Medea and the Consequences of Love: Should a Company Consider the Victims of Its Success?

Sophie Okonedo. Photograph: Jane McLeish Kelsey

I recently attended a fine production of Euripides’ ‘Medea’, a Greek tragedy first produced in Athens in 431 BC. (@sohoplace, London until 20 April)

‘I want him crushed, boneless, crawling – I have no choice.’

‘Medea’ is a muscular play that grapples with big themes: betrayal and retribution; xenophopia and feminism; how victims turn to vengeance. It presents us with the dark aspects of heroism and the consequences of love. And in so doing it poses questions about our own attitudes to success.

‘I have done it: because I loathed you more than I loved them.’

Medea ( terrifically played by Sophie Okonedo), a princess of Colchis (in modern-day Georgia) and descended from the gods, has fallen for Greek hero Jason, and used her magic powers to help him steel the Golden Fleece. Now married to Jason and settled with their two sons in Corinth, she discovers that he plans to wed the King’s daughter in order to secure his position there.

‘Her sun is rising, mine going down - I hope
To a red sunset.’

The King, anticipating that Medea will cause trouble, has decreed that she and her children should be exiled. She is overcome with rage, a sense of injustice and a passionate desire for vengeance.

‘Poor misused hand; poor defiled arm; your bones
Are not unshapely. If I could tear off the flesh and be bones; naked bones;
Salt-scoured bones on the shore
At home in Colchis.’

Jason confronts Medea and argues that she only sees one side of the story.

‘I see, Medea
You have been a very careful merchant of benefits. You forget none. You keep a strict reckoning.’

Rather arrogantly, he suggests she is lucky to have been taken from a ‘barbarian’ land to civilised Greece.

‘I carried you
Out of the dirt and superstition of Asiatic Colchis into the rational
Sunlight of Greece, and the marble music of the Greek temples: is that no benefit?’

Jason concludes that Medea has brought all this on herself. She, incandescent with anger, plots her revenge.

‘I’d still be joyful
To know that every bone of your life is broken: you are left helpless, friendless, mateless, childless,
Avoided by gods and men, unclean with awful excess of grief – childless.’

I was quite taken with the way that this play presents the collateral damage that comes in the wake of achievement.  

When I was a child, like many people, I first encountered Jason in the 1963 movie epic ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ (featuring the extraordinary stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen). This cinematic Jason is brave, ingenious, romantic. He is a luminous hero.

Euripides gives us Jason’s sinister side. He comes across as disloyal and egotistical; bigoted and sexist.

‘A man dares things, you know; he makes his adventure
In the cold eye of death; and if the gods care for him
They appoint an instrument to save him; if not he dies.
You were that instrument.’

The play asks us to consider the victims of Jason’s heroic journey. He has been on a quest for glory and power. But he leaves behind him a trail of death and destruction; of broken hearts and lives.

‘Not justice; vengeance.
You have suffered evil, you wish to inflict evil.’

For Euripides heroism comes at a cost; success creates victims and victims demand vengeance. There’s a price to pay for love.

‘A great love is a fire
That burns the beams of the roof.
The doorposts are flaming and the house falls.
A great love is a lion in the cattle-pen,
The herd goes mad, the heifers run bawling
And the claws are in their flanks.
Too much love is an armed robber in the treasury.
He has killed the guards and he walks in blood.’

This may seem strange, but as I sat in the theatre, I found myself wondering about the world of work.

In commerce we like to celebrate success. We tell tales of battles fought and victories won. We make heroes of our top performers. But how often do we stop to consider the colleagues who don’t quite attain the highest levels; the collateral damage of our leaders’ high standards and impossible demands; the victims of success?

A progressive, modern business should be mindful of the failings of its triumphant talent; should strive to ensure that no one is left behind in the advance; should keep an eye on maintaining a coherent culture, even when everything’s going well and to plan. Because a unified culture can sustain you through the tough times that will inevitably follow.

