Henry Holland

“I want the Ralph Lauren ranch in purple tartan!” says Henry Holland. I meet the self-styled collaboration king to discuss world domination by House of Holland.

Henry Holland is telling me about the first time he and model Agyness Deyn met Anna Wintour. “Agy and I were introduced by Amy Astley from Teen Vogue. Anna looked at us, then started whispering to Amy and I thought, ‘that’s really rude!,’ but what she was doing was asking Amy if we’d been invited to the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards. She said, ‘You must come,’” recalls Holland, putting on a posh voice over his soft Mancunian accent. “Then, she said the best thing. Agy was wearing a Jeremy Scott sweatshirt dress, I was wearing something Liberace probably wore on a night out, a black sequinned blazer. And she said: ‘You must come tomorrow’.” Holland mimics again, before raising his voice in a mock female shrill and adding: “‘But dress up!’ Then, she looked at Agy and said, ‘Both of you!’ And then she left!”

So what did Holland wear the following night? “I wore that f***ing blazer again. I was only in New York for four days.” 

In those four days back in 2005, Holland, then a fashion journalist, didn’t just meet Wintour and attend the awards. He also met the Olsen twins and pulled off an impressive selling feat that launched his fashion career: Julie Gilhart, the former fashion director of US department store Barneys, bought 1,500 of Holland’s now famous slogan T-shirts.