Poppy Delevingne & Peter Dundas Talk Their New Collaboration & Wild Nights Out

Working in the fashion industry, friends often become your chosen family. Such was the case for Poppy Delevingne and Peter Dundas, who met backstage at one of Dundas’s fashion shows when he was designing for Emilio Pucci, and have been connected ever since. They’ve traveled the world together, hit endless red carpets, and even helped each other get married (Dundas designed Delevingne’s wedding gown in 2014).

Nearly a decade later, the two are still finding new ways to spend time together — both during and outside of business hours. For Dundas’s latest collection, D25, under his eponymous label, the designer tapped his longtime friend to star in the collection’s visual campaign, out now. Shot on the streets of London, the day saw Dundas, Delevingne, and Dundas’s co-founder and romantic partner Evangelo “EV” Bousis create a joyous celebration of the clothes, which were inspired by the idea of a “Boho Bourgeoise” London girl. Delevingne was a natural.

On the occasion of the campaign release, Delevingne, Dundas, and Bousis hopped on the phone from across the globe (Dundas and Bousis at their holiday home in Greece with their kids; Delevingne on day one of an annual wellness retreat in Spain). Here, the trio reminisce on when they first met, working together, and wild nights out.

The shoot is so fun. It makes me desperate to get to London again.

Poppy Delevingne: It did feel so London. It was so funny because the house that we shot in belonged to really old family friends of mine and great friends of EV and Peter's, too. And none of us had been to the house since it had been sold. I hadn't been back there for a long time since I was a sort of teenager, so it was quite mad revisiting it.

When I was a teen and I was best friends with the people who owned it, their son, it was just where we hung out all the time and it looked so totally different. So funny when you revisit those places that you've known so well. So it was a real trip down memory lane, like returning there and shooting with the boys. I'd had many a night with the boys there a million years ago. So it was quite fun to be back there. It's such an iconic house in London and it was just so fun to shoot it.

EV Bousis: I'm so sorry we're late.

Peter Dundas: We're late.

Delevingne: Hi boys. Don't be silly. Hello, hello. No, I was just rabbiting on about the house and how many memories we hold there and it was how mad it was to revisit it and to shoot in front of it. That we'd all hung out there many a time before and it was so magic.

Bousis: It was a real twist. I was waiting to see your reaction when you came there as well.

Where you guys right now?

Dundas: We're in Greece right now. We had a little bit of down time, so we joined our kids, which we had dropped off here at the end of last month. We have a little vacation house in the Cyclades Islands, which is a happy place to get away and do the opposite of what we usually do, I guess. Pick tomatoes and look at sunsets and things like that. Poppy, are you in London?

Delevingne: No, I'm at SHA in Alicante on a crazy health detox. I'm on day one and quite tempted to eat a part of my body because I'm so hungry. I get to Greece the first week of August. I'm going to come hunt you down and hunt down those babies, too. How are the babies? I miss them so much, those beautiful babies.

Peter, when did you first meet Poppy?

Dundas: Wasn’t it the first time you came to one of my shows when I was at Pucci? She came backstage and all of a sudden there was this gorgeous blonde English girl there that was so sweet and fun and bubbly and all that. And I guess for me it was a bit of love at first sight.

Delevingne: It was love at first sight for me, too. I fell totally in love with you. I wanted to start dating you. I was like, who is this punk Norwegian man?

Dundas: Oh my God, that's true. We've had that conversation.

Delevingne: I was like, “He's talented and handsome and I need to be his girlfriend.” And I quickly found out that was not going to be possible. I was heartbroken. And then I remember you took me out on a date to the Serpentine Party in London and I was wearing Pucci and that's where we really bonded.

Dundas: We've had so many different moments, both privately and connected with work as well. Poppy is the ultimate English Dundas girl. So it's always whenever I can, I always want to be with her. I have fun, but also when she wears the clothes, she makes me happy.

Delevingne: Oh yay. That makes me happy.

How has it been to be along for the ride as he moves from designing for major houses to starting his own brand?

Delevingne: Obviously I'm so, so supremely proud of him. I've followed his career forever, so even the first time that I met him, I was sort of starstruck. But moving on from that, I always wanted in my heart of hearts for him to do his own thing and do something that was just so him. His aesthetic is so bold and you always know when it's a Peter Dundas design. When the boys started Dundas, I've always been such a supporter of them. When I wear the dresses, I feel so empowered. I feel vibrant. I want to jump up on every table and dance till dawn. I feel sexy, I feel glamorous.

It's just so wonderful to see how the brand has evolved, and I'm always just so excited for every collection. I was so honored that they asked me. I remember once you asked me to do something a while ago and we couldn't make it work for some reason. I was waiting for that call up again. I was like, "When's it going to happen?" And so when it did, I think I responded in under 10 seconds being like, "Yes, when?"

