2022-03-31
34 分钟Hello and welcome to Outlook, the home of extraordinary personal stories.
I'm Anu Anand Osman Yousafzada grew up in Balsal Heath in Birmingham, England in the late 1970s, one of five siblings from a Pashtun family.
His parents had moved to the UK from Pakistan before he was born.
They were both illiterate, and while his father worked as a carpenter, Osmond spent much of his time watching his mother embroider and sew things to earn money, everything from bed coverings to wedding dresses.
He too loved the color, creativity and skill involved.
And by the time he was seven years old, he'd made his first dress.
Do you remember the first garment you ever made?
Yeah, it was for my sister's replica Barbie.
I made a green dress underneath and then I put a pink burqa on top of it and cut some holes in it and, yeah, it looked apart.
Actually from those humble beginnings.
Osman would eventually go on to dress Beyonce, Lady Gaga and other A list stars.
He's also well known as a designer, artist and now author with his book the Go between, about how his culture and background had a profound impact on his life and career.
Osman grew up in an affordable area of Birmingham where people from different cultures and religions lived.
Having come from all over the world, it was a vibrant part of town.
Reggae musician ali Campbell from UB40 lived down the street.
But Osman also grew up with criminals and sex workers operating openly near his house at home.
His parents had recreated the strict Islamic world they'd grown up in, with stringent restrictions on women, including his mother and sisters, and physical segregation by gender.
But as a boy, he had access to all these worlds.
It's a massive contrast.
You've got this ultra orthodox, quite conservative, the community that I've come from.