Yahoo Lifestyle Frankly Speaking With Alex Perry
JACKIE FRANK: What were you like as a kid?
ALEX PERRY: Fat – and a little bit shy.
JF: It’s funny you started with fat, as opposed to shy.
AP: It’s never left me. I think if you’re fat as a kid, you’ve always got the fat kid living inside you. It made me not want to do things other kids did, like swimming and sport, because I felt self-conscious, and that made me shy.
JF: Were you bullied?
AP: I was teased. There were times I didn’t want to go to school as I knew someone would beat me up. I’d be shitting myself all night thinking, “I don’t know how to fight.” But you get through it.
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marie claire's publisher Jackie Frank sat down with Alex Perry in this month's issue, on sale now. Photo: marie claire
JF: How did you get into fashion?
AP: I fluked it. When I was at school, I was good at drawing so I did entrance exams for anything to do with illustration – fashion, interior design, industrial design – and I happened to get into fashion. Then when we went to the school of fashion, they put sewing machines in front of us and I knew nothing. I couldn’t even open the lid.
JF: It’s 23 years since you opened your first shop in Kensington, Sydney. What were the early days like?
AP: Ridiculous ... I just made 15 dresses and put them on a rack, and opened the door. I hadn’t thought it through. Like, how are you going to get people to come in? I sewed, vacuumed the shop, cleaned the toilets, saw the clients, and bought the fabrics. I was a one-man band. I would look at really expensive clothes, like how a Chanel jacket was made – how the lining was done – and try to mirror that. I quickly learnt how to make sure mine were acceptable. It took about a year and a half until I had enough money to get a machinist to come in two days a week.
JF: You’re stocked in Europe, Asia, the US and Middle East, as well as being a judge on the Asian and Australian Next Top Model series. What keeps you grounded?
AP: My brothers, [my wife] Mary and my family. They don’t buy into it, and think it’s funny. They’re proud of what I’ve done, but they know who I am on Australia’s Next Top Model is not really the way I am – it’s like a persona. When Charlotte [Dawson] was on that show with me, we sort of knew what we were doing and it was like this banter, but we knew it was just for show. But a lot of people don’t understand that.
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Alex Perry says he "fluked" his way into fashion as a young man. Photo: marie claire
JF: Plus, they’re only seeing that side of you. That 50 seconds of you.
AP: An edited snapshot of me saying something vile.
JF: You’ve been criticised for being too harsh on the girls.
AP: In the beginning, there were things I probably shouldn’t have said. But I have to be honest. If you’ve done a bad shot and I say you look vacant, it’s not nasty – I’m giving constructive criticism. I’m not saying you look like a fat pig just for the sake of it.
THE BACKLASH
JF: Let’s jump to when Cassi [Van Den Dungen] came down the runway [at 2014 Australian Fashion Week] looking worryingly thin. You admitted it was a serious lapse of judgement.
AP: We fitted her the night before. I’d worked 16 hours; I was tired. It went through my mind that we should cancel, but I felt bad for her. But the pictures were worse than I could have imagined. She was in about 20 other shows, but I was the one that got pulled up for it.
JF: Have you spoken to her since?
AP: No. She put stuff on social media and told people I threw her under the bus. I think she thinks I should have stood by her and said there’s nothing wrong with her. I don’t know if there is or not, but that wasn’t the image I wanted to portray.
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Alex Perry Perry said he tried to help his friend Charlotte Dawson, here in 2011, who struggled with depression before her death in 2014.. Photo: Getty Images
JF: You’ve come off Twitter, haven’t you?
AP: It was a really bad forum. Instagram is completely different – hardly anybody has written anything negative or nasty – but Twitter was brutal. I just thought: I don’t want this.
JF: How did you deal with the haters?
AP: Don’t interact with them. It sounds simple, but it’s really hard because when somebody writes, 'Fucking childless bastard' or 'Get your glasses off you head' or whatever, my initial reaction is to say, 'Get fucked!' But Mary taught me that by not responding, it kills it.
JF: You had a hard realisation about cyber bullying with Charlotte Dawson’s death. Can we talk a little about that?
AP: I knew she was struggling. Sometimes she’d be taking medication and feel well and then, as a lot of people do, she’d stop. People say, "I feel great, I’m not going to take this." Then it wears off and they go to that terrible place again. And she’d get up at 3.30am, look at Twitter, and somebody had written something terrible.
JF: Did you try to stop her from reading the messages?
AP: I’d tell her not to look at it, to put her phone down. But the minute I was out of sight, she was going to go to it. When you’re in a fragile state of mind, it’s terrible. The things that were written to her were just appalling.
GETTING PERSONAL
JF: You talked about the persona you’ve created, and people sometimes ask me if you’re gay. Is that part of your 'costume'? '''
AP: I’m not the straightest bloke on the block. Never have been in that kind of way. People said things at school like, "You’re a poofter" because I was into art, or I spoke differently. It used to bother me, but I can’t change what people think about me. But I do camp it up sometimes when it serves my purpose.
JF: You’ve spoken about "Cinderella moments" when a woman is transformed by a beautiful gown. Sitting here with arms the size of Hulk Hogan, would you say you’ve also transformed yourself?
AP: I was the fat kid and I had to do something to stop feeling that way, so I started going to the gym. When I’m sitting there telling you how you should look, I had to create confidence in myself as well. I’m still really shy. When I walk into a crowded room at fashion events, I have to pluck up the courage first.
JF: You care about your appearance. Have you had any plastic surgery?
AP: Define plastic surgery.
JF: Anything that requires...
AP: Cutting? No.
Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock wearing Alex Perry. Photo: Getty Images
JF: So you’ve had...
AP: Botox, fillers. There were times when that went too far. Charlotte and I got Botox together and she said, "Come on, freeze us up!" About two weeks later, we looked at each other and I said, "It’s a bit weird." You’ve got to experiment, but not go overboard.
JF: You’ve been married to Mary for 28 years. What has marriage taught you about relationships?
AP: When you get married when you’re young, you’re a certain person. You grow up, you change. So long as you allow each other to go through those changes [it works]. You meander in the same place. But you still go in the same direction.
JF: She doesn’t attend a lot of events?
AP: She doesn’t like it. Six years ago she started having bad problems with her spine, so she had a big operation two years ago. But she was always uncomfortable at fashion events; she doesn’t live in that world. She’s happier when we have time at home together because I’m so busy.
JF: It’s hard.
AP: Yeah, especially when there’s an illness. I don’t care about anything else. All I care about is her being well – her being able to do what she used to do. And that’s a daily struggle at the moment. I don’t really talk about it because it’s nobody’s business.
JF: Is she still living with pain?
AP: Yes and we’ve got to find out what that is. The doctor said to her, don’t put on any weight as that’s pressure on your spine. She’s always been a size 8, but with the pain and all that stuff, she put on a stack of weight.
JF: It’s not like she can exercise.
AP: The good news is she’s lost a lot in the past four or five months.
JF: That’s amazing.
AP: Yes, I’m so proud of her.
JF: So, finally, what do you want your legacy to be?
AP: That I was a good person. That I was loved and that people had good experiences with me. If I die and people say I was a great guy, I’m happy with that.
FAST FIVE:
What do you never travel without? My iPod.
What/who couldn’t you live without? My wife, Mary.
Happiest moment? Probably the day we got married. It’s always family related things that make it really happy for me.
Your greatest fear? Losing my parents. So I’ve half gone through that. You’re never prepared for it. There’s a sense of loss that you don’t really recover from.
Three things you’d take to a desert island? A generator. A Nespresso machine. Um …three things are not enough to take to a desert island!
