Words: James Soo

It-boy and all-round party animal (some of his best friends are Pixie Geldof & Agyness Deyn), Henry Holland has exploded onto the London fashion scene with his irreverent slogan t-shirts (“I’ll tell you who’s boss, Kate Moss”). He chats to Dim Sum about fashion, X-Factor and the best use of tartan.

DS: Have you been to Hong Kong before?
Henry: No. I really love it although I can only come here in the winter because this is my hairstyle window. My quiff wouldn’t survive the humidity. The highlight has been the shopping. I only managed half a day in Causeway Bay though.

DS: What do you think of the fashion here?
Henry: It’s really good. I am astonished at the amount of stuff. I was looking at some of the magazines here and there’s so much product. It’s the perfect place for consumers and I just love stuff. I just want stuff all the time (laughs). I really like the crop trousers boys have here. In the UK we do 7/8th but here they do 6/8th, you know they just go that extra inch.

DS: What do you think the Asian market is going to say to your collection?
Henry: Our aesthetic is quite bold and bright, it seems to fit the Asian market quite well. The Asian market isn’t so afraid of colour and bold statements in fashion.

DS: You use a lot of traditional fabrics in your designs – why is that?
Henry: Thank you for noticing! Yes, I really like heritage fabrics. One of my friends owns a Savile Row Tailors and he really drives the point home. And it really started with our tartan from A/W 08.

DS: For which you won an award for Best Use of Tartan at the Scottish Fashion Awards, correct?
Henry: Haha, I don’t think that award existed before they gave it to me, and then I won that award again this year for tweed and they changed the award name to Best Use of a Scottish Fabric!

DS: What’s your bestseller?
Henry: We have a dress shape, with a fitted waist and full skirt, that’s evolved quite a bit. Our tights sell really well, and our underwear, which we’ve only just launched, are doing really well. I’m going to call my autobiography “From T-Shirts to Tights – Living the Dream” (laughs).

DS: You started as a fashion journalist, didn’t you?
Henry: Yes well I was working in magazines and I loved what I did. It wasn’t high fashion, it was teenage magazines, and it was a really fun, enjoyable side of fashion. I used to buy a lot of slogan t-shirts from America, you know ones about Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton, and I was like “I could do that”. Anyway, we were drunk one night and started rhyming things about designers. Then we did the first t-shirts which happened while I was still in magazines. And then it just took off. I got asked to do a London Fashion Week show, and I thought I can’t do that and do a full-time job. So I quit my job. I’m very competitive and enjoy challenging myself.

DS: So, you never studied fashion?
Henry: No, but I think I’m very creative and I can come up with good designs and ideas. And I think it’s about building up a team to help you execute those ideas and bring them to life. That’s pretty much how every designer in the world works, it’s just that I missed out that step where I made it all in my bedroom on my mother’s sewing machine.

DS: What tips would you give someone who wanted to start their own label?
Henry: You learn so much on the job. Even if you’ve been at university for three years, learning how to cut a pattern, if you then want to go off and start your own label, there is then a whole world that you didn’t know you need. You don’t think you’re setting a company, you don’t think about cashflow, Companies House, accountants. All these awful boring things are really 50% of the job, especially at the start, because to start a label, unless you have a big pot of cash, you can only send out what you can afford to make. It’s a real balancing act. So my advice would be get as much industry experience as possible in all areas. I think it really helped me to come from a journalist’s background, because I can really see how the press works. So many designers don’t want to talk to the press, but I can see how it works.

DS: You aren’t just a designer, you’re also a TV presenter.
Henry: I didn’t know anybody here knew about that. But basically it was a day off where I got paid to talk to a black box. I really enjoyed doing it, but I don’t go out trying to find it. My main focus is growing my business.

DS: How was running the marathon?
Henry: Oh my God, it was the worst thing I’ve ever done. I’ve wanted to do the marathon for so long. Then Rankin the photographer, his wife contacted me to see if I wanted to do it as part of this team she was putting together of fashion people called ‘Oxglam’. So, that was in September. I signed up with a personal trainer in November. I stopped drinking after New Year’s Eve till April. The amount of personal commitment was staggering. Excuse me for boasting but I did a really good time – 3 hours 28 minutes – but I won’t do it again ‘cos if I do it again next year what if I don’t beat that time?

DS: Walk us through your collection?
Henry: Well this print was inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead. I was meant to be travelling to Mexico on holiday, but couldn’t because of work, so this is my holiday really. My mum is a very spiritual person and didn’t like the skulls, so I got around her by making sure all the skulls had a smiley face! SS12 is Pastel Punks, and I got that inspiration from Gavin Watson’s street photography of late 70s punks. These beautiful girls with shaved heads and hard masculine clothes. So I kept the hard, masculine shapes but with a super-girly feminine pastel palette to juxtapose and balance it.

DS: What about the menswear?
Henry: It’s on its way – just give me a minute, yeah? (laughs) We used to extend the womenswear to do a couple of men’s shapes with the same patterns and prints. But because we showed on the womenswear schedule, we missed a lot of the press and sales coverage for the menswear. So we’ve stopped doing that and we’ll start doing it again once we’ve got the womenswear all hunky dory and can do it separately. But the eyewear and underwear are unisex. The tights… And next year we’re doing footwear with Superga which will also be unisex.

DS: I read somewhere that you design for a “London girl aesthetic”. Is that going to be the case for the menswear as well?
Henry: I will probably be a bit more selfish, design stuff that I want. It would have to have a bold sense of colour and a cheeky irreverence to it. I’d really like to work with heritage fabrics, creating something quintessentially British but with an edge. I think I’d like to start menswear with an Autumn/Winter collection so maybe in about a year. Next January. I just decided that. And that’s the power of being a director.

DS: Finally, we know you’re a huge fan of X-Factor, what would you sing on the show?
Henry: Bryan Adams and Mel C’s “Baby When You’re Gone” – me and Pixie do a really good rendition. Did I answer that a bit too quickly?