Lots of times, mostly all connected to Gordon and my children.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 April 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 577 →I am always happiest when I am making my art.
Childhood, up until the age of seven, when my sister died.
I don’t tend to rank happy times.
More from Douglas Stuart
View profile →At a fashion show after-party in New York in 2004, my friend dared me to push her into the pool. I did, and you’ve never heard laughter die so quickly.
People who can’t hear other points of view. Absolute certainty always scares me a little.
When I was about 18, I worked on the chicken counter in a large supermarket, and every morning I had to pierce 64 birds on to industrial skewers to load up the rotisserie. That was very grim.
My mother and my brother would still be alive. So much of my life has been coping with the grief of losing them.
To my younger self. I was incredibly self-loathing and self-doubting, and I’m still undoing that damage 30 years later.
My creative freedom. I was the creative director of a large fashion brand when I packed it all in to pursue my writing.
More on time & hindsight
- What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 137 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 78 answers
- What scares you about getting older? 61 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 28 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 23 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 23 answers
Also answered this
Bobbi Brown, Roland Mouret, Katharine Hamnett, Heston Blumenthal, Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject