Fashion Neurosis with Es Devlin

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud · 2025-04-22

Es Devlin is a British artist and stage designer celebrated for creating large-scale, emotionally resonant installations and performances that fuse light, music, language, and space. Her work has shaped the visual identity of global tours for artists including Beyoncé, Adele, The Weeknd and U2, while also redefining the theatrical landscape through her work with the Royal Opera House, National Theatre, and the Metropolitan Opera. Es Devlin brings a poetic sensibility to her immersive environments. Her public art installations—such as Forest for Change at Somerset House and Poem Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai—invite audiences to reflect, explore, and engage with urgent global themes. In October 2024 she unveiled CONGREGATION, a large-scale choral installation created in partnership with UK for UNHCR, The Courtauld and King's College London. Es Devlin’s designs have been exhibited at major institutions including the V&A, the Serpentine Gallery, and the Venice Biennale. She is a Royal Academician, the recipient of numerous awards, and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to stage design. In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud and Es Devlin discuss the logistics of raising a steel orb out of the sand in the Moroccan desert for the St Laurent menswear show; seeking out jumble sales in Time Out magazine when she was 11; and making a collage for her bedroom from a catalogue of Japanese art that turned out to be full of pornographic illustrations.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

Each week join the renowned fashion designer Bella Freud as she invites a special guest to ‘lie on the couch’ and explore the connection between fashion and identity. Bella’s conversations begin with questions about style and what we reveal through the clothes we wear. Bella also shares her own anecdotes and the conversations expand into deeper discussions on life’s universal themes—love, identity, culture, anxiousness, and even politics.

Through a series of tailored questions, Bella creates a relaxed, intimate atmosphere where her guests—ranging from fashion icons to cultural figures in sport, art, music and literature reveal more about themselves than they might expect. Fashion is often dismissed as superficial, but in this podcast, it becomes the lens through which we examine our inner lives, relationships, and society.

From Kate Moss to other notable guests, Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud offers a unique, thoughtful, and engaging conversation that goes far beyond what we wear: diving into the unspoken language of clothing and the ways in which we use style to navigate and communicate in the world.

www.fashionneurosis.com
@fashionnueorsis_bellafreud

Where can you listen?

Episodes