About a
Boy
Known in the industry as the ‘king of glamour’, Olivia Sharpe finds out what lies beneath the glitzy and glamorous persona of British fashion designer Julien Macdonald “It was a bit Billy Elliot,” muses Julien Macdonald. As I sit in the designer’s Notting Hill atelier, I’m transported back to his life growing up in the Welsh valleys. Comparing himself to the fictional ballet dancer, he always knew he was different, choosing tap dancing classes over rugby and dreaming of becoming a singer while watching Top of the Pops. His voice broke and the dream ended but this didn’t stop the aspiring performer, who was accepted into the Central School of Speech and Drama. However, there was a catch: after three years of training, his accent would be gone. “They were going to take everything that was Welsh away and I was very Welsh, so this scared me.” Realising he would be losing a part of himself, Julien discovered fashion, going on to study Fashion Textiles in Brighton, followed by a Master’s Degree at the Royal College of Art. His fate as a fashion designer was now sealed.