Growing up in a bohemian household, my mum Jo, Sienna and I were like a band of sisters. It was in our teenage years that we started experimenting with clothes, although we never spoke about fashion per se. I have just always loved making things. My mum joked that she never had a wooden spoon the right colour, because I was constantly dyeing and playing around with textiles in the basement. It was a really experimental time and our door was always open. We had a stylist friend, Hannah Sandling, who was older than us and a sort of ’90s raver. She had all these ad hoc matching outfits, styled with buffalo boots and hair extensions – Baby Spice vibes – and we were both really into it. There was a period of time when I was dressed head to toe in everything neon and Sienna would load checks, prints and florals on all at once.
There was always that classic sister thing of “you stole my such and such!”, but really we were always very individual. I wasn’t ever as pioneering as Sienna. She’s just got a real intuition for trends, and is very much tuned in to something beyond the present day in terms of styling. Sienna and I were obsessed with the ’70s and original Woodstock fashion culture. We enjoyed the thrill of finding unique garments and hung out in Portobello, which was a stone’s throw from home, rather than Oxford Circus – although Topshop obviously got a look in. We were quite aware from early on that we wanted to be ourselves and, without sounding cheesy, that isn’t possible if you just keep wearing what everyone else is wearing. Our love of vintage gave us an opportunity to be individual.
The wonderful thing about our mum was that she never said anything about what we wore. I mean, at times, we looked ridiculous, but she let us find our own way. I guess there was a freedom in this to really kind of hone it down. We got there in the end. Aside from one hysterical Tatler shoot we did in our late teens, during which I kissed a lobster, we don’t have any regrets. Now, we look back at how ridiculous we looked and we really, really laugh.
I knew something had shifted in the world’s perception of my sister at a McQueen store party in 2003, when the cameras went completely mad for her. Sienna arrived in the world shiny. She is inherently golden, and has been lighting up my life since the day she was born, but that was my first understanding of other people seeing what I had always seen.
We started our label Twenty8Twelve in 2007. I was working at Alexander McQueen at the time and my sister was dating Jude [Law]. She’d really refined her eclectic style by that point and the paparazzi was following her everywhere. It was very normal in our friendship group to dress that way, but this wasn’t the case for the mainstream and so this whole boho chic trend took off. It became her thing. Pepe Jeans, our commercial partner, anticipated that we would just open Sienna’s wardrobe and knock it off, which was never our intention. We had a real obsession with Victoriana and Dickensian depictions of fashion, which awakened us to the attention to detail in archive clothing. We used to go on research trips to Paris and dig out these beautiful old garments and reference their finishes which elevated our brand and made Twenty8Twelve feel really considered. My favourite thing we did was to hide poetry on washable paper in the back pockets of the jeans for the wearer to find at some point. At its heart, it was an inherently romantic brand.
Whereas I play things quite safely, Sienna was constantly coming up with ideas on how we could push the boundaries and take us higher. Once she wanted to do a pair of jeans that had a zip from the ankle all the way up to the pocket. There was no way technically you could do that, I thought, but Sienna made it happen and those jeans were so cool. She was really what gave Twenty8Twelve its individuality.
We called it a day when, after 13 or so seasons of mainline, pre and cruise collections, it had run its course. I had two kids and was pregnant with a third, Sienna’s career was really taking off, and our partners wanted to turn it into a much more commercially focused operation. It felt like it had come to its natural close.
When I launched my own brand in 2012, Sienna was so supportive. She always has been. Attending the 2018 Met Gala was beautiful, because I had just launched my bridal line, but also because we really are each other’s other half. It was just so fun to go together. For me, it was a novelty experience. The whole world is on that red carpet, but the most famous people are the most anxious with good reason, I suppose, because the eyes of the world are on them. That and when we took a bow after our first show on the London Fashion Week schedule have been the most amazing shared moments together. The latter had always been a dream of mine, and to have her by my side was amazing.
Sienna’s style has evolved since those days. She likes to wear things that have a very sensual quality, like cashmere and really soft cotton. Her style is effortless in its essence. You never feel like she’s forcing anything, it’s always a direct reflection of her. It’s very hard to describe a style like that because it’s so eclectic, but I think she has a Phoebe Philo-era Céline vibe to her day-to-day dressing. She’ll wear things that are classic, but have got a bit of an edge, so if it’s a woollen trouser it’ll be extra wide with a super-high waist. There’s a point of difference because she really does pay attention to design details. Clothing can be very empowering – even if it is just a really well-cut coat – and Sienna is very drawn to things when they are done properly.
Nowadays, we don’t talk about fashion at all – unless it’s to discuss the softest pyjamas you can possibly find. Sienna will pick up a magazine if it’s lying around, but she’s not going to go, ‘look what they did at Helmut Lang this season’. It’s a pipe dream to collaborate again, but we’re both so busy and I think it’s very important to not do things for the sake of them. The world is full of product, and we all have to be a bit more responsible about how we roll. I like the way things are at the moment. I custom make her dresses now and again, and that’s really lovely because it’s collaborative. Sienna is, at the end of the day, a magical, golden person and my favourite human in the world. What could be more fun?!
