The French Connection
It’s a strange thing, meeting Nicole Farhi. So many Notting Hill locals like to treat 202 as an extension of their own breakfast tables, nabbing a seat underneath those imposing awnings on Westbourne Grove. The luxurious fabrics, chic tailoring and my-dream-living-room pieces inside offer more than a suggestion of Viva la France meets Rule Brittania. And as such, it feels like I already know this fashion powerhouse – a confident notion that dissipates as soon as she walks in the door. Despite being a Londoner for over 35 years, Nicole is still that effortlessly chic Parisienne that instils fear in the rest of us mere mortals.
“In France – actually on the continent, as in Italy it is similar – women want to be chic,” says the 63-year-old designer. “They’re always very well turned out, which looks lovely, but it lacks a bit of fun. Women here don’t care that much about chic. They want to enjoy what they’re wearing, which gives you a freedom in designing clothes that you might not have in France. We don’t have that street sense in France – it’s sleeker. Fashion was always more fun out of London, as it has always been. It’s why French designers still come here today.”
This month, the designer’s spring-summer visions will be taking to the catwalk at London Fashion Week once more, the revered trade show celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, with Nicole Farhi one of its longest-showing designers. Born in Nice, Nicole had a “very happy, easy upbringing”. Her family came from Turkey and were “very colourful, loving, demonstrative and outspoken” – much as you’ll find Nicole is herself. The close-knit family would go out in a big, rowdy group for lunch, anywhere up to 20 to 25 of them in one sitting. The anonymity of city life must have been a cruel shock.
“No, actually I couldn’t wait to leave,” Nicole laughs. “Although I loved my family and was very happy, when you grow up you want something else. Also Nice, at the time, was too small for me. I wanted to live in the capital; in Paris. I chose to go into fashion and not art because I could study art in Nice, but there were no fashion schools.”
Having worked as a freelancer with such fashion dignitaries as Agnès B and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Nicole brought her Turkish heritage and French sophistication to our shores in the early 70s. The lure of London was always strong.
“I used to come here a lot, even as a student,” she says. “London in the late 60s was wonderfully groovy. We would come from Paris as young fashion students, to King’s Road and Carnaby Street. It was so colourful and we’d never had streets like that. The music was great; the clubs were fantastic. It was just full of energy.”
Meeting one Stephen Marks, with whom she founded French Connection, took her to India first, then here for good. The pair shared a romantic bond as well as a professional one, but despite ending the former, still thrive in a mutually beneficial working relationship (Nicole is currently married to English playwright David Hare).
“I was very lucky to have met Stephen, who gave me a free hand all my life. It’s worked perfectly, and it will work forever. I trust him, he trusts me; I’d do anything to make him happy, and he does for me. Stephen’s a business man, with a lot of flair and he has a great sense of fashion, of design, environment, place and space. He sees my collection before anyone in the company. I trust his opinion – if he says don’t do that, I won’t do it. And if he saysI really believe in it – even if the sales people are ‘no, no, no’ – we put it in and it sells. It’s great to have him behind me.”
Stephen, in fact, chose 202’s site, originally a pub. At that time, Nicole Farhi had her New Bond Street restaurant, Nicole’s, and wanted to make a change. The Farhi fiefdom hadn’t stretched to west London yet, but with friends in the area, Nicole well versed in the culture of Portobello Road and Notting Hill.
“I always thought going into a shop just to buy clothes was so boring,” says Farhi. “So when Stephen said come see [202], I fell in love, but it had to be totally different from the rest. We wanted the restaurant to be much more laidback .Nothing is sleek here; all the tables and chairs is as you would find them at a market.”
This year, Nicole’s blowing out the candles on her own anniversaries: a 10th for interiors, and 20 years in menswear design. To celebrate, the brand’s launched a new online boutique, where all her collections are available. As for the future? “We are all going through difficult times,” sighs Nicole. “Touch wood [as she raps on a vintage white-washed cabinet], we are doing well. My recipe’s always been to do what I like; never to force myself.
If someone says, ‘Right now, everyone is looking for this kind of jacket – do it’, I won’t if I don’t think its right. It’s the same with furniture. I would only buy what
I think is nice. If worst comes to worst, I can always take it home if it doesn’t sell. As long as you love it, it doesn’t matter.”
202 Westbourne Grove, W11 2RH
020 7792 6888, www.nicolefarhi.com