‘It is dangerous to dream of wine; it is worse
To speak of wailing or blood:
For the images that the mind makes
Have a way out, they work into life.’

As a society we imagine that we have only attended to the issues relating to mental health in the last century, and only taken them seriously in the last decade. And yet in the 5th century BC, Euripedes was well aware of the psychological pressure Medea is under as she builds ‘that terrible acropolis of deadly thoughts.’

Indeed the Chorus recommends that some respite be attained by getting out more, by sharing problems – by embracing a ‘talking cure.’

‘We Greeks believe that solitude is very dangerous, great passions grow into monsters
In the dark of the mind; but if you share them with loving friends they remain human, they can be endured.’

This is sound advice, and perhaps the first step to avoiding seething jealousies in the workplace. We may also heed Euripides’ encouragement to nip prospective problems in the bud.

‘To annihilate the past -
Is not possible: but its fruit in the present -
Can be nipped off.’

I left this production of ‘Medea’ inspired by the compelling performances and timeless themes; by the relevant issues and rich language (an excellent translation by Robinson Jeffers from the 1940s). And I left relieved not to have been born into the aristocracy.

‘Oh it’s a bad thing
To be born of high race, and brought up wilful and powerful in a great house, unruled.
And ruling many: for then if misfortune comes it is unendurable, it drives you mad. I say that poor people
Are happier: the little commoners and humble people, the poor in spirit: they can lie low
Under the wind and live: while the tall oaks and cloud-raking mountain pines go mad in the storm,
Writhe, groan and crash.’

'Now you say you're lonely,
You cry the long night through.
Well, you can cry me a river,
Cry me a river.
I cried a river over you.
Now you say you're sorry
For being so untrue.
Well, you can cry me a river,
Cry me a river.
I cried a river over you.
You drove me, nearly drove me
Out of my head,
While you never shed a tear.
Remember, I remember
All that you said.
Told me love was too plebeian.
Told me you were through with me,
And now you say you love me.
Well, just to prove you do
Come on and cry me a river,
Cry me a river,
I cried a river over you.’

Julie London,’Cry Me a River' (A Hamilton)

No. 411

Two Singalongs, Two Sentiments: Some People Lack Confidence, Others Lack Contrition

Jan van Eyck - The Ghent Altarpiece - Singing Angels (detail)

I attended a couple of gigs recently. 

The first featured a progressive young jazz act. Abstract melodies, elusive rhythms and virtuoso playing. Very impressive all round.

As the concert drew to a close, the bandleader addressed the audience from behind his keyboards.

‘I’d just like to thank you all for joining us on our journey this evening. I know we’ve been through some hard times together.’

He paused and played a couple of chords in a minor key.

‘These last few years have been tough. And we owe it to ourselves to engage in a little self-care.‘

This thought met with nodding approval from the people sitting near me.

‘So for this final number I want everyone to put their hands in the air and sing along with us: ‘I love myself.’’

The audience duly complied and the whole hall swayed to the euphoric conclusion to the set.

‘I love myself! I love myself! I love myself!’

I confess I didn’t join in. I’m old and not inclined to participation.

I turned to my companion:

‘When I was growing up, this would have been considered a sin.’

The second gig featured Lee Fields, a veteran R&B singer. Born in North Carolina in 1950, Fields is one of the last soul survivors, a representative of an era of soaring vocals, sweet harmonies and deeply felt emotions. A diminutive figure with a sparkly blue jacket and a winning smile, he channelled Stax and gospel; James Brown, Percy Sledge and Bobby Womack. He begged and beseeched, sobbed and swooned, and occasionally performed a dramatic spin on the spot.

Lee Fields

Fields’ exercise in audience participation came with his song ‘What Did I Do?’  - a sorrowful confession of a man’s responsibility for the demise of a relationship.

'I took all the love that you gave to me,
Then I took all my things and set you free.
What did I do?
Baby, baby, baby, what did I do?
You were all the world to me,
But I didn't give you nothing but misery.
What did I do?’
Lee Fields, ‘What Did I Do?'

