This is, I guess, the most important time for designers. The collections have been presented firstly to press and latterly to the people who lay down money so that our brands can continue towards fulfilling a potential.
Anyway, my mind is always a bit random at this time but I just wanted to express my gratitude to Debra Hepburn and Julian Whitehead at Young British Designers. Debra, especially has been a big advocate of what I have been trying to do and the support she gives me as above and beyond what I thought was possible.
On the face of it an emerging designer/retailer relationship should be quite straightforward. The designer develops designs which they hope that the retailer can sell. The retailer, promotes the designer thinking broadly and laterally. The fashion conscious public buy from the retailer having been sold on the idea of the designers work and all is well. All pieces in this relationship behave with care, understanding and courtesy as they all believe they are in it together. I guess the word for this is symbiosis?
Anyway, having just presented my fifth collection, I can say with all honesty that the only retailer I have had dealings with that have achieved symbiosis is Young British Designers. In a world that is getting tougher by each passing budget you would have thought that co-operation would be adopted as the only strategy.
The long and short of it is that there seems to be a few sites cropping up promoting emerging designers but for me I believe that is actually not going to be good for us as designers. The market is better focused than diluted. Strength allows influence and a valid voice. It is for this and the reasons above that I will always be loyal to YBD and will always be no matter what the future brings.
I just needed to get that out there. Thanks for reading....
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