Have a wonderful New Year, you beautiful people! It's good to be back!

Susie Cave for Costume Magazine

Which dress designs, time periods or female figures do you yourself look to for inspiration?
If you go to the Stuff page on The Vampire’s Wife website you can see the ever-growing and increasingly complex web of inspirations that go into the making of one of my dresses. Mostly the page is a celebration of the individual – of beauty, of inspiration, of imagination. It seems to be a never-ending pool of inspiration because women themselves are the most inspiring force on the planet. To be honest, I am grabbing stuff from all over the place. I have a voracious appetite for other people’s ideas! I love the great designers, Vivienne Westwood and my dear friend, Bella Freud and the late Azzedine Alaïa, for example, and movie stars and painters and musicians and poets. And I look on the street too and always find some young girl who has boldly worn some personal invention she his sewn in her bedroom and there is great inspiration there too. Inspiration is everywhere!

Many women find it difficult to wear dresses outside of special occasions. Many say they are afraid of looking over-dressed. Do you understand that? And what can women do to overcome their dress phobias?
Well, I guess I have committed great crimes against appropriate dress codes all my life. I always get it wrong. I have always dressed beyond the occasion. But, in the back of mind, I think, getting it wrong is actually getting it right. Thankfully, I have a husband who encourages this sort of behaviour and is similar in that we always think that the occasion will need to modify itself to our look, rather than the other way around! I guess we still like the idea of playing dress-ups, and often drift into a world that is our own and dress for that alone and kind of forget about the context. The amount of times my husband and I have over-dressed for, I don’t know, a parents/teachers meeting or something, cannot be overestimated. But we like it. We admire it in each other – you know – fuck it, who cares, be bold, life is short.

Susie Cave for Costume Magazine

HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR, YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE! IT’S SO GOOD TO BACK ON THE STUFF PAGE!

Love, Susie x