At Fields’ invitation, the crowd joined him in a mournful repetition of the key refrain. He had the whole of Koko’s Camden swaying in unison with arms held aloft.

‘What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?’ 

Raised as a Catholic, I’ve always been comfortable with doubt, guilt and regret. And so I too joined in.

‘What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?’ 

Afterwards I was quite struck by the difference in sentiment between the singalongs at these two gigs: one was an exhortation to self-confidence; the other an act of contrition.

Both sentiments are relevant in life and work. Some occasions and some people need support, encouragement and reassurance. Other times and individuals require humility, introspection and self-examination.

One of the challenges for a leader is to distinguish between these two modes and to apply them appropriately.

You’ll find colleagues with low self-worth who constantly need to be boosted and buoyed up. But you’ll also encounter colleagues who are too conscious of their own talent and too disrespectful of the contribution of others. They need to be taken down a peg or two; to be exposed to a little proportion and perspective.

This requires some skill. Get it wrong and you’ll destroy the confidence of the humble, whilst enhancing the self-esteem of the arrogant.

 
'I may not be the richest man,
But I'm gonna give you everything I can.
I always try to do my best.
When I fall short, I let love do the rest.
It rains love when I'm with you.
It rains love when I'm with you.
You're my sun when the clouds roll through.
It rains love when I'm with you.’

Lee Fields, ‘It Rains Love’

No. 410

Female Abstract Artists: If You Want To Change the Product, Change the Process – And If You Want To Change the Story, Change the Narrator

Helen Frankenthaler, April Mood, 1974 © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: courtesy ASOM Collection

I recently attended an excellent exhibition of the work of women abstract painters from the 1940s to the early 1970s. (‘Action, Gesture, Paint’ is at the Whitechapel Gallery, London until 7 May.)

On entering the gallery, you’re greeted by Helen Frankenthaler’s ‘April Mood’, a joyous choreography of colour: royal and pale blue, purple and radiant pink, set against a base of sandstone and tangerine.

‘A really good picture looks as if it’s happened at once. It’s an immediate image.’
Helen Frankenthaler

There follows a selection of work by some 80 artists from all over the world. Big, bold, vibrant canvases. Audacious expressions of raw experience: joy, awe, anger and despair. Emotional responses to a world in crisis and to the beauties of nature.

'I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me - and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed.’
Joan Mitchell

These artists were liberated from the constraints of tradition and convention. As Ida Barbarigo declared, they wanted to ‘unlearn painting,’ to forget academic teaching.

I was particularly struck by the inventiveness of their working methods.

Some layered the paint on thick. Some scraped it and scratched it. Others spattered, splashed and sprayed; and liberally added dribbles and stains. Their gestures were occasionally spontaneous and occasionally controlled. Some mixed their paint with other materials: sand, sawdust, cigarette ash and cement; lacquer, chalk and carpenter’s glue. 

Work, 1958-62, by Yuki Katsura. Image: Courtesy Alice and Tom Tisch, New York © Estate of Yuki Katsura

‘My paintings are collaged bits of time from my past and present experiences.’
Wook-kyung Choi

Frankenthaler achieved her fluid, organic effects by thinning her paint and applying it to unprimed canvas. Gillian Ayres worked at speed, pouring paint straight from the can, or squirting it directly from the tube. Lee Krasner integrated into her work cut-up fragments of newspapers, burlap and discarded drawings. Yuki Katsura placed wet washi paper on painted canvas and then overpainted it. Franciszka Themerson tilted her paper so that the enamel flowed in loose, curving calligraphic forms. Janet Sobel trickled pigment from a pipette (well before Jackson Pollock adopted his celebrated ‘drip technique’). 

The exhibition repeatedly confirms a truth that pertains to any creative endeavour: if you want to change the product, change the process.

