After spending time living and working abroad, Harris Tweed creative director Mark Hogarth relishes his space but likes to keep things simple

WHEN former model Mark Hogarth had fulfilled his jetsetting lifestyle quota by living in some of the world’s leading fashion capitals, including New York, Tokyo, Milan and Paris, he chose to put his roots down in Glasgow’s traditionally less-salubrious East End, and bought his first apartment – a two-bedroom, two-bathroom flat – in the heart of Dennistoun five years ago.

Explaining his choice, he says he prefers the rawness the East End offers. “I’ve always been interested in urban space, and Dennistoun as a traditional working-class area with a recent injection of students and young couples allowed for an interesting community. It also has great road connections and it is close to the city centre,” he says.

Mark would appear to have lived a charmed life, from his early days in Ardrossan, growing up on a 600-acre dairy farm, he went to the local school with the initial idea of becoming a geography teacher, before going on to study politics and geography at Strathclyde University.

However, he was spotted by a model who introduced him to her agency, which set the ball rolling and soon Mark was with a model agency in London, living the dream, housed in a flat with six other models, being flown to jobs around the world and working with top fashion photographers.

However, it wasn’t Mark’s driving ambition to be a cover star. He had always harboured a keen interest in politics and while still modelling in his mid 20s, a chance encounter with Labour MP Brian Wilson (a director at Harris Tweed) at a Vivienne Westwood fashion show in 2000, set the initial framework for a new career, first as a researcher for Wilson in the House of Commons, which in turn set in motion his recent appointment as creative director to one of Scotland’s finest traditional brands – Harris Tweed.

“I was fortunate to meet Brian Wilson at this time, and it was a real coincidence that I was actually modelling Harris Tweed when I did. I had no idea that ten years later I would be working alongside him on this very brand,” he says.

There can’t be many Ayrshire dairy farmer’s sons who can count modelling for Daks and Dunhill in Japan on one hand, and working at the Houses of Parliament as a political researcher on the other, to then becoming the ambassador and creative director to one of Scotland’s unique fashion labels.

In the time he has worked at the company he has implemented several dramatic changes, including liaising with TopMan to produce a more accessible, ready-to-wear range for younger customers, which has just been launched.

It is no surprise that Mark’s home is just as eclectic as his own background. He bought the flat when he had just returned from several years working on and off in the Far East.

“I had been living in a tiny flat in Japan for six months. It was only a few metres wide, with a rice paper partition in the middle. You really got to know what the people you shared with were like, in such a small space,” he laughs.

“There were many things I loved about living in Japan, but I could never get over the cramped space. Now one of the things I love most about my work with Harris Tweed is the location in Lewis, it is in such a stunning, remote place. I usually fly to Lewis from Edinburgh, but occasionally I drive up there, as I love the roads to the island,” he adds.

There are mementos of Mark’s life dotted around the flat, from the Japanese-style wooden sculptures lying across wooden blocks that he brought himself from the farm in Ardrossan in his father’s Land Rover and trailer, to the stones around the bathroom floor, picked up from the beach in Arran.

Throughout the flat, dark acacia wood flooring complements the cream-coloured walls. Several paintings are hung throughout, including work by a former girlfriend, Dr Paula Murphy.

Mark’s kitchen is an open-plan affair next to the sitting room, which houses two huge brown leather sofas from Habitat situated opposite a large plasma screen TV. In the corner, in front of the kitchen another wooden sculpture - (that he assembled from driftwood he found on the beach) is indented with large white candles. “I love the calm feeling of wood,” Mark says.

There are two wet rooms adjacent to the kitchen that add to the sense of the apartment resembling a mini boutique hotel.

“When I bought this flat off-plan several years ago, one of the things I envisaged liking most about it was the ease that I could get out and about. It does not need a lot of maintenance at all, it’s a very easy place to keep,” he says.

No doubt another plus point for someone who still holds a key to the jetsetterati. k