Patsy Kensit wafts into the studio looking like the Mayfair version of a mob wife in skinny jeans, Chanel ankle boots, a white faux-fur Saint Laurent coat and a diamond as big as an egg. “It’s a nice piece of jewellery,” she says, smiling. Is it an engagement ring? “It’s … yes.” I tell her she doesn’t sound too sure. Is she engaged? She laughs. “Yes.” Pause. “No, but it’s time to try and do things differently.”
When you’ve been married four times, and count three pop stars (Big Audio Dynamite’s Dan Donovan, Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr, Oasis’s Liam Gallagher) and a superstar DJ (Jeremy Healy) as your exes, it probably is. Fifth time round she has wisely eschewed the pop gene pool: her fiancé is the property tycoon Patric Cassidy. “Relationships now are very different for me,” she says. “I like my space and I’m very set in my ways. I’ve also been on my own for a very long time, by choice, and got used to it. We’ll see.”
But let’s not define a woman by her marriages: it’s not the Georgian era, though if Jane Austen were alive, she would surely approve of Patsy’s eternally optimistic view of love. She would approve of her colourful life story too. Aged four she was cast as Mia Farrow’s daughter in The Great Gatsby (1974), alongside Robert Redford. At 16 she starred opposite David Bowie in Absolute Beginners (1986). Over the years she has also appeared in vehicles as various as Lethal Weapon 2, Angels & Insects, Holby City and EastEnders, as well as enjoying a brief stint as a pop star in Eighth Wonder, an early-Eighties band that she would be the first to admit didn’t quite live up to its grandiose name. “I much preferred the film business to the music business,” she says. “Maybe because I couldn’t sing, whereas I’ve acted since I was four. I’ve worked every year of my life.” She has just turned 56.
“I don’t have any communication at all with Liam, or [any of] my previous relationships,” she continues, without a trace of self-pity. “There’s not really anything to say. My boys are grown up, that’s all that matters.” Her boys — James, 30, and Lennon, 24 — are the real loves of her life, even if Lennon [from her marriage to Gallagher] woke her up at 5am this morning because he’d forgotten his key.
The two are currently living together in Mayfair. “It’s a really lateral apartment, and so nice to have that space.” She’s also Mrs Gadget: a consequence, she explains, of growing up in a chaotic household. “Lennon came to me last night, asking, ‘Mum, do we have a belt puncher?’ I said, ‘Yes, don’t worry!’ My favourite thing is a good hardware shop. It really gets me horny. It’s like sex to me, to go in and find all the things that we never had growing up. With my dad it was famine or feast. One week we’d eat out every night and the other week we’d have bubble and squeak. Light bulbs would go off and not get replaced for months. I’ve always said to myself that I’m never not going to have a glue gun, sticky back plastic or light bulbs.”
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Tempting as it is to talk all day about glues and gadgets, we’re here to talk about clothes, and Patsy’s most memorable looks. “I hate looking at pictures of myself,” she says as I whip out a selection from the archives. “This is the most traumatic thing I’ve had to do in my life, sitting here looking at these.” She really does seem nervous, apologising for her dry mouth. But what a life it has been. Patsy is terrific company, unfailingly polite and far too wise to spill the tea, even if you know there’s a catering-sized urn of it. “There are a few who have been unpleasant,” she says of her many celebrity encounters. “But that’s life. Love and shove. It’s been a ride. But there’s still a lot out there for me to experience. I’ll let the world do what it will.”
“I was 19, on stage in either Italy or France. We were really big there. I’m wearing a Jean Paul Gaultier top. I was influenced by Edie Sedgwick at the time, so I went to a shop in Covent Garden that sold ballet gear and bought some black dancer’s tights. We didn’t have opaque in those days — most tights would have been too sheer. These weren’t, so I’d wear them as trousers, with a boot. It’s a look I’ve done variations of over the years, although I’ve tried not to look too mutton.”
“Oh, that’s Azzedine [Alaïa]. I would go most Saturdays with my mum to the Joseph store on Sloane Street — they had the best selection of Azzedine. As soon as I made money I’d spend it on clothes, which caught up with me when the tax bill came. I’ve got three Azzedine dresses I bought when I was 18 that I still wear now. I like to buy less and buy well.”
“That’s one of the Azzedine dresses. I wore it to the Burberry show last summer. Lennon has just shot a second campaign for Burberry. He’s got off to a good start as a model, but he’s also in a band [Automotion]. His guitar is his passion, but he also loves clothes. He’s living with me at the moment — he moved back in about a year ago and it’s been heaven. But also hell, because his room is the most terrifyingly messy place to go. He’ll make pesto pasta and there will be the saucepan he’s eaten it out of somewhere in the wardrobe. My eldest son [James, from her marriage to Jim Kerr] is very like me — everything’s in its place. I think God sent me Lennon to break me, because it’s chaos with him. He gets all this stuff sent to him — bags from Chanel and Saint Laurent — and I want to try it all on, but he says, ‘Don’t touch the bags, Mum.’ And I say, ‘But you could wear it to the event and then give it back two days later so that I can wear it.’ And he says, ‘Absolutely not, I’d get into trouble!’ He’s very professional. I’ve always told him to be kind to people. He’s had this really wonderful start in the business and he’s very respectful of that. Both my boys have been brought up to say please and thank you. It means everything. He’s a sweet guy and I’m very proud of him.”
“This is Absolute Beginners, on set. I’m wearing a beautiful 1950s dress, which was pulled in from a vintage shop. While I was promoting the film that dress would always turn up at the shoots. I loved wearing it, but I got a bit sick of it towards the end. Bowie was just gorgeous. Heaven. I was 16 and I think he was 30 [he was actually 39]. He was so lovely to everybody and I was completely in awe. I was also deluded, imagining that he’d fall in love with me and we’d run off. And of course [when we met] I was in a line-up of people where he just shook my hand and then went along the line, and I was crushed. But then one day I was sitting in make-up and he popped his head in the door and said hi. He came over, picked up a brush and just started brushing my hair. He didn’t say anything — he just brushed it, then walked away. It was the most erotic experience of my life.”
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“I’m wearing a costume here. That was my nod to Madonna. I was clearly feeling myself there. I forget I had so much confidence back then. It’s not that I mind getting older — I’ve seen and done everything. But you never stop learning and growing. I actually met Madonna years later, at the Ivy. I was in a booth with Simon and Yasmin Le Bon. Madonna was in the next booth and she turned around and tapped Simon on the shoulder. They’d obviously met before. She told me she’d loved my movie Angels & Insects [1995], which was about incest, but that she’d guessed the plot. ‘I knew you were f***ing him from the beginning,’ she said. I thought that was a compliment, coming from Madonna. She’s tiny. Teeny-tiny wrists. And so pale. But gorgeous.”
“That was 1991 (left) and I was having a big moment in Hollywood. I was hot for five seconds. I loved that cover. I had great, healthy hair, but it got ruined over time. The second cover was shot in 1996 by Mario Testino (right). I didn’t like it when it came out but I do now. It was so different from anything I’d done before — the greasy black eye was cutting edge. I still have that razor blade necklace. It was something that my dad had given to my mum. My sons ask if they can wear it and I say, ‘Absolutely not.’”
“I did several shoots with Corinne [Day] in the Nineties, and they’re among my favourite images. Corinne used to model and her instincts were very on point. My mum was alive at that time and she came to that shoot. I had this hangnail and I was picking at it and biting it in between shots. My mum was sitting there and she said, ‘Patsy! Stop biting your nails!’ And Corinne said to her, ‘No, no, I really like it.’ So that’s how the shot came to be. I love it, it’s very cool, very timeless. You could wear that outfit today. The Nineties is like the Sixties — it’s referred to quite a lot. It was a great time. No phones, no social media — the things we got away with.”
“This was in 1997, at a Versace show in Milan with Meg Mathews and Elizabeth Hurley, who is Lennon’s godmother. We’ve been friends since making a shocking German film together in Malta when I was 19. Donatella has the best front rows and those shows were so exciting to go to. We had a great weekend. There was a dinner after the show and we were hanging out with all the supermodels. Hugh [Grant] is the funniest man — he and Elizabeth both have the best sense of humour. They were great together.”
“Those are Dolce & Gabbana trousers and a black Ralph Lauren cashmere rollneck. Did Liam and I ever twin? We did once wear matching Gucci duffel coats in Loch Lomond. And I wore a cagoule at Knebworth [Festival, where Oasis played in 1996]. Not his [Gallagher’s], it was mine. Lennon and his girlfriend, Izzy [Richmond], dress the same sometimes — she’ll wear Lennon’s suit jacket with her own trousers and boots. She looks great.”
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“I was honoured to be asked, although I had no idea of the gravitas or how many people would watch it. We all met up at Claridge’s to get ready. I wore a Prada dress and waved so frantically for hours that the sleeve ripped. I didn’t care. It was so much fun. I was a bit nervous because I hadn’t seen Naomi [Campbell] and Kate [Moss] for years, but we had a lovely little chat. I can’t tell you about it, but it was a really lovely moment, very healing in a lot of ways. I was a huge fan of the Queen. What a loss. I met her a few times. The first time we had a lovely chat, but the second time was just a grip and grin.”
