TALES FROM BELLA'S WORLD...

Lucian Freud & His Rat

Lucian Freud & His Rat

When I was a child I kept a pet rat. It wasn't much bigger than a mouse and mostly lived on my shoulder. I would go for walks with it nestling under my...

YOKO ONO

YOKO ONO

When I was growing up in the 70’s, Yoko Ono seemed to be viewed by society – or at least by much of the media – as an enemy of the state. How...

Camila Batmanghelidjh

Camila Batmanghelidjh

  I had tears in my eyes when I read an interview with Camila Batmanghelidjh. It moved me the way she spoke about the young people she worked with through her charity Kids Company, her...

101 YEARS OF LUCIAN FREUD

101 YEARS OF LUCIAN FREUD

Last week I went to the archives of the National Portrait Gallery to look at some of the 47 sketch books our family donated after my father's  death in 2011. Sarah, Tanya and Carys,...

Shane MacGowan

Shane MacGowan

Few people have the ability to leave those they encounter with the feeling that they have been gifted a unique and treasurable exchange, never to be forgotten. Shane MacGowan had this power. Shane was no...

SIGH, CRY, ALMOST DIE

SIGH, CRY, ALMOST DIE

When I was a child in the late 1960’s my mother took us to live in Morocco for a couple of years. We didn’t have a lot of possessions but I was allowed...

Martin Amis

Martin Amis

I remember what I was wearing when I first met Martin Amis. My then husband, the writer James Fox, was a great friend of Amis’ and of his new wife the writer Isabel...

Bella Freud Autumn Winter

Bella Freud AW22

The Bella Freud Autumn-Winter 2022 (AW22) collection evokes an inquisitive and daring youthful spirit. Bella says: “It is important in fashion that you don't relax into being repetitive.”

GINSBERG IS GOD

GINSBERG IS GOD

I made a short film in 2002 with John Malkovich called 'Hideous Man', about some Beatnik girls waiting around in a club for their favourite poet to arrive and do a reading. 
DOG STORY: HOW IT ALL BEGAN

DOG STORY: HOW IT ALL BEGAN

When I first started my label (that’s the word we used before ‘Brand’ became universal), I asked my father if he would write out my name so that I could use it as...

DAVID HOCKNEY

DAVID HOCKNEY

There is a secret quality to David Hockney’s paintings. When you look at his swimming pools, you feel you are getting a tiny window into a world - and you can’t stop thinking...

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD

Major moments of learning in my life have been entwined with Vivienne Westwood. I first worked in her punk shop Seditionaries when I was 17. Every now and then Vivienne would come into...

MYTHICAL BUNNY

MYTHICAL BUNNY

‘Hey, Bel, will you come with me to a Cloud Workshop?’ My dearest friend Susie Cave was on the phone, telling me about an artist called Deborah Smith who she had met in...