Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1989,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is one of Britain's most successful fashion designers.

She started with a 500 pound loan 10 years ago and now she runs a company with a 10 million pound turnover.

She, it was they say, who invented power dressing, but she's even better

known for the crumpled look and baggy t-shirts with political slogans. It all adds up

to radical sheik, a phrase which suits perfectly, a woman who very successfully

mixes politics with fashion.

She is Catherine Hamlet.

Catherine, they've called you before now, the loony lefty of the fashion world do you do object to that

Yeah rubbish what are you then how would you define yourself well I'm a political

really I mean I don't have much faith in any politicians

as if I belong to any party it means a party of common sense but you care about

politics you care about what's happening around you very much I think when you have kids you do care.

I mean you can't help it because you see them to be so under threat from everything.

I mean I hardly dare open the newspapers these days.

Well I want to talk more about your politics and indeed your fashion in a minute but tell me first of all about the idea of being cast away on a desert island.

Do you fancy it?

Well yes and no. I mean I quite like a lot of time to myself, but sometimes you can be really desperate, desperate for company.

I don't know if I could survive, I'd have to have a lot of toys with me.

But you're quite a self-sufficient, lady, aren't you? I mean, you'd be able to take care of yourself.

...