Getting Past the Velvet Rope with… Derek Ridgers. The photographer who always felt a little uninvited

Getting Past the Velvet Rope with...Patrick McDowell. Winning the Queen Elizabeth II Award, gate-crashing womenswear, and please don't shut your own door.

Let's get past the velvet rope with… Patrick McDowell. A British designer who has built their own brand from the ground up, championing sustainability in an industry that often struggles to balance ethics and commercial reality. And yet, just months before being presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design by the Princess of Wales, Patrick was seriously considering shutting down their brand. In this episode, Patrick shares the unlikely path that took them from rejection at Central Saint Martins' foundation course to a direct entry into womenswear design, and, years later, to standing in front of the Princess of Wales receiving one of the most prestigious honours in British fashion. We talk about what it really takes to build a sustainable brand as an independent designer, and what the industry rarely shows. We also explore what it means to grow up working-class in Liverpool and end up on the other side of doors most people don't get through, and why the velvet rope moment, when it finally arrives, can come right after the lowest point. And along the way, Patrick also designed a bespoke look for Sarah Jessica Parker on And Just Like That. Just like that! A candid conversation about persistence, sustainability, and the rooms we never imagined being in, and the years of work it took to get there. Sound Design // Gustave Robic Graphic Design // Riley Axon Intro and Outro // Romane Potier Cinematography // Mariah Nonnemacher Editing // Romane Potier and Michele Fornera

The After Party...with Derek Ridgers

After five decades capturing the people and scenes that shape culture from the inside, documentary photographer Derek Ridgers' idea of the ultimate party is simple: travel back in time, straight to the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream at Alexandra Palace in 1967. The legendary all-night psychedelic happening Derek attended firsthand, where Pink Floyd, The Soft Machine, and The Pretty Things played for a counterculture crowd through the night, with John Lennon reportedly somewhere in the room. From his rules on crashing a party (and the few times he was kicked out), to anecdotes about Cannes nights with very different outcomes, to the day he felt like a VIP on a private jet with Depeche Mode, only to take the bus home, Derek reminds us that it's all about the balance. The best nights aren't always the glamorous ones, and he's seen it all (and documented even more).

Getting Past the Velvet Rope with… Derek Ridgers. The photographer who always felt a little uninvited

Let's get past the velvet rope with… Derek Ridgers. A photographer whose images have defined some of the most iconic subcultures of the last five decades, from punk and skinheads to new romantics and the legendary clubs of 1980s London. And yet, as he told us from the very start, he has always felt a bit uninvited. In this episode, Derek shares how he became a photographer entirely by chance, picking up a camera while working as an art director, and walking into a concert where people simply assumed he was a professional because he had one. We discuss the persistence that has defined his career, including the first time he was turned away from the Blitz Club and went back anyway. We also explore one of the most fascinating ideas to emerge from this conversation: the illusion that photographers create. When a room is full of ordinary people and a photographer captures the four or five most interesting ones, those images become the historical record, and years later, we mistake them for the whole truth. And along the way, there is also the small matter of Freddie Mercury stealing his first girlfriend at school. No big deal! An honest conversation about outsiders, persistence, and the stories that cameras tell — and the ones they don't.

The After Party with...Matteo Augello

Matteo's dream party needs no velvet rope, just the South of Italy, family, friends, and nothing that takes itself too seriously. Though if time travel were on the table, they'd have gate-crashed Paul Poiret's The Thousand and Two Nights in a heartbeat. Paris, 24th of June 1911. A Persian orchestra, parrots perched in trees wrapped in thousands of sparkling lights, pink ibis, multicoloured pillows — and the world premiere of the harem pants and the lampshade dress. A party so extraordinary it made fashion history before the night was over. Taylor Swift, on the other hand, is not making the cut. In any playlist, either. And from someone who has felt like the uninvited guest at a few too many institutional events, Matteo understands the velvet rope from both sides.

Getting Past the Velvet Rope with… Matteo Augello. Curating Italian fashion, gate-crashing academia, and please judge this book by its cover

Let's get past the velvet rope with… Matteo Augello. A fashion historian, curator, lecturer, and performer, Matteo has built a career at the intersection of academia and spectacle, where theory meets theatrics and the archive meets the stage. In this episode, we explore how a deep love of pop culture became the lens through which Matteo approaches fashion history — including using Britney Spears as a guide to write a dissertation. We discuss what it truly means to make fashion legible, and how dressing up for lectures in outfits that directly relate to the topic at hand is never just a matter of style. But perhaps the most quietly radical thing Matteo has done is appear on the cover of their own academic book — because they are the embodiment of the ideas inside it. Not provocation for its own sake, but simply the most honest representation. A conversation about pop culture as a serious lens, visibility as a statement, and what it looks like to carve out a path entirely your own.