Throughout your careers, who has been the most influential creative figure for you?

There have been many, but I always come back to British sculptor Barbara Hepworth. I was just 8 when I visited her studio in Cornwall and left determined to become a sculptor myself. Frank Gehry is another influential figure, for his experimental and sculptural background and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood for having the courage to follow her own convictions and for synchronising fashion, music, life and art. 

When you were a child, what were your favourite toys, and do you think those early interactions with objects influenced your design sensibilities today?

I didn’t have a lot of toys. I grew up in the English countryside and my favourite objects were things I would pick up and collect – shells, stones, feathers, sticks. I would spend hours arranging and displaying these in my room. This passion for arranging objects has stayed with me. As has my love of the British landscape which inspires so much of my work. 

What is the one object that you absolutely cannot live without?

My ‘Black Hole’ waterproof rucksack from Patagonia.

My Umbrella from James Smith and Son’s, London’s famous umbrella shop.

My Wassily Chair by designer Marcel Breuer.

If you could own any art from a museum, which one would it be?

- Cy Twombly -  ‘Coronation of Sesostris Part V’ (2000) Pinault Collection © Cy Twombly Foundation.

- Louise Bourgeois - Spider (Cell) 1997 MOMA.

Imagine hosting a dinner party with three famous personalities, dead or alive. Who would you invite?

Tom Yorke - Musician, Singer, Songwriter

Tilda Swinton  - Actress

Gaetano Pesce - Architect

Today, the debate focuses on artificial intelligence, with all its opportunities and risks. How do you feel about it and, if you could see the introduction of another new technology in the world, what would it be? 

I personally will be choosing to work in even more of an anlogue way. For sure AI will be able to design a better Faye Toogood chair than Faye Toogood soon, so it is my job to keep reinventing, to keep experimenting and to keep with the unexpected. A very emotional, tactitle and human approach is going to be needed even more today.

I am passionate objects, things, clothes, that are made by the hand - by the creativity.

If you could have designed any existing piece from the Poltrona Frau catalogue, which one would it be?

When I visited the Poltrona Frau archive I fell in love with the iconic Vanity Fair from the Thirties in lipstick red. Its not so much that I would have wished to design Vanity Fair, but I wanted Squash chair to honour this archive colour and respond with a contemporary shape that met its boldness.