The Vampire's Wife

Susie Cave, the woman behind the vampire’s wife, on her growing empire, a-list fans and how a dress helped her push through crippling grief to create her own world, filled with possibilities

- Kenya Hunt

Susie Cave and I are fighting back tears in the middle of a morning conversation at Claridge’s, as we sit in the centre of a plush parlour room. We are surrounded by tables filled with suited men who all seem to be having very serious-looking meetings. We’ve been talking about fashion — dresses, specifically — yes, but also memories, childhood, children and the emotions that come with all of those things.

Susie had eyes for a particular kind of dress with a particular kind of shape, long before she became famous for making them. “When I was little, my mum bought me a dress with loads of tiers — a lot like Cinderella’s, in a bright orange, with these sort of...” and she gestures towards the arms of her own silk dress, with pert shoulders and blouse sleeves, to show me what she means. When she first tried on the dress as a small girl, it fell to the floor. “And I wore that dress until, literally, it was up to my knees. I wore it for every party for about six years. I wore it until I was 14 or something. It was just a little dress from a charity shop in Cheshire, where I grew up,” she explains. “I think I really wanted to have loads of dresses like that. And because I only had one, maybe when I got older I thought, ‘I’m gonna make as many of these as I can.’ Maybe some psychiatrist would probably tell me there’s something going on there,” she says.