the times | Monday August 10 2020 1GT 3
times
Nobody puts Baby in the corner!
Actually, that depends. Has she
been to a country on the
quarantine list?There is no quarantine in the
Catskills — well, not the fictional
version, anyway. And I don’t
know about you, but that sounds
like a pretty great place to
return to right now.When did we go the first time?
1987, duh — in Dirty Dancing.
Ooh. What a great film. Is a rerun
showing on the telly? Or on at one
of those new drive-ins that have
opened since the lockdown?Who cares? They’re making a
sequel — 33 years later.Oh dear. Sequels are not often any
good. Why are they doing it?They say: “It will be exactly the
kind of romantic, nostalgic
movie that the franchise’s fans
have been waiting for.”And what do we say?
They can see dollar signs. The
original film made $214 million
at the global box office from a
$6 million budget — and more on
home entertainment platforms.Hmm.
Hey, it could be good. Sadly
Patrick Swayze is no longer
with us, but Jennifer Grey, who
starred with him in the original
as Baby, is acting in the film and
is a producer. That’s all we know
now. But it’s hopeful, right?Sort of. I mean it’s not a very timely
announcement, is it?The lowdown
Dirty Dancing
— the sequel
prove people wrong.” His insecurities
weren’t helped by how every shot of
Holland’s garments was accompanied
by a mention of his glossy posse, the
implication being that their patronage
was the sole reason for his success.
“My friends were a bit of a poisoned
chalice,” Holland says, rumpling his
trademark quiff and grimacing.
“People would sometimes talk about
my front row as much as my clothes,
and that was annoying, but at the
same time I wasn’t going to say to
my genuine friends, ‘Don’t come
to my show because I want them to
talk about the clothes.’
“And I’m a businessman, and I’m
fully aware that their having a public
profile was definitely beneficial to my
business. As a cynic you can look at
those relationships and see them as
being contrived, but we’d all known
each other for a very long time before
we were famous, and we all hadThe presenter Nick Grimshaw, model Pixie Geldof, designer Henry
Holland, presenter Miquita Oliver and actress Jaime Winstone in 2013JON ENOCH FOR THE TIMES, DAVE M BENETT/GETTY IMAGESimpostor syndrome, which
brought us even closer because
we’d been thrust into this shared
experience of London nightlife
and being invited to the same
events, and none of us could
believe this was happening to us.”
Of the pals, the oldest and
closest was Deyn (who changed
her name from Laura Hollins on
the advice of a name consultant),
for a while one of the best-known
models in the world. She grew up
near Holland, becoming his friend
when they met aged 12 at the
local dry ski slopes.
“Agy and I were sharing a flat
in Camden when she became
this stratospheric global
superstar. When we went to an
event it wasn’t a case of her agent
calling my agent, we’d get
dressed together at home, the
cab would pick us up, we’d be
standing on the red carpet
holding hands, whispering, ‘Oh
my God!’ It automatically
brought us an authenticity you
couldn’t pay for.”
It was Deyn who introduced
Holland to Grimshaw — “he
was a student, doing hospital
radio. Then I met Alexa because
her ex-boyfriend was a
photographer who used to shoot
Smash Hits covers. I remember doing a
cover with Fearne Cotton and Alexa
was doing the lighting.”
For a period the gang were
gossip-column manna, photographed
constantly falling out of nightclubs.
“Paparazzi were sleeping outside our
house; when we left an event there’d
be 20 of them crowding around our
cab. It was so intense, I remember
getting pulled over by the police and
asked, ‘What’s going on with all these
bikes?’ We were, like, ‘Very sorry,
officer, it’s the paps.’ They said,
‘Who is in the car?’ and Agy popped
her head out and said, ‘I am!’ The
policeman said, ‘I have no idea who
you are.’ ”
Yet despite the partying, this crowd
were an altogether less hedonistic
bunch than the original Primrose Hill
gang, whose druggy parties featuring
Kate Moss, Sadie Frost, Lowe’smother Pearl Lowe and the like were
the talk of the 1990s. In contrast, this
second-generation group were far
more overtly career-focused.
Holland recalls meeting
a high-powered board to apply for a
grant. “They were asking about my
balance sheet and there was a really
snotty comment: ‘How have you had
time to do this when we all know
you’re not tucked up in bed early?’ I
was, like, ‘Maybe I’m not, but whatever
time I get home I’m in the office at
nine every morning. Next question!’
Anyway, we were 25 — hangovers
don’t exist at that age.”
Snipers will inevitably point out
that Holland is still exploiting his
famous friends for his first big
post-House of Holland project, a
podcast entitled What Were You
Thinking?, in which he interviews
guests such as the singer Beth Ditto
and the designer Paul Smith about
their past sartorial choices.
Yet there’s no doubt that Holland’s
friendship with guests such as Chung
add depth to her reminiscing about
the pair’s glory days when “we held
the keys to London” and their trips
to the New York Met Gala and
Paris Fashion Week.
“I still feel like an impostor doing
the podcasts. I’m learning” he says.
“But it’s something I had been
banging on about doing for ages and
lockdown finally gave me the kick up
the bum to start.” He has also been
busy mentoring fashion graduates
flung into a very uncertain post-Covid
world. “I want to stay working in
the industry,” he asserts. “I just don’t
want to be the thing that’s on sale
any more.”
Meanwhile, the friendships that
have defined Holland persist, even
if the gang are now in the throes of
thirtysomething domesticity. “Most of
us have our own version of families
now: Agy’s married and living in
upstate New York, but we’re still very
close-knit, we speak all the time, we go
on holiday together — Grimmy’s
joining us at my mum’s château in
France next week.
“We do all the things together
we always did, we’re just not
photographed doing them any more.”l
Th
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Henry Holland,
above, and, left, with
Samantha Cameron
and her sister Emily
Sheffield in 2017What do you mean? We could
all use a good old-fashioned
rom-com right now.I disagree. First of all, no one can
dirty dance with strangers at the
moment. Or go on holiday without
fear of self-isolating. Or have a
carefree summer.You have a point. It’s putting
salt in the wound, isn’t it?Exactly — 2020: not the time of
your life.Hannah Rogers
What Were You
Thinking? is available
on iTunes, Spotify and
all podcast platformsPaparazzi
were
sleeping
outside
our house