Desert Island Discs: Archive: 2016-201810 Jul 2016

Nicole Farhi

Kirsty Young's castaway is the designer and sculptor Nicole Farhi.

Born into a Turkish family in France, Nicole's interest in fashion was present from an early age. As a child, she used to design clothes for her paper dolls; as a teenager, she was taken to couture shows in Paris by her stylish aunts.

Aged eighteen, she enrolled in fashion school in Paris and began selling her design sketches to earn a little pocket money, thus setting out on a career as a freelance designer. In the early 1970s, she met the British entrepreneur Stephen Marks who was just starting the retail chain French Connection where she became chief designer, and it was he who encouraged her to set up her eponymous label in 1982. Her fashion empire would eventually extend to New York, London and Tokyo before being sold in 2010, and Nicole herself left the business in 2012.

Since retiring from fashion, Nicole Farhi has dedicated herself to her other passion - sculpture. She sculpts predominantly in clay and then casts her works in different materials including glass, bronze and concrete.

She has been married to the playwright Sir David Hare since 1992.

Producer: Christine Pawlowsky.

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Episoder(126)

Joyce DiDonato

Kirsty Young's castaway is the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. Winner of two Grammy Awards, she is best known for her interpretations of Handel, Mozart and Rossini operas. Born into a Catholic family in...

25 Sep 201637min

Nadiya Hussain

Kirsty Young's castaway is the baker and winner of The Great British Bake Off in 2015, Nadiya Hussain. One of six children born to Bangladeshi parents in Luton, it was her father - a restaurateur - wh...

14 Aug 201634min

Michael Heath

Kirsty Young's castaway is the cartoonist Michael Heath.He's been working for newspapers and magazines for sixty years and sold his first drawing to the Melody Maker in the 1950s. For the past twenty ...

7 Aug 201636min

Jilly Cooper

Kirsty Young’s castaway is the writer Jilly Cooper.Her long writing career spans newspaper columns for the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday, non-fiction books on class, marriage and animals in war ...

31 Jul 201636min

Professor Dame Ann Dowling

Kirsty Young's castaway is the engineer and international expert on aircraft noise reduction, Professor Dame Ann Dowling. The first female president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, one of her pas...

24 Jul 201636min

Levi Roots

Kirsty Young's castaway is the entrepreneur, Levi Roots.His business success began following an appearance on BBC Two's Dragon's Den in 2007. With guitar in hand, he sang about his 'Reggae reggae sauc...

17 Jul 201634min

Matthew Barzun

Kirsty Young's castaway is the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Matthew Barzun.Born in New York City as the second of four children to Roger Barzun, a lawyer, and his wife Serita Winthrop, he was ...

3 Jul 201635min