- I got this message on my answer phone saying,
"Jane Birkin wants one of your Gainsbourg is God jumpers."
And I thought, "Oh god, this is so exciting."
And then Kate Moss bought one
and got photographed and it became a thing.
[cheerful music]
Hi, Vogue.
I'm Bella Freud.
Welcome to my home.
Today I'm going to show you some of my objects of affection.
[cheerful music]
In the '90s, the maisonette at the front of the building
was a home of everyone who's ever been creative practically.
Kate Moss and Mario Sorrenti lived here, Glen Luchford.
But this bit at the back was a bit of a dump.
And then when it became available, I bought it.
And with Maria Speake, the architect from Retrouvius,
we pulled the whole thing down and built this sanctuary.
So this is my kitchen.
One of the things I want to show you
are these pinch pot cups which were made for me
by one of my closest friends called Kim Sion.
My routine every morning is I come into my kitchen
and I make the strongest coffee that I can make
and then I pour it into one of these red mugs
which is also the same color red as my 1970 jumper.
And I love this tomato soup color.
And I sit down and have a bit of toast and marmalade
and I usually put my feet on the table.
My next object is this photograph of me and my father.
It's taken by Bruce Bernard.
So my father was an artist, his name was Lucian Freud.
He died about 11 years ago.
He worked all the time, so my way of
getting to know him was to sit for him.
He was incredibly good company
and very, very interesting and irreverent.
He wasn't very parental in the traditional sense,
but he was very protective in a animalistic way.
I had this idea of asking if Bruce could come
take some pictures of us and I really didn't think
he'd say yes, but he did say yes.
And so Bruce came over and we just started
having a really good time.
And then he suddenly stood on his head.
My expression is like, "Dad."
So this is my TV room and library.
It doesn't have any direct light at all in here.
And I also had found a swatch of this almost fluorescent
orange carpet, like very Francis Bacon orange.
And I thought, "Oh, that will be good in here
because this shadowiness mutes the orangeness
of the carpet and it's like lava underground."
And I'm ashamed to say I've never finished
a Sigmund Freud book.
I feel like that's something I've got to look forward to.
I'm really interested in everything about him really.
My father said he was very funny,
so that seems a great quality, a great characteristic.
[cheerful music]
So in here is my amazing bathroom.
It's so luxurious.
I never imagined I'd have such an incredible place
to wander into every morning.
So my object is this golden hand and it's part of my friend
Susie Cave's jewelry collection and it's Nick Cave's hand.
I'm very close to Susie.
She was very instrumental and an important person
to me when I started my own label.
I hate that word muse, but she was a real inspiration to me.
I've made quite a few films over the years
and I've always asked Susie to be in them.
But the one that she was able to be in
was the second short film I made
with John Malkovich called "Lady Behave."
I wanted to find somebody who I could collaborate with.
Somebody suggested talking to John.
I told him all about my ideas and he said,
"Listen, I can't do it.
I'm right in the middle of making
this film with Spike Jonze,"
and he was making "Being John Malkovich."
And then he said, "Maybe Spike Jonze should do it,"
blah blah, and I said, "I just want you to do it."
He suddenly said, "Okay, I'm gonna do it."
The storyline was there was a girl
who was so piggish, had such terrible habits
that her boyfriend said he'd leave
if she didn't go to the Lady Behave School of Etiquette.
Susie was heavenly head girl.
So this is my bedroom.
This object is one of my first word sweaters as I call them.
I was making this short film with John called "Hideous Man."
"Hideous Man" is a poet and his book club fans
are waiting for him to arrive to do a reading.
And I wanted the queen of the literary fan club
to be wearing a merch type of thing.
My friend who's a stylist, Cathy Kasterine,
said, "Do you remember the photographs of that T-shirt
people used to wear with Clapton is God on?"
And then I realized it was Ginsberg is God.
My assistant at the time said,
"But what about Godard is Dog?"
So I thought, yeah, Godard is Dog is great
'cause it doesn't mean anything.
And there's a lot of beatnik poetry where you just think,
is this rubbish or is this brilliant?
Kate Moss bought one from the one shop we sold it in
and got photographed and it became a thing.
After Ginsberg is God, I got this message
on my answer phone saying,
"Jane Birkin wants one of your Gainsbourg is God jumpers."
And I thought, "Oh god, this is so exciting."
But I can't just do everyone is God.
So I made a jumper and it said je t'aime Jane.
and then on the back it said Gainsbourg is God.
Then Alexa Chung wore that jumper and it went mad.
I had orders for thousands and I only had about a hundred.
So this is a pale blue suit,
one of my many pale blue suits that I've made.
I was always struck by Peter Rabbit's pale blue jacket
and how cool it was and it's not the easiest color to wear
but if you can pull it off and walk into a room
in that gentle, appealing vibe that it gives up,
it's such a success.
Recently, I made one for Tilda Swinton
and it was just sensational.
It was just the most disarming thing.
So this is my sitting room
and one of my objects of affection is this painting
by a young artist called Charlie Gosling.
He's a brilliant painter.
He's 22 and that was from his first exhibition,
his first solo show.
It's fantastic to be able to support someone
when they're at that point in their career.
I liked the shirt and tie.
As you can see, it's one of my themes.
I love uniforms.
I love the way that when you mess with them
a tiny bit, they're so anarchic.
I always long to wear a school uniform
but my progressive school abolished theirs
which was so annoying.
I was dying to wear a tie.
Anyway, I do now.
So this is an old hospital trolley
that was in my dad's hallway full of old tubes of paint.
My sister, who was the executor,
she got some of his paintbrushes
and gave each of his children some of them.
I love the smell of paint and linseed and turps.
Just feels like we're about to start working.
When I started my own brand, I asked him to write my name
'cause he had this great handwriting.
And then he did a little drawing with a picture
of the whippet, Pluto, who'd been my dog that I gave to him.
[calm music]
Thank you, Vogue, for spending the day
with me and looking at all my stuff.
[calm music]