Bousis: We were talking about the collection and Poppy texted me, I was like, "Oh my God, wait, Poppy, we've got to do it with you." And she was like, "Yes, let's do it!"

Dundas: We always like to shoot the collections with somebody that we feel embodies it. It's how we've done it from the beginning, from the very first launch, and several times Poppy has come up. This time the stars aligned, and when we found out that when we decided to shoot the collection in London, it happened just like that. I didn't realize you were texting with her.

Why was this the right collection for you to shoot in London and on Poppy?

Dundas: The London look, and the London girls through the ‘60s and ‘70s, have always been a huge inspiration for me. Jane Birkin sadly just passed away, but for me she's part of that as well. And all the girlfriends of the rock stars and all that, they've always been daring. It's this amazing look that was kind of in-between stage wear and just really cool street style.

With this collection, we had just moved our offices from London to the States. I hate moving; it always gets me a little bit melancholic. I think that I put more London into this collection than maybe I have in the last few. It just made sense to kind of find a location there that embodied the collection and a girl that would also be the girl of that collection and who better than Poppy?

Delevingne: After the shoot it was so hard taking the clothes off and having to give them back. I was like, "Wait, wait, wait. Guys, I'm off to Glastonbury." And they were like, no chance, you are not taking this collection to Glastonbury with you again. I was like, "Damn it." I mean, it's very hard to part with the looks.

Dundas: We've been to festivals together. I know what happens to clothes.

What were some of your favorite pieces to wear?

Delevingne: The very first look that we tried on was this beautifully tailored white coat; the amazing stylist wrapped the belt around my boobs and it had a skirt, and that was the first thing that I put on. I was like, "Oh my God, this is actually happening. I really do feel like a Dundas girl." I also really loved short leather shorts with a leopard print jacket, the boots, there's a crochet long black dress that I was completely in love with, and a really bright, vibrant yellow one with a sort of thigh split to the side. Oh, how about that white one, which I think is that very iconic Dundas shape with the cutout back? It's totally covered. And then you turn around and it just goes so low down and just that tiny little piece of thread and holding it all together in the back. I felt incredibly sexy.

How was wearing these incredibly sexy looks in the middle of the day on the streets of London?

Delevingne: It was kind of awkward because people we knew kept driving past and walking down the street and they were like, "What is going on?" And we were like, "We're doing a shoot." Or there'd be taxi drivers that would stick their heads out and wolf whistle, everyone in London is so nuts like that. We ended up knowing so many people, which was slightly awkward but kind of hilarious.

Bousis: The funniest story was when we got to our friend's house and Peter's like, "I want to shoot outside It's such a good location for a backdrop." We're like, "Is it okay for us to shoot there if we don't have permits or anything?" And he said, "Yeah, there's all these influencers that always come out to shoot." So one of our mutual friends was driving by and when she pulled over she said, "Oh my God, I was looking and thought, ‘Wow, this influencer really has a production!’ Then I'm like, ‘Oh my God, that's Poppy and Peter and EV.’”

Delevingne: She was like, "This is a serious production for an influencer shoot.” It was literally about 20 of us down in the street all day. It was genius.

Dundas: We all laughed so much that day. And at the end, Poppy is one of the only girls where we shoot 35 looks and is like, "Should we do more?"

Delevingne: It's like my heaven because it's dress up literally with my two favorite boys, running around the streets, being shot by Sebastian. This isn't work. This is just pure joy. So you could've had me there till midnight, I'm telling you. But I had a work event, and they had to get on a train. No rest for the wicked. We were all off in our separate directions. But if we do it again, we're going out after, I'm telling you now, and I'm going to have 17 outfit changes.

What’s your favorite night out that you’ve had together?

Delevingne: Oh my God. That’s too hard.

Dundas: I mean we've had fun times in Mustique together, in LA, New York, at Coachella, and I think every single gala.

Delevingne: The Met Gala! I mean we've covered basically every part of the globe. I think Natalie Massenet's 50th in Positano was pretty spectacular.

Dundas: Your wedding, as well.

Delevingne: Oh my wedding dress. That experience, Peter, with you, I have to say was something that I will never, ever forget and that dress will forever be my favorite dress in the world.

Dundas: It’s in a museum now.

Delevingne: I know. It's not even mine anymore. It's been taken away from me, which, but I’m so proud to have it in a museum, of course.

Dundas: It’s on loan.

Delevingne: One day I definitely want it back and I want to wear it out to something again. It was so beautiful. The top layer of it had these sort of billowing sleeves and then there was a huge kind of underskirt. I could just even not wear the underskirt bit and just wear the top. Even that would be magic.

There’s your next Glastonbury outfit.

Delevingne: Yes. Glastonbury next year, it'll be Wellies and my wedding dress.