When Bella Freud thinks of a moment that helped consolidate her style, a photograph of her father, the artist Lucian Freud, aged 15, standing alongside her great-grandfather, the “father of psychoanalysis” Sigmund Freud, comes to mind. Both are a strict sartorial vision in their constrictive tailoring. “They’re not dressed for a special occasion, just in this stuff — and it looks so good,” she says, grinning from her study, dressed herself in a punkish, loose-knit black jumper and fully buttoned white shirt.
You cannot say it falls into the family of comfy, every-woman garments one might expect to find on the shopfloor of M&S, then. Nevertheless, Freud, who has been designing clothes for an upper-crust group of west London friends and fashionistas since she launched her eponymous label in 1990, is here to discuss her new capsule collection with the British high-street behemoth, which is out in all its 27-piece glory at 8am today.
“There’s something particularly English about M&S,” she says. “It always had that kind of grit that you associate with something authentic.” That attracted her, as well as its history of kitting the country out in school uniforms “which I’ve always been obsessed with”.
Her Sparks line ranges from £15 for a tote up to £139 cashmere jumpers. It’s in stark contrast to her own, best known for its £875 blazers and £375 merino wool “1970” jumpers which Kate Moss and Alexa Chung made notorious in the 2010s. Still, she insists standards have not declined with the numbers on the tags. “To place comfort above a look is a terrible thing,” she says. “There’s no reason why you should be in actual discomfort, but the aim is to be like a fearless warrior. When you go out, you’re looking your best, and people are responding to you as your best self. If you get too cosy, you can disregard that.”
It is all tied up in the way Freud thinks about dressing, something she has unsurprisingly spent time psychoanalysing. “For some reason, for a lot of my life my inner critic has been very vocal,” she says. “A good outfit can wrap up your self-consciousness, kind of contain it, and allow you to get on with what you want to do. That’s the value of clothes — they’re there to do right by you and to send you out into the world well turned-out.”
It has taken her time to perfect but, at 63, her insecurities have waned and she has built her own uniform. “I don’t feel exposed but I do get noticed,” she says. “I think everyone wants to be noticed and appreciated. Most English people are brought up to think that wanting attention is the most heinous crime on Earth. I just think, poor children. It’s just so unfair. Figuring out what attention feels good is how you learn things.”
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To the avid excitement of many women (and not a few men — me included) the high-street launch is the first time her learnings are accessible to the masses. Freud really has stuck to what she knows best. First, there is the tailoring: a pinstripe blazer (£129) can be paired with a matching trouser (£89) or striped, schoolgirl, knife-pleated skirt (£39). “A good suit can really make you more distinguished,” she says. Her M&S iteration takes the same fit as her mainline but is machine washable with an altered lapel and “fabric that has a tiny bit of stretching — which I don’t normally use”.
While she spent most of her childhood as a “hippy progeny” being raised by her mother, the writer and lecturer Bernardine Coverley, it was seeing her father “wear these incredible handmade suits from Huntsman on Savile Row” that taught her their transformational power. “It wasn’t about being smart [for him], it was about wearing another guise so that he would get into wherever he wanted to go. He didn’t become conventional in them, though, because he would often wear a scarf instead of a tie.”
In lookbook shots, her M&S suits are styled more classically with shirts (£99) and 100 per cent silk neckties. She makes a concerted effort to encourage women to lean into banker-chic this winter. “When I put the tie on, something happens to my whole appearance. There’s a kind of soft gentleness and a strictness. The androgyny harks back to Coco Chanel in early days and [the French writer] Colette. For me, androgyny isn’t sexless, it’s incredibly sexy.”
The other champion is the knitwear, which is typically hand-drawn slogan-heavy. While she admits hers — best sellers include “Gainsbourg is God” and “Ciao Bella” — are “more idiosyncratic”, the M&S versions have broader appeal: from “Honey” and “Nature” to “Blue Sky” and “Divine Feminine”. Finally, Freud is excited about a pair of kick-flare jeans priced at £45. “Everyone has a particular cut of jeans,” she says, “and I made mine slightly high-waisted with a leg that flares out a bit from the hip.” You quite can imagine Moss, one of Freud’s best friends, sporting them while in Gloucestershire attire.
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She and the supermodel go back decades, and Freud warms when talking about Moss. “She’s just so intrepid and she is such a daring character even though she’s very, very private,” says Freud. It was Moss who propelled her into launching a new podcast, Fashion Neurosis, which sees her embrace her ancestry in therapy-type sessions with stars reclining on her sofa at home.
So it’s all go for Freud, but at a time when British brands have found themselves on their knees. Her friend Susie Cave had to close The Vampire’s Wife in May, while the collapse of Matches Fashion — a lifeblood for independent brands — this year wrought havoc for so many. I wonder if the economic climate is hitting her label hard, too? “Yeah, it is. It touches everybody now, apart from obviously a tiny minority,” she says. “As a designer, it makes me more thoughtful about what I do and maybe even how much [I order].”
It goes some way to explaining why a label like Freud’s would do well to expand to wider audiences. “It is really nice to be able to be inclusive with something that’s very well priced. It’s no joke the time we’re going through. I’ve been through a few cycles of this type and one thing I know is that when things are difficult, people need things to make them feel good. Clothes are part of that,” she says. There can be no doubt Britain will dash to get bargain Bella-approved armour to weather the storm.
Our pick of the best Bella Freud x M&S buys:
M&S X Bella Freud Cashmere Divine Feminine Jumper, £139, marksandspencer.com
M&S X Bella Freud Pinstripe Skirt, £69, marksandspencer.com
M&S X Bella Freud Wool Cashmere Nature Jumper, £129, marksandspencer.com
M&S X Bella Freud Jeans, £45, marksandspencer.com
M&S X Bella Freud Shirt With Tie, £99, marksandspencer.com
