INTERVIEW

Meet Gareth Pugh, the rebel designer loved by Lady Gaga and Rihanna

London used to be famous for outrageous designers showing fetish gear and three-legged trousers on the catwalk. But that tradition ends with Gareth Pugh. Harriet Walker meets the working-class lad from Sunderland who refuses to play it safe
Harriet Walker
The Times
From left: Lady Gaga wearing Gareth Pugh in 2014 and in 2018; Gareth Pugh, 36, with Rihanna at Paris Fashion Week
From left: Lady Gaga wearing Gareth Pugh in 2014 and in 2018; Gareth Pugh, 36, with Rihanna at Paris Fashion Week
GETTY IMAGES, STEVE WOOD/EXPRESS SYNDICATION
Harriet Walker
The Times

I meet Gareth Pugh the day after Karl Lagerfeld dies. The last of London’s enfants terribles has paused production on his own label this season but not, he tells me with a laugh, because he has got the top job at Chanel. Reading between the lines, it is something more prosaic – and preventable – than that: the b-word.

“I knew Brexit would happen – and Trump, too,” he says. “I understand it, because it’s my people. I’ve seen people I love fall for untruths.”

Pugh, 36, is Sunderland born and bred, and speaks with a soft Mackem lilt despite having moved to London 20 years ago. The son of a policeman and a call-centre worker, he has dressed Beyoncé, Rihanna and Lady Gaga.

Pugh with his husband, Carson McColl, 2017
Pugh with his husband, Carson McColl, 2017
GETTY IMAGES

Kylie