Life's funny.. sometimes you can be going about your daily business when something crops up completely out of the ordinary to suprise you.
Yesterday was one of those days, I had a meeting with one of my clients, a great lady who I am working with designing her new footwear range. Gina (my Lam of London logo and packaging guru) was with me and we had a great meeting brainstorming ideas and chatting about building this new and exciting brand. Before this meeting though I had the strangest call from a tv company asking me if I would be interested in doing a tv interview. If I had been busy working in my office then I most probably would have shyed away from the proposal but as I was already in Central London I thought 'why not!'
So an hour later and I am in a shoe shop with a tv camera in my face.. What do I say? Should I be opinionated and harsh? Should I be over complimentary? Instead I opted for diplomacy, I don't want to make any enemies but I didn't want to lie either.
It's difficult when faced with offering your opinion especially with the subject matter I was given. Made even more difficult when I work day in and day out with very talented people who have great new innovations for footwear or great brand concepts, working their socks off and sometimes putting their life savings into building their new footwear brands.
We have a real obsession with celebrity culture, it's good business and I too am guilty of avidly reading about the latest celebrity split or sensationalized story. I do think it's important to remember though (and be aware of exactly what/ who they are). Celebrities are made famous for either their singing, acting, socialising and therefore are not necessarily experts/talented in every genre they put their name to. Having worked for different companies over the years I've experienced first hand just what little input a celebrity puts into their named range and I just wanted people to understand this.
The idea of skill and training sometimes gets lost nowadays, it can all so often be about the quick buck wouldn't it be nice just for once to hear a celebrity say, ' I appreciate this is a skilled job so I let the experts do their thing and gave my styling direction' or ' I wanted to use this as a platform to promote British manufacturer and what we have to offer in terms of this so I made it in the UK'. ..maybe one day?
I'm sure the Cheryl Cole range will do well she's obviously got a good fashion eye and if it inspires one of her fans to pick up a pencil and get sketching and possibly train then it will not be in vain.
Just climbing off my soap box, vid attached......
