Christopher Kane is a fashion designer who lives and works in Hackney, east London. In 2006, after studying fashion design at Central Saint Martins, he founded his eponymous label with his sister, Tammy. More recently, amid the pandemic, he launched More Joy, his logo-driven line, and took up painting. Not many can count both the Duchess of Cambridge and FKA Twigs as fans – but then again, few of them make clothes like Christopher, which are both subversive and refined in equal measure. It helps, we discover on this episode of the podcast, that the Scotsman is charming and chatty, with plenty of humour and good stories to go round.

Christopher grew up in Newarthill, a village in North Lanarkshire, not too far from Glasgow. His father was an entrepreneur, his mother a housewife and he had four older siblings, making him the youngest member of his immediate family. “There’s never a dull moment in a Scottish household – the comedy, the dark humour, the sarcasm,” he says. “I was very close with my mum. Scottish women are a different kind. They are so resilient and funny.” Christopher had a particular bond with Tammy, his only sister and future business partner, five years his senior. While she was out on the town dressed in Versace Jeans, Christopher was getting his own fashion education by watching TV, his favourite childhood pastime. “I learned everything from it – from fashion to art to natural history,” he says. “I still watch every TV programme under the sun.”

His avid box-watching has inspired Christopher’s clothes too. His spring/summer 2008 collection, for instance, took cues from both Australian soap Prisoner and Crocodile Dundee’s Steve Irwin. Such polarising and obscure references might raise eyebrows, but not if you’re a Christopher Kane devotee. Ever since he burst on to the fashion scene with a collection of 50 thigh-skimming, zingy neon dresses, the designer has been celebrated for citing the beautiful and the strange – from Princess Margaret on acid to Planet of the Apes. “There’s no such thing as good or bad taste – that’s instilled in me,” he says. “There is a certain degree of snobbery in this industry, but I wouldn’t be here 20 years later if I was doing what everyone else is doing.”

As for Christopher’s three favourite buildings in the world? They certainly wouldn’t look out of place on one of his moodboards, let’s put it that way. From a far-flung resort, where he once had an incident with wild monkeys, to a gallery of outsider art, they are places of cults and religion, full of superstition and spirituality. Listen to the episode now, recorded at his design studio, where he and host Matt Gibberd are joined by Christopher’s Boston terrier, Bruce, to discover his architectural choices. He also discusses growing up in Scotland, his fruitful relationship with Donatella Versace – “You can smell her before you see her. She’s a rock star” – and his all-consuming career as one of Britain’s most cherished designers. And, if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Happy listening.