‘To me, art - colour in art – is wonderfully indulging… I don’t see why you shouldn’t be filling yourself up, making yourself happy. Enjoying yourself. Feasting on beauty. I want an art that’s going to make me feel heady, in a high flown way. I love the idea of that.’
Gillian Ayres 

Lee Krasner, Bald Eagle, 1955 (Credit: The Pollock-Krasner Foundation)

One wanders through the exhibition with a faint sense of recognition. Many of these ideas, themes and approaches are familiar to us. But, with a few exceptions, the works and the artists are not.  

The story of Abstract Expressionism, the art movement that emerged in New York in the late 1940s is classically written around titanic male figures like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. 

There were women artists on the scene, but it was a notoriously machismo culture. Corinne West painted under the name Michael West so as to disguise her gender. Elaine de Kooning signed her work with her initials to evade comparisons with her husband. Grace Hartigan became George and Lena Krasner became Lee.

'It’s quite clear I didn’t fit in. With relation to the group, if you are going to call them a group, there was not room for a woman.'
Lee Krasner 

Elaine de Kooning The Bull 1959 (1) - Whitechapel Gallery

Over time the women abstract artists were marginalised or written out of the movement’s history. Recent retrospectives have included few females.

The Whitechapel exhibition endeavours to right this wrong. Regarding the past through a different lens, it changes our perception of something we thought we knew. And in so doing it has quite an uncanny effect. It is at once both familiar and fresh. 

The show demonstrates that if you want to change the story, you should consider changing the narrator.

'… Sitting at this party,
Wondering if anyone knows me,
Really sees who I am.
Oh, it's been so long since I felt really known.
… Living in the wake of overwhelming changes,
We've all become strangers
Even to ourselves.
We just can't help,
We can't see from far away,
To know that every wave might not be the same,
But it's all apart of one big thing.
… Oh, it's not just me, it's not just me,
It's not just me,
It's everybody.’ 

Weyes Blood, 'It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody’ (N Mering)

No. 409

‘Kingdom of Dreams’: Learning from Luxury

‘The kingdom of dreams is this realm focused on creating fantasy, which was transformed into a global industry run by tycoons, who saw the value of these dreams and turned that into beautiful profits.’
Dana Thomas, fashion journalist and author of ‘Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre’

I recently watched a splendid documentary series about the luxury fashion business.

‘Kingdom of Dreams’ ( written by Peter Ettedgui with Nick Green) recounts the rise of Bernard Arnault and his LVMH group, comprising elite labels like Dior, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy; his employment of maverick talent - John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs - to head up those labels; and his rivalry with Francois Pinault’s Gucci group, Domenico de Sole and Tom Ford.

‘Who is not amused by fashion? And even businessmen must amuse themselves from time to time.’
Bernard Arnault

It’s a story of bold vision and fierce ambition; of financial feuds and creative competition; of phenomenal commercial and artistic success, and the collateral damage that came in its wake. There are lessons to be learned by anyone working in an ideas business.

‘These brands have extraordinary evocative power, which allows the whole world to dream.’
Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault - Chairman and Chief Executive, LVMH

1. Acquire, Consolidate and Grow

Bernard Arnault, born in Roubaix in 1949, had a bourgeois upbringing in provincial France. After graduating from university, he joined his father’s civil engineering company, rising to president in 1978. In 1984 he acquired Boussac Saint-Frères, a once prosperous textile and retail conglomerate that had fallen on hard times, but whose assets included legendary luxury brand Christian Dior. He stripped the business of its loss making companies and made 9,000 workers redundant, thereby acquiring his nickname, ‘The Terminator’.

‘To be successful you need to dream. You do not need to be a dreamer, but you need to dream. And when you dream you can do things that are impossible.’
Bernard Arnault

In the 1980s the French fashion houses were in disarray. Though their products retained exceptional craftsmanship, couture had a narrow appeal to a predominantly European and American elite, and the brands had grown sleepy and stale. Arnault had a vision of reviving the sector, giving it more dynamic leadership and a broader, global target market.

