Bella Freud: reinterpreting the Seventies

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“1970″ is worked on to the chest of a sweater; “Je t’aime Jane” reads another; or “Ginsberg is God” — references to Jane Birkin in the music of Serge Gainsbourg, and to the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Bella Freud’s Bohemian childhood seemed to lead her to counter-culture characters.

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Of all the references to the Seventies flooding across fashion, Bella Freud is a rare designer who seems to get to the essence of that decade — literally, when it comes to her fragrances. They have the same evocative names as the clothing, presented in the most simple way.

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On Net-a-Porter she has a scented candle with her name and logo — as drawn by her late father Lucian Freud, better known for his portraits with psychological depth.

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I remember how Bella’s earliest collections, back in the Nineties, always looked prim, pink and pretty, as though she were trying to erase a hippy, trippy childhood so vividly expressed in /Hideous Kinky/, the book about their unconventional young life in Morocco, written by her sister Esther.

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But now Bella’s offerings are simple, cool and worn by friends such as It girl Alexa Chung. Wearing a plain sweater with the words “The last poets”, she manages to capture the free-wheeling artistic spirit of the Seventies without a fringe, a flared trouser or a platform-sole sandal in sight.

www.bellafreud.com