Interviews
The Vampire’s Wife – Creative Collaboration With The Royal Ballet and HURR
Jemima Hunter
June 25, 2021
Cheshire born designer, actress and model, Susie Cave, takes her influence from The Royal Ballet as part of a collection for her clothing brand The Vampire’s Wife.
After fleeing boarding school as a teenager, Cave moved to New York to start afresh. Photographer, Stephen Meisel was instantly stunned by Cave’s unusual beauty and bold look, which led to her following a career in modelling. The discovery of the model by Meisel, led Cave to work with some of the most prestigious designers and photographers over the years, including Vivienne Westwood, Christian Dior and many more.
The fifty-four-year-old, sustained terrible emotional trauma in 2016, after her son, Arthur fell to his death. To make her son proud and work through the pain she endured, Cave persevered with her work and later began a clothing label that includes timeless, iconic dresses with gothic overtones. ‘I’ve always wanted to make beautiful things, but at the same time it’s about not wanting to be a victim of what happened to Arthur, not wanting to be paralysed for the rest of my life.’
The inspiration behind the label, founded in 2014, was also Cave’s inability to find clothing that expressed her femininity and elegance. ‘What happened to the womanliness? It seemed to me that many designers had lost sight of what it was that women wanted to wear.’ Her love for Russian ballet, costumes and architecture inspired Cave’s designing aesthetic. The name, The Vampire’s Wife, came from Nick Caves (her husband) incomplete novel, which suited the Victorian romance and gothic undertones perfectly.
Cave requested that members of The Royal Ballet came and wore an item from her label, for a short dance film to raise money for the historic institution. This was only the beginning of the ballet collaboration, as Cave set out to produce more iconic designs for the new Royal Ballet Capsule Collection.
Now Cave plans to continue to discharge her personality into her work by producing statement dresses as she teams up with HURR, a rental clothing company to support sustainability in the fashion industry.
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