‘We try to build a large business with one criteria: the best quality and the most elitist product in every level, that we are selling throughout the world.’
Bernard Arnault

In 1987 Arnault followed up his acquisition of Dior by engineering the merger of Louis Vuitton with Moët Hennessy. He was on a mission to acquire, consolidate and grow.

‘My vision of the future is that in 10 years time from now there will be fewer and fewer brands and that they will give even more power to the brands on the market at that time.’
Bernard Arnault

2. Awaken Slumbering Brands with Creative Talent

Though Arnault was tough and financially astute, he was well aware that the fashion business was founded on, and fuelled by, creativity.

In 1994 John Galliano presented his ‘jet-black’ collection for his own label. Staged on a shoestring budget, models Kate Moss, Helena Christensen, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista waived their regular fees to participate. In a dramatic show the Paris mansion of Portuguese socialite Sao Schlumberger was littered with dried leaves, red rose petals and discarded chandeliers. It became a legendary fashion moment.

‘I dare people to dream.’
John Galliano

John Galliano, Photograph: Jacques Brinon/AP

A year later Arnault appointed the young British-Gibraltarian as creative director of Givenchy.

Galliano set about researching Hubert de Givenchy’s work for Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, and presented his first couture show for the house in 1996. He was a sensation from the start, reintroducing romance and theatre to the label. Arnault was so impressed that, later that same year, he transferred Galliano to Dior.

‘I think the key of success in a brand as famous as Dior… is to have such a level of creativity and inventiveness.’
Bernard Arnault

This left a vacancy at Givenchy, which Arnault promptly filled with another Brit, Alexander McQueen – a daring and provocative designer, renowned for his exquisite tailoring and historical themes.

‘I don’t beat around the bush when I do a show. I go straight for the jugular.’
Alexander McQueen

McQueen with Model © Salons Galahad Ltd

Then in 1997 Arnault chose American Marc Jacobs to lead Louis Vuitton. Jacobs promised to bring street style and musical inspiration to the world of high fashion.

‘I wanted to create a collection that was basically visual noise.’
Marc Jacobs

And so, in short order, a new cohort of gifted creative directors had been installed across the three major houses at LVMH.

‘I believe we have found the right designers for each brand.’
Bernard Arnault

3. Find Eyes and Ears

In making the critical initial selection of Galliano, Arnault had sought a fashion insider’s perspective, turning to Editor of American Vogue, Anna Wintour.

‘Obviously at the time it was a risk. But I was comforted by Anna about what [Galliano] could do, and finally I took the risk. She’s an eye. To have an eye is key.’
Bernard Arnault

As Arnault built his stable of luxury brands, Wintour continued to provide priceless expertise and insight.

‘I don’t think of myself as a boss. I think of myself as someone who’s giving direction, guidance. I try to be decisive even if I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.’
Anna Wintour

4. Make Noise

Arnault’s young creative directors were not all successful from the outset. McQueen’s first efforts for Givenchy were regarded as missteps. And in his first ready-to-wear collection for Louis Vuitton, Jacobs failed to present any bags.

‘I was a little bit – how shall I put it? – astonished, because there wasn’t a single bag in the first show.’
Bernard Arnault

But Arnault stuck with his choices. And to some extent what the designers were contributing was more precious than any particular collection. They introduced youth, energy and excitement.

 ‘It didn’t matter. That’s the whole point of it. It still made people talk. It was about making noise.’
Dana Thomas

Shalom Harlow being spray-painted by robots in the Alexander McQueen spring 1999 show

5. Encourage Constructive Rivalry

It could not have been easy housing so much creative talent under one corporate roof. But Arnault was happy to nurture a certain amount of constructive rivalry.

‘John’s more fluid and romantic. He has a great vision for romanticising his ideal woman. I think I really care about a woman’s independence. I don’t like her to look so naïve and so fragile. I like her to look stronger.’
Alexander McQueen

6. Have a Winning Instinct

In building the LVMH empire, Arnault attracted his critics. Many were concerned by his import of American-style corporate aggression to Europe; by his hostile takeovers and the swift removal of the luxury houses’ elderly family members.

‘I think he wants to be a wolf because he needs people to be afraid of him.’
Mimma Viglezio, Gucci

Certainly Arnault displayed a competitive streak, an absolute conviction that he must win at all times and at all costs.

‘Material things have never motivated me. What drives me is to make my company win. Making it the top company in the world, that’s what drives me above all.’
Bernard Arnault

7. Seize the Lucky Moments

Meanwhile in Milan the house of Gucci was beset by dysfunction: lawsuits, tax evasion and family feuds. In 1995 Maurizio Gucci was shot dead in the lobby of Gucci's Milan office.

Harvard educated Domenico de Sole had been legal adviser to the Gucci family since the 1980s and CEO since 1994. Facing corporate bankruptcy, he couldn’t afford a big name designer, and so promoted from within, appointing the relatively unknown head of knitwear, Tom Ford, as creative director.

‘In life being lucky is much better than being smart. Because as much as I thought Tom was terrific, I never imagined that he’d turn out to be a genius.’
Domenico de Sole

Elegant Texan Ford had not risen to the top by the conventional route. He graduated in architecture and his fashion career began as a PR at Chloé. After a couple of years designing for Perry Ellis, he decided to try his luck in Europe, taking a role at the struggling Gucci.

‘You have to be ready for those lucky moments to cross your path and you have to seize them.’
Tom Ford

Ford's Fall 1995 ready-to-wear collection for Gucci, with its metallic patent boots and velvet hipsters, unbuttoned satin shirts and sensuous ‘70s glamour, was a huge hit and earned the immediate endorsement of celebrities like Madonna.

‘The right thing at the right time is the right thing. The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. So it’s got to be the thing that people want before they know they want it.’
Tom Ford

8. Find a Partner You Can Trust

‘You design, I run the company. It will be OK. At least we will give it a try.’
Domenico de Sole

The successful revival at Gucci was very much down to a happy partnership between commercial and creative expertise. Ford and de Sole understood that each had a different but crucial role. They respected each other.

‘He completely trusts me on the design side. Domenico I completely trust on the business side. And so in a sense we can work independently and together, which I think really makes us almost twice as strong as a lot of our competitors.’
Tom Ford 

Tom Ford and Domenico de Sole. Getty Images

9. Keep an Eye on Adjacent Opportunities

Another factor in Gucci’s success at this time was Ford’s decision to send every model down the runway carrying a Gucci bag. Handbags commanded high margins and became a booming business in their own right.

At a 1996 event in New York to mark Dior’s 50th anniversary, Galliano was commissioned to design a gown for Princess Diana. The midnight blue satin and lace sheath dress was not considered a success. Some wags dubbed it a ‘nightie.’ But the mini blue satin bag she carried was subsequently sold the world over.

Marc Jacobs had been struggling at Louis Vuitton. But in 2001 he partnered with graffiti artist Stephen Sprouse to reinvent the branding that appeared all over its luggage – a bold move that was wildly popular, and in one leap revitalised the label.

‘He gave it a youth, a modernity and a wonderful sense of fashion. And now everybody wants the luggage again. And they want the clothes.’
Anna Wintour

Clearly success in the luxury fashion business was about more than couture. One had to take a holistic view and keep an eye on adjacent opportunities.

10. Fight for Your Independence

In the wake of its revival, Gucci became one of the first European luxury houses to go public on the stock market. But this left it vulnerable to takeover. In particular it became a target for Arnault, who had been impressed by the brand’s renaissance and wanted Ford at LVMH.

‘I think Mr Ford is amazing. There’s no reason at all for him to be nervous… If you see him please do let him know.’
Bernard Arnault

Ford and de Santo were concerned about the prospect of Arnault’s assertive ownership and wanted to retain autonomy. They stalled by issuing shares to employees, and found themselves in a prolonged and very public court battle with Arnault as a result. At length they sought a ‘white knight’, a ‘friendly’ investor to save Gucci from a hostile takeover.

They found Francois Pinault - a tycoon who had built his fortune in distribution and then retail. Unable easily to internationalise his retail business, he saw in luxury goods an opportunity to go global.

‘There’s no greater risk than believing you’ve succeeded. It’s dangerous to rest on your laurels. You have to seek out new adventures, new businesses.’
Francois Pinault

Pinault was the opposite of Arnault in upbringing and style. Whereas Arnault had a bourgeois background, Pinault came from a modest rural French family, leaving school at 16 to work in his father’s lumber company. Whereas Arnault planned ahead and acted by stealth, Pinault tended to be instinctive and decisive.

‘I make quick judgements and my first impression is usually right.’
Francois Pinault

In 1999 Pinault purchased a controlling stake of the Gucci group for $3 billion and bought Yves Saint Laurent the same year. He followed up by purchasing Boucheron in 2000 and Balenciaga in 2001.

‘We’re looking for companies where we believe that our expertise could enhance the value of that company and thus enhance the value of Gucci group.’
Tom Ford

Arnault was not accustomed to losing. Confronted with the birth of a competitive luxury powerhouse, he fumed from the sidelines.

‘Now [Ford] has found a white knight. But you know, sometimes a white knight becomes a black knight. So we’ll see how long it lasts.’
Bernard Arnault

François-Henri Pinault. Jude Edginton

11. Put Creativity and Commerce in Harness

In this golden age for elite fashion brands, as the two luxury leviathans fought for dominance, they expanded across categories and geographies, pulling in new consumers who were united in their desire for status and beauty.

‘My goal is to create something that’s beautiful - something that’s so beautiful that people can’t live without it. And when you do that people buy it, it makes sales. And when you make sales, you make money. And that’s what my job is.’
Tom Ford

At their best the luxury groups harnessed creativity to commercial goals.

‘John [Galliano] is about pure creativity. But also he likes to do products that sell. Since he arrived sales have tripled. So what he does is really not only pure creativity, but also what the ladies, the consumers, want to wear.’
Bernard Arnault

If the creative directors continued to deliver designs that sold, then the business leaders, shareholders and investors were happy.

‘[Galliano] has absolutely carte blanche - as long as the business is going out, the business is booming. So he has carte blanche.’
Bernard Arnault

12. Beware: Things Fall Apart

However, the seemingly perfect marriage of commerce and creativity was flawed. Fundamentally the corporate chiefs did not share the same goals as their designers.

‘Bernard Arnault was extremely supportive of his star designers, and he really did believe in them. But his goals and their goals were different. For them money was the bi-product of their talent and their work and their dedication to their passion. For Arnault money was the goal.’
Dana Thomas

Gradually things fell apart.

Firstly the constructive rivalry at LVMH began to fracture. McQueen became frustrated with the smaller budgets that were available to him at Givenchy and with what he perceived as Arnault’s favouritism.

‘[Arnault’s] got great vision. But his vision of what I was like was the same vision as what John [Galliano] was like. Maybe John was more pliable than I was.’
Alexander McQueen

McQueen felt he was not valued.

‘You’ve got to feel the appreciation back. You can only keep on going on for so long.’
Alexander McQueen

So McQueen began saving his best ideas for his own label, raiding the Givenchy stores for fabrics and redirecting funds. And in 2000 he jumped the LVMH ship and joined Gucci group in a deal that enabled him to expand his own label. 

For a while McQueen thrived, becoming healthier and happier.

‘When I signed for Gucci I continually pushed myself to be stronger physically and mentally. And this is the outcome.’
Alexander McQueen 

However, as Ford and de Sole came to renew their contracts with Pinault, there was a falling out, and in 2004 they left the group.

‘Tom Ford and Domenico de Sole believed that Gucci belonged to them. They forgot that I was the biggