When I consider how complex and how much time goes into some of our silk designs only to see the loom send them back scratchy and where one can hardly recognise what was the original inspiration, such as happened this week with a recent bird of paradise silk, I often and fondly recall an anecdote that was relayed to me by a banker who I walk with in the mornings.
The story goes that in a meeting where high level mathematics were often discussed in order to pursue strategies for derivatives trading, the managing director stood up to give his own talk about what he thought should be the M.O moving forward.
He drew three arrows, one going up, two going down. Under the first he wrote revenue, under the second he wrote costs, under the third he wrote complexity. And then all he did was enunciate exactly what he'd written. Bring me more revenue, lower the costs involved and decrease the complexity of any strategy you put forward.
My friend said that in all his time listening to presentations, the simplicity of this one hit home and of all the presentations he's ever heard, this one he knew off by heart.
When I arrived in Como I took a stool by the bench to start looking through existing designs that were coming through. One stood out, the one below. It was one of the least complex designs we'd run in five years, submitted by a Parisian woman I had been working with. She was very talented and I'd sent her down the rabbit hole chasing Parisian street art when really, she already had the gift of the gab.
Simplicity in design; that ability to pull yourself back and understand that the more you add, the more you over-power something, is a real gift. The Italians know how to do it, you can see that in their cooking. And really, its a great life skill, regardless of what discipline you apply it to.
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