The Gold Edition Meets… Nicole Farhi

I was born in the south of France to a family that was Turkish/Jewish on both sides. My childhood was wonderful – I was lucky to grow up in a wonderful, loving and colourful family. They had escaped the war by hiding in a farm and were full of hope for the future. I was particularly fascinated by my father’s sister who came to visit us from Turkey once a year. She was very beautiful and extremely well dressed. I couldn’t wait to see what was new in her wardrobe every time she arrived.

By the time I was 14 or 15, I was going to Paris every summer to see my aunt Visa. She would take me to see the couture collections – Cristóbal Balenciaga was her favourite couturier. I loved Paris and decided I wanted to live there. At 18, I went to study fashion and art in Paris. Le Cours Berçot (now Studio Berçot) was renowned for being one of the best schools.

I started working as a freelance designer 18 months later. I’d met Stephen Marks through one of my clients – Pierre d’Alby – and we started a relationship. This was the early 70s and London was buzzing. It was such exciting time, and I was visiting Stephen at weekends while carrying on with my freelance work in Paris and Italy. Stephen had started a company called French Connection and, very quickly, I was designing the collections in India and China.

Working for and with Stephen was the best thing that happened to me. I was given total freedom to design the collections but, after I returned to London with a collection of 300 pieces, Stephen would have to cut the collection back to a manageable size. I tended to over-do it sometimes! We would have rows over it, but obviously he was right. Stephen was a great editor; he had a real sense of what young people wanted to wear and we became a very successful company. I loved seeing my clothes being worn by so many people, but my real pleasure was going to India – a country where I made friends for life.

I could probably have achieved more by starting my sculpting career earlier. But I do not have time to waste in regrets. I had a wonderful career as a fashion designer. I started in the late 60s when everything was open to young designers with ideas. It was so much easier back then to start your own company – people were ready for clothes with a difference. 

My first two sculptures – which were made almost 40 years ago – were a bust of a woman and a portrait of a male friend. They were the start of an enduring theme in my work. I’ve always been interested in the way Rodin treated the naked body by introducing the fragment. I believe a torso can be sometimes more expressive than a full body. Therefore, all my work, until now, has been more telling by being only about isolated parts. 

From The Neck Up was really about portraiture. Making portraits is something I go back to all the time because it keeps you in touch with humanity. My second show The Human Hand looked at how hands – as opposed to the face – are the most expressive part of the body. I made a list of people and their professions, and sculpted hands that work for a living – pianists, dancers, bakers, conductors… 

The exhibition that followed, Folds, was about the beauty of large women – the tenderness and sensuality of the flesh. From there, The Power Of Women was about expressing my solidarity with and admiration for all the ways in which women are able to assert themselves in the world, while my upcoming show The Future is Female is very much in keeping with those themes. I’m showing three works that are part of the series ‘Womankind’ – about the power of the touch.