Celebrity Style Magazine: L'Wren Scott: 'No clothes fitted

For the first four years of her relationship with Mick Jagger, L'Wren Scott stayed discreetly clear of the red carpet. Then, she says: "Mick was nominated for Best Song at the Golden Globes. I'd avoided pretty much every other possible outing, but this, this you kind of have to go to as the supporting other. And it was scary. I stood there, just for a moment - and then ran inside the door."

That night proved memorable for both Scott and Jagger. The Rolling Stone won his Golden Globe and, as he accepted it, jokily thanked his 6ft 3in girlfriend "for not wearing heels". And Scott had the eureka moment that led to her founding her eponymous fashion label one year later.

READ: L'Wren Scott to show at London Fashion Week

For that blink-and-you'd-miss-it red carpet flit, she had rustled up her own dress: "I'd made it the day before. I realised I'd been worrying about what everybody else had to wear, but that I'd forgotten about myself. I had a yard and half of beautiful black crêpe and I made a strapless little dress out of that."

As a stylist since 1994, and a stylist to the organisers of the Oscars since 2000, Scott had a fair grasp of the state of fashion: "It was a moment where everything was pouffy and frou-frou and ruffly and big, all weird proportions and flamenco ruffles. I couldn't find a classic black dress, something that showed off an hourglass figure, something sleek."

After wearing her home-made dress on the red carpet, Scott realised there were others who, like her, wanted to spurn grandiose gowns and opt for something simpler and slicker and easier "because you have to feel comfortable and confident. Otherwise it might be the worst night of your life."

Since 2006, she has built up a highly regarded fashion business. Her red-carpet dresses - often flattering sheaths that undulate reassuringly along with their wearer - are cherished by Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Christina Hendricks and Penélope Cruz. At the most recent Golden Globes ceremony three weeks ago, the comedian Tina Fey wore a strapless, Scott-designed, embroidered, black Chantilly lace ankle-skimmer that was positively vixenish.

The red carpet, however, is for fantasy clothes: even if, as Scott rightly observes in her muscle-relaxing, poured-syrup accent, "it's become now such a pandemic that they'll put a rope around the corner at a drugstore opening", the fact is very few women are regularly called upon to tread the scarlet shagpile in paparazzi-captivating evening wear. For real women - albeit real women of significant means - Scott produces collections that combine superior materials (she is a textiles freak), immaculate construction and that same pragmatic sleekness. Her seasonally recurring pencil skirts are a particular success. As she says: "We're a small company that works to make beautiful things." They're grown-up clothes, and sexy too. Now, after several seasons of showing them in New York and more recently Paris, Scott will make her debut on the London Fashion Week schedule later this month. She says: "I have a lunch presentation for about 100 people, so they can see every little stitch and detail. I went to so many catwalks shows in my career where I never got to see the clothes, and the whole point for me is making beautiful things and allowing people to see them in detail. I want my clothes to be as close to the audience as you and I are right now - except" - she grimaces - "with better lighting."

READ: L'Wren Scott to design Angelina Jolie's wedding dress?

L'Wren Scott's spring/summer 2013 'Yorkshire Pudding' collection

Scott is being self-deprecating: she'd look great even in the strip-light glare of a Texaco forecourt. And I suspect, too, that she played up those Golden Globes nerves a little. For she is well used to scrutiny. Born in 1967, and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, she has always stood out. "I was adopted, and I was tall: 6ft by the time I was 12. My mother was petite, 5ft 1in, and my father wasn't particularly tall either. But they reverse-psychologised me: my mother would say: 'So, you're already tall. Why not be taller! Why shouldn't you get those heels!' ." So I felt proud of it - even though I could never find anything to fit me, which is why I started making my own clothes in the first place." Her schoolmates, too, sound supportive: "Weirdly, my nickname was Lady. I didn't get Stretch, or Stilts, or Spider Legs - I got Lady. I guess I was always a bit ladylike. Plus, at that age, I looked it: they always wanted to charge me more at the movies and I'd get upset because I wasn't 12 yet."

When she was teenaged, and at her full height, the photographer Bruce Weber spotted her while she was skiing. He shot her for a Calvin Klein campaign, paid her $1,500, "and that was the money I bought my one-way ticket to Paris with". She modelled in Paris for eight years - too tall for catwalk, she specialised in editorial work - but found herself increasingly drawn to making clothes rather than wearing them. "I was a little obsessed with Thierry Mugler, obsessed with the cut of his garments. I used to ask: 'Can I stay and be the fit model?' I just wanted to be in the workroom, to be part of the process." Back in Utah, Scott had earned money teaching gymnastics - a skill that helped during one of her most famous modelling assignments: her legs were the hands in David Bailey's famous Pretty Polly clock campaign. "It's a good thing I'm really flexible. He wanted to see what time I could stretch to. I remember I wore this big hat that Stephen Jones had made. Everyone was asking: 'Are you OK?' and I was: 'Oh, this is nothing!'."

READ: L'Wren Scott: 'I've never met a woman who thinks she's got a good enough figure'

Scott moved to Los Angeles in the 1990s, and then - with Jagger - to London and Paris. That Golden Globes mention aside, she does not discuss him. While discreet, she is neither prickly nor uptight about it - as many people in the so-called A-list sphere tend, so tediously, to be. She's particularly amusing about being misquoted - "I don't dress for men" was a recent line she scoffs at - and brims with suggestions for The Daily Telegraph's fashion website (she's a an avid reader): her most mischievous is a picture gallery of famous girls in gowns wondering which are bought, and which are freebies (Scott doesn't do freebies). She boldly claims to make "a very good" Yorkshire pudding - this comes up because her spring summer 2013 collection is named Yorkshire Pudding - to Mrs Beeton's original recipe. She laments: "Most Americans don't even know what that is, they think it's a hard-to-make, fluffy, pancakey thing you eat with your roast beef and gravy. But with Mrs Beeton, how can you go wrong?"

Sadly, there is as yet no recipe book to guarantee designers perfectly cooked-up clothes. So, says Scott: "You just have to go with your gut. And my philosophy is that it should be something that will stand the test of time - not to take a throwaway 'that's so last season' kind of approach." Which seems well done to me.

L'Wren with Mick Jagger Photo: Getty