Style supremo Julian Bennett: Liverpool has won me over

Oct 22 2009 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

He’s since styled more fashion shows than he can remember, including London Fashion Week. (“Kate Moss is very quiet,” he confides. “Comes in, does her job and leaves. Very professional.”)

The biggest threat to his career came when enjoying the fruits of his success in London.

“I was drinking too heavily,” he admits. “There were parties every night and they were always free. I was mixing with people I worked with, and I’m a very bad drunk.” He winces. “I think I’m funny but I’m not and I’d cross the line with comments I made. Over time, I learned to deal better with nights like that.”

He realised he’d bitten off a lot to chew with his own fashion week.

“The idea sounded really easy. Pulling it off is the hard bit. Before, I just rocked up to host it when all the work was done. Now I was looking for a venue, scouting for models, looking for a stage and sponsors and chasing canapés for the launch party all at the same time.

“It’s things you don’t even think of. The stage people came over the other day and said we needed ‘extra outage’,” he laughs. “I had no idea what that was.”

Fortunately, he’s had no shortage of willing volunteers.

Barbara Daley is working alongside 10 final year hairdressing students, and experts from Bare Escentuals are working with 15 final year students from Hugh Baird College.

Some, like right-hand man Shaun Armstrong, who is an accountant in his other life, are getting a chance to change career.

“There are people who have been in the business a long time who have never had the opportunity to get involved in a live fashion show,” explains Julian. “It’s giving them a platform and putting pressure on them to get used to the pace of a fashion show in the real world.”

And it’s not without its pressures.

“It’s like organising your own birthday party and you’ve invited a thousand people and two turn up. My biggest fear is someone will walk away and say it was awful. I don’t want to fail the designers.”

Fortunately, his fears have proved groundless. The launch party at Alma de Cuba, on Sunday, with Rafael Benitez and wife Montse was a huge success.

Long term, Julian says Liverpool is the place for him.

“Liverpool really has won me over. The guys and girls really do care about what they wear. You don’t have to live in London to get work. I want to settle down here, get married and have kids, and bring London to Liverpool instead of the other way around.”

emma.pinch@liverpool.com