Every morning I dress to entertain myself. You need to throw things on the floor to come up with exciting combos. My favourite item right now is a four-armed Flemish jumper. It’s turquoise mohair and potentially fatal near machinery or when dressing in a hurry; it’s the Brontes meet Antwerp.

My design showroom, Che Camille, is in the Chateau in Glasgow’s Gorbals, ten minutes’ walk from my flat. The Chateau will forever be known as the place where Franz Ferdinand started gigging, but there are still big things to come from there. We have DJs and bands, but we also have furniture designers, artists, fashion designers, writers and sculptors. It’s like an eccentric family. When I was offered a space I knew it was perfect. But it was hard work to make the space viable.

I want to lift the lid off slick-concept shops to show the work, people and process behind the scenes. I want customers interacting with designers. I want fashion, textile and furniture designers to build relationships that lead to amazing collaborations. I want contributors to produce new work through changing exhibitions.

On a typical day customers come in for fittings and fabric selections, submissions of design and art must be sifted through, and lots of time is spent planning our upcoming exhibitions and accompanying fashion show and e-magazine.

Most days I meet lots of people as several designers and fashion students use the showroom as a workshop. Kepa Rasmussen, a sculptor, has made a mannequin with three breasts and three buttocks. This will show skirts or dresses and will be a suitable companion for his first creation, which sports a sheep’s skull.

A designer called Rab is working on a jacket for a rock-star friend. Simon Harlow, a furniture and interior designer, is building a table for our next exhibition. We also have a resident band, Foxface, and many Chateau residents come down to refresh work displayed in the showroom.

I grew up in New York, with my father in the city and my mother upstate. Time with Dad in the city was an education. By age 10, I was asking questions and getting honest answers about what I saw in Eighties Greenwich Village – drag queens, the homeless, friends dying of Aids, NYC dating culture, Rabbis’ widows. I was taken to off-Broadway shows, Park Avenue parties, the hippest boutiques, art openings in Jersey City lofts. By age 13 I’d developed a taste for the art world and a huge crush on young Marc Jacobs.

My studies led me to Europe and a job running a dot-com in Belgium. The fashion scene in Antwerp had exploded and Brussels wasn’t far behind. I sought out fashion shows, boutiques and stock sales for up and coming talent. I took note of the organisations that existed to support and promote the Belgian design talent.

When I moved to Edinburgh in 2003, I got involved in The Forest Arts collective and learned to play again. I saw friends with art and music as the focal point of their lives and I wanted the same. Scotland lacked Europe’s boutiques full of personality and unique, hand-picked design. The market lacked an imaginative outlet to source local design. That’s when I had the idea to set up a showroom for the local design talent. My background in the arts, marketing and project management and my love of languages, travel and fashion: it all comes together in Che Camille.

I will die with a great sense of achievement knowing that I brought my idea for a showroom to life. But I can’t sit back and admire it for long because it will all be restyled in October for the next exhibition, Hibernation. We’re going to fill the place with beds.

In the next few months, I’d like to get into a groove to have time to produce my own work such as poetry collections and decadent Japanese dresses. Andy Warhol is one of my inspirations. He pursued ideas as far as he could and didn’t worry about failing in trying out new disciplines. He understood the power of environment, collaboration and spontaneity. His work was his life. I’d like to follow his lead.

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