy of commercialism and creativity, which has transformed the wider fashion industry, has always struck a balance between divergent spheres. Ultimately, the pursuit of ‘otherness’ is what in turn charmed him back to the UK – as Bailey puts it, “You gravitate towards the things you love.” Contemporary neo-nomadism is part and parcel of Bailey’s life, often locating him between places. We caught him in one of those between-moments, recently back from New York and shortly off to Italy for downtime with his family.

Have you found a happy medium between work and leisure when you travel?

I try to make sure that I’m not just in a hotel or on an airplane or in an office. For example I love Japan, so when I’m there I make sure to venture out into Tokyo or further afield, like Kyoto and so on. I try to see and feel the culture in these places because sometimes travelling can be sterile, particularly if you’re just there briefly. I tend to do quick trips–this week I was in New York but just for the day–but I’m quite good at going backwards and forwards quickly, and I’m one of those really annoying people that’s quite immune to jetlag and those things…

You must be quite adept at moving to new cities by now.

I think the best way is to find your local. I’ve been very lucky to have lived in lots of different places. I mean I come from Yorkshire and I guess the first move was to London, but from there I’ve lived in New York, Paris, Milan. I feel really fortunate that I’m in an area of work that is completely global and allows you to live and work in different places. In every new city I find the most important thing is that you make a place yours and become a part of the fabric rather than living as an expat. In New York, I lived in Murray Hill, 36th Street, on the East Side, and I quickly found my shops and my places to eat and my little library. I found libraries for me were a bit of a way into the city. They’re usually very local. It’s not normally a tourist thing to absorb yourself in books and the words of another country, surrounded by people. It feels quite safe.

Have you visited particular landscapes that shaped your work?

I have and I do all the time, but usually these things are more subconscious. In Yorkshire, for example, the landscape is profoundly beautiful. I grew up in Brontë country, near the Moorlands. Before I could drive, I would cycle there and spend many hours and days in that landscape, wandering across the moors. In difficult periods of my life been a refuge for me a little bit. I find that environment very calming, even though it’s incredibly solemn, harsh, rugged and unfriendly. There’s something I’m just drawn to.

There’s a quote from Alan Bennett, “Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.” The idea that it exists in cosmopolitan cities, away from provincial living and towns. Can you relate to that?

I love Alan Bennett, and yes, completely. When I was growing up London was another country, not just the capital. I remember once I was loading stuff into the back of a van when this guy said, “What are you doing?” I said “I’m moving to London.” And he said, “Why would you want to do that?” He’d never even been there. A lot of my neighbors and friends in Yorkshire have still never been to London because it feels alien and unrelatable. Why would they want the chaos and the madness of urban city life? In my case, my grandmother was Italian; she had a very strong Italian accent combined with a very strong Yorkshire accent, it was really quite funny, and every Sunday we’d go there. It was a proper big Italian lunch that went on for hours and hours, so I did always grow up with this other world, and I love Italy. It’s both physically and emotionally in my blood.

Your dad was a carpenter and joiner; do you still have memories of him working?

Yes, really strong memories, and he still does it. I remember the smell of wood whilst watching him work. My grandmother was a seamstress too, and I’ve always been intrigued with making things with your hands. Definitely watching somebody create something from nothing, I still think it’s amazing.

I read you’re very hands on in the design process yourself, and that you’re . . .

A nightmare, is that what you’re trying to say? [Laughs] I can’t help myself. I’d rather not do it if I’m just an observer. I need to understand what I am in this situation. Am I passively watching? How am I engaging if I’m just going to a concert? It’s a very different thing.

You’ve said before that you fell into the fashion industry.

I didn’t even know there was an industry. I mean I was probably, if not stupid, naïve. I was always drawn towards design, craft, image, music and visual things. I just happened to end up going down a fashion route because I think it was all of those things. I still love music, but as a kid I really loved it and the styles that came out of it. I think fashion almost chose me because of all those things.

The latest Burberry A/W collection seems to be an homage to a sense of Britishness, a kind of assortment of identities . . .

I think that’s exactly it, there are such nuances to what can be called ‘British.’ Again, I’m very fortunate in the sense that I can kind of pass through lots of different types of ‘Britishness.’ I come from a very working class background but I find myself in these situations that show the best of sophistication and tradition but also eccentricity, and I like that. I’m quite drawn to all of those different worlds. I was recently fortunate enough to head down to Sissinghurst Castle in Kent . . .

Beautiful gardens.

Just so magnificent. I love dipping in and out of these different, really quite intense worlds, which people have created within other worlds. It’s extraordinary to see how people adapt and live in these really quite extreme ways.

I think that’s visible looking at the new collection, as well as the influence of social portraiture.

Well I like people, I’m drawn to people and stories. It goes back to travel, art and music. I like the differences. I wrote my thesis when I did my degree, ironic really, on the importance of the European Union. I’m a firm believer that we need to be a part of this union, but it’s fundamental that we retain our cultural nuances and our differences because that is what makes Europe so beautiful and special. I believe in the collaboration and the union, the sharing of ideas. But I don’t want any of us to lose our identity.

How do you think we Brits are perceived by others at the moment? Pretty loopy?

Exactly [laughs]. We’re a mixed bag of nuts. I think people do see these different sides. The Royal Family and celebrity culture are very dominant externally, then you have these incredible writers, artists and filmmakers that I think are also quite strong. We have quite uptight values that probably came from Queen Victoria and still run quite deep in the way we live, whereas on the other side you have a kind of rebelliousness and individuality. So, I actually think we’re seen as a big mix of all those different worlds.

In the collection those high & low aspects of British culture are really blended together. It also references art and music, post-punk and Northern Soul; the tassels on the shoes, the knitted vests . . .

Completely. I like that contrast and the contradictions, the highs and the lows as you say. I’m intrigued by them and I’m inspired by them. I like the clashing of those worlds, and I kind of throw in everything. It’s like when you’re cooking, you throw everything in and you can create something special. It’s not thematic, they’re memories and feelings.

You also reference the British photographer Homer Sykes, who said once, “I always try to go through the door that’s closed, to see what’s really going on . . .”

Yes, I think the best photographers are those that can become invisible, that allow these things to happen naturally. People by nature are quite self-conscious, and to make a situation so effortless that you lose this sense of concern is a real skill. Those captured moments, the different spirits, the attitudes and lifestyles, the social documentary of these different worlds, I’m very intrigued by it and always have been.

It reminds me of the ‘man of the crowd’ in Baudelaire’s Painter of Modern Life. A ‘typical’ Britain . . .

That’s funny, ‘typical’. I don’t know if I look for that especially, but I think when you travel you’re naturally confronted by what counts as typical in different places. For example if I just think about my life today, first going to London which is a kind of ‘home’; then going up to Castleford where one of our factories is; then back to see my parents and my family. Simon my husband is from Oxfordshire and he has a completely different educational background from me. I came from a pretty tough school, certainly not academic at all – you kind of just had to get through school, it was just not geared towards a career particularly, it was about a job.

I think Burberry has always had this cross-cultural identity. My early relationship to the brand was the culture of bootlegging and replicas, objects you’d pick up from markets. The subcultural side of Burberry’s identity. The Burberry collaboration with Gosha also felt like a nod to subcultural associations.

One hundred percent. I’ve long admired Gosha’s work, first of all his photography work and then his design and fashion. When he got in touch to say he’d love to work together, it just kind of made sense. That’s very much a part of our identity today, as much as dressing the Army in trench coats is. Now, there are two sides to it. There is counterfeit, which I do not promote because of all the human negligence that it creates, the horror stories we hear the whole time about factories that are churning out things in really terrible environments. I certainly don’t agree with that. But I do believe in subversion and subcultures and people adopting identities and tribes. I feel like you’ve got to be honest about these things and authentic. My grandfather had a trench coat, and it was kind of always around, in my subconscious. Then I used to go with my best friend Rebecca, who’s still my best friend, to jumble sales every Friday night. Weirdly, we used to always collect trench coats. It was like really cool to have trench coats and we had lots. I still find it fascinating. Like I said, I’ve found myself having a life that really crosses the divides between all those different worlds and I love it. I feel like that is the personality of Britishness.

How did leaving Britain change your relationship towards it?

I definitely needed to leave the UK to appreciate it. Then after that, I had to move to New York to realize how extraordinary Europe was. And when I was living in Europe and I used to come back, travelling to London at that point for work, I suddenly fell completely in love with it and have never lost that feeling again. It’s not that I’d fallen out of love, but it’s like everything in life, you always think there’s something greener on the other side. I needed to go through this process and fall in love again. I did and I am.