Tonight I was going to post a picture of me in my new Rabbie Burns T shirt from @bravescottishgifts, but then I heard the news that @viviennewestwood had died and so I decided to customise it in her honour. I think she would approve of this shredder. I first met Vivienne in the mid 90s at a party for a collaboration she had done with a carpet company. She made these amazing classical outfits out of carpet and my girlfriend at the time modeled them for the campaign. I was really star struck and in awe of her. We began chatting and I complimented her on the outfit she was wearing. ‘That’s the thing about being a designer’, she said in her deadpan Northern drawl. ‘You get to wear really nice clothes’. Years later I did a Jean Genet play, Elle, in New York City. It was about a photographer coming to take a picture of the Pope and discovering that they don’t bother to dress him up at the back as nobody sees him from behind so the script called for the Pope’s bum to be showing. He was also on roller skates and took a shit on stage but that’s by the by. We asked Vivienne to design the costumes. I went with the director to her house in London to woo her and she had roasted us a chicken. I was vegetarian but I felt I couldn’t upset her in any way so I forced some down. She said yes. And I survived the shock to my system! I was playing the Pope (natch) and she made me the most incredible papal ball gown with, yes, a big ass revealing gap at the back. The piece de resistance was a mitre with a giant sparkling P on it. We stayed friends. Once I ran into her at the London premiere of the X men film I was in and I was a little taken aback to see her there. When I asked if superhero mutants were her thing she replied no, but she had come to support me. I always loved wearing her clothes. Every outfit felt like a character’s costume. I wore a suit of hers to the Emmys once and I felt like Charlie Chaplin so I took an umbrella onto the red carpet to compete the look. She was a genius, hilarious, bonkers revolutionary and I feel sad she is gone but so lucky that I got to experience a bit of her magic up close.