Phoebe Dahl: 'I don’t feel the need to put any label on it. I don’t think there is a limit to love'

Eco-designer Phoebe Dahl is planning her wedding to OITNB’s Ruby Rose — and a fashion revolution. She talks to Susannah Butter about gender politics and dynasties
American fashion designer, former model and entrepreneur, Phoebe Dahl
Daniel Hambury

When Phoebe Dahl started going out with Ruby Rose they wore vials of each other’s blood around their necks. “We thought it was romantic —that Romeo and Juliet thing,” says fashion designer Dahl, granddaughter of author Roald. Her relaxed LA accent and zen-like ease makes it sound like this was the most natural thing to do when she fell for the actress, 29, who Orange is the New Black viewers know as tattooed Buddhist prisoner Stella Carlin.

Today, after two years, the vial has been replaced with an engagement ring although Dahl, 27, is borrowing her fiancee’s — a dark silver band with a black stone — while hers is resized.

She is drinking a milky tea at the Dean Street Townhouse, where she is “having fun hanging out” on holiday, dancing at Quo Vadis and seeing the London branch of the Dahl dynasty — including cousin Sophie and her husband Jamie Cullum. A newspaper printed a picture of Dahl and her younger sister Chloe, also engaged to a woman, at a family lunch with the caption “Jamie Cullum meets his lesbian relatives”. “It was strange that lesbian relatives was even highlighted. Hopefully one day it will just be Jamie Cullum and his relatives.”

Anyway, Dahl doesn’t define her sexuality: “I don’t feel the need to put any label on it. I don’t think there is a limit to love. I grew up in a family which believed that. At my school you could be who you wanted without judgment.”

Phoebe Dahl and fiance Ruby Rose
Don Arnold/WireImage

Rangy and healthy-looking, Dahl is wearing a loose-fitting black-and-grey striped T-shirt from her own line. “I’m a pretty great businesswoman,” she smiles. And a benevolent one — money from each item sold goes to girls in Nepal so they can buy school uniforms. She says “the clothes I make are not body contouring and they are gender neutral. I used a plus-sized model for my last lookbook. I think they are more beautiful. That’s a real woman.”

Dahl lent a hand with Rose’s music video, Break Free, which has been viewed 14 million times on YouTube. It’s about gender fluidity — Rose considered transitioning, saving up for an operation from the age of 12, but then realised she didn’t want to. How would Dahl feel if her fiancée changed her mind? “She can be whatever she wants. It’s great that more people are talking about gender. It’s a direction we need to move in — everyone should have equal rights.”

She doesn’t have direct experience of discrimination on grounds of sexuality or gender but says: “Being in the relationship I am in, I do see a bit of it; it is a struggle for people. It’s important for people to be who they want to be from the inside out. I hope one day we live in a world where that is possible. Don’t try to be someone you are not.”

Loyally, Dahl won’t give away any spoilers about the next series of OITNB. She met Rose before the show started “at a mutual friend’s pool party and it was love at first sight, which has never happened before so I remember it vividly. Ruby is the greatest”. She ended the relationship she was in that night and broke into Rose’s house with flowers. Rose brings out the romantic streak in her but it has always been there: “I’m from a family of story tellers.” They already live together, with two dogs — Ru and Chance — and a cat called Cricket.

“I got to go through Orange is the New Black with her,” Dahl says. “I don’t think she expected it was going to be what it is now but it’s great because it gave her and myself this platform to be able to support the charity work we are involved in — to educate people about women’s rights. We are supportive of each other’s careers, which is a great dynamic.” This extends to Dahl not worrying about Rose’s sex scenes. “It’s work — I’m not jealous at all.”

She founded Faircloth in 2012 after a trip to Japan and India. Faircloth is her father Michael’s surname. “In Japan I was inspired by an earthy style, linen layered on linen. India was my first time in a developing nation. I got to see real gender inequality. On the plane back, I came up with the idea to do Faircloth. I was working full-time [at a company called Women Weave] and doing it in the evenings. When I told my mum how tired I was she was like ‘Quit and start your own line’. I needed to hear someone say it to believe it so I woke up the next morning and resigned.”

Phoebe Dahl, pictured at Dean Street Townhouse
Daniel Hambury

Contrary to all advice to wait until the business was established before making it charitable, Dahl donated money to Nepal from the first dress she sold: “I ignored everything they said because the charity was an important part of the idea. It didn’t make sense to do one without the other.” The clothes are made in downtown LA but she would consider manufacturing overseas. “If something is made overseas people assume it’s made unethically but there are ethical factories in China and India — I would like to show it can be done.”

But is it bad that shops such as H&M only do one eco line? “It’s a start. But the gap between consumerism and where clothes are made is large.”

She would like fashion to undergo a change like “the food revolution”: “Ten years ago people didn’t know where their food was coming from, that McDonald’s was bad, that it was important to drink organic milk because of hormones. Now people are aware, so I hope the same evolution will happen in fashion.”

One of her favourite documentaries is True Cost. “With fast fashion the point is you feel like you can buy lots. It’s sad because we don’t need that much stuff and it’s thrown away, in landfills. It’s a better investment to buy a bit more expensive clothes because it isn’t harming the world, people aren’t dying making it and you can keep it forever.”

Dahl was born in Florida after her mother, Lucy, fell for a water skiing instructor there. They divorced when Phoebe was three and Lucy moved the family near Martha’s Vineyard to be close to her own mother, actress Patricia Neal. “I grew up surrounded by strong women,” says Dahl. “I am naturally a feminist. It irks me when I hear women say they’re not because it means you don’t believe in women. We’re pretty much a big group of girls in my family, with a few husbands here and there. They know who’s in charge.”

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Her grandfather was “a big part of my childhood”. “He passed away when I was one but his spirit and energy were so strong when he was alive that they were passed down. If I could have dinner with one person dead or alive it would be him. When my mother and her sister were younger they would hear a ladder against a window. It would scare them at first then they would see a blowtorch and a dark shadow on the wall. It was meant to be the BFG blowing them good dreams.” The Twits is her favourite of his books and she agrees with me that Mr Twit’s beard and Mrs Twit’s snarl make them “the original hipsters”.

She is positive about politics. “It is amazing to have a woman running to be president. Hillary Clinton is cool. It’s ridiculous how much support Donald Trump has. It’s entertaining to watch but I don’t think it will go further.”

The wedding’s been postponed because of Rose’s filming schedule but Dahl is happy planning. She wants it to be “a surprise for Ruby”. “I always wanted to get married. I want a family, and all sorts of animals, including goats. Marriage is a special thing to share with the person you love”.

Next year Dahl is off to Nepal. She hasn’t been since 2014 — she left two days before the earthquake. “It was very impactful for me,” she says. “My immediate reaction was I had to go back and help. My mum told me I could do more if I went home to raise money and awareness.” So she made a T-shirt. It is white, with the message “let’s root for each other and watch each other grow” — all proceeds go to earthquake relief. “I’m getting a group of people together to go help out — it’s all about woman power.”

Follow Susannah Butter on Twiter: @Susannahbutter

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