Phoebe Philo breaks her silence

“I always tell my kids, the more you mess around, the more you discover,” she said, using a fruitier term than “clutter.”

“Pretty quickly I realized that work was something that I needed,” she said, “and I think I felt like this was really going to come into fashion,” even though she knew she didn’t want to go back to what she used to do. wild. had done. In most major houses, designers’ jobs end on the runway. They do not oversee the advertising campaigns, merchandising or store design. Mrs. Philo wanted to have her fingers in that. Even if independence and a start-up means you don’t have to fly first class or have a driver or a lot of orchids in the office.

“Fundamentally, those are not the things that make me happy,” Ms. Philo said. The things that make her happy are baking, galleries, horse riding, going out, her family, her friends. She said she’s constantly “walking a tightrope” between ensuring downtime and discovering inspiration. “Once she knows she can trust you, there are no barriers,” Ms. Rogers said.

After Mrs. Rogers’ husband, the architect Richard Rogers, fell during a trip to Mexico and spent months in the hospital, Mrs. Philo dropped by for breakfast one day wearing a large gray tweed coat that Mrs. Rogers admired. “She just took it off and gave it to me,” Ms. Rogers said, refusing to take it back. “It has kept me safe and warm ever since.”

Edward Enninful, the former editor of British Vogue, who has been friends with Ms. Philo since they were children in west London, said he pestered her endlessly about when she would make menswear. “I always expected I would have to buy one of her women’s coats and have it tailored,” he said.

Then, just before the Fashion Awards in London last year, she presented him with a gray double-breasted suit, “just because she wanted me to feel good about myself,” he said. “I always wear black. I had never worn gray in my life, but I trusted her. It was very liberating.”