Covert Memories

I had intended for my next blog to be Day 3 in Lyon but I believe the creative process needs more ‘splainin’……Early in my career, someone told me to write it all down, I cannot remember who it was but my gratitude is eternal… so I listened and I wrote, I sketched, I doodled, and I recorded….just about everything. My career is made up of a long series of amazing journeys, journeys that have taken me to Paris, London, Milan, Hong Kong and Seoul more times than all fingers on both hands can display. Those trips bought and paid for by employers, mostly for the sole purpose of shopping and sketching. It’s what fashion designers do, we wander the streets of very expensive cities (cities we probably couldn’t afford to live in) looking for ideas and things to buy for inspiration, not to mention the newest restaurant. When I say “things”, I mean anything from articles of clothing and vintage linens, to WWII aviator goggles and pieces of dolls (don’t ask). Damn right, lucky me! At times I would be away for a week maybe two if I attached my personal trip to Amsterdam (again don’t ask). And the requirement, the sole expectation from the powers in charge was that I shop and record…I did it “old school” by jotting down as quickly as possible every beautiful, odd, interesting detail I saw. It required and still does a bit of espionage in order to avoid discovery…You walked into a well mapped out store and you discreetly perused, you made mental notes then you ran like your hair was on fire out of the store, away from the shopkeepers’ view and sketched everything you could remember, it sometimes took a few trips, and occasionally I was caught but it was well worth the embarrassment.

I admit to a bit of a reputation…the speed and depth of my work related shopping was/is legendary, often making me the subject of employer reprimands for going over budget or having my credit card cut off in mid purchase because I moved like a thief, fast and deliberate so they believed my card to be stolen, but they never broke me, I remained steadfast in my quest and I never “disappointed”. My favorite co-conspirator was my friend Edward, we would have “sketch offs” after leaving a shop, always comparing notes on who was able to sketch more and with accuracy! It is a privilege to have this as part of your job description and I even got to fly on the Concorde TWICE to do this, but it is also hard, focused work. You walk until you drop, until your feet bleed and you can’t carry one more shopping bag, and if you’re any good at it, you come home bursting with ideas and a suitcase bursting with God knows what! Because any designer worth their salt has that insatiable curiosity...the kind of curiosity that keeps you going to just one more boutique, one more flea market and one more store window….we can’t help ourselves. I write this all to say, I lament the invention of the cell phone/camera, it has made us all lazy, and the art of quick sketching and noting ideas by hand has all but died but I vow to keep it alive….and I will always cherish my vast collection of covert little sketch books.

#dream