It took the knitter and textile designer Kaffe Fassett two goes at buying his four-floor Victorian home in north London. In 1971, he got one floor with a £400 deposit but had to wait 20 years before buying the rest. “When I entered textiles, no one was doing what I was doing with colour. I think a lot of the old hippy girls loved that, but some people thought I was a disgrace to the industry,” he says. “It took me a while to actually make any money.”
After a chance meeting with the director John Schlesinger at a party, Fassett handed him a copy of James Leo Herlihy’s Midnight Cowboy, suggesting he make it into a film. Flicking through, Schlesinger told Fassett it was “too depressing – but then before I knew it, Dustin Hoffman had been cast and then they called me into Schlesinger’s office, told me to sign a piece of paper, gave me £5,000 and told me not to ask for any more.” This “hunter’s fee” became a deposit on the rest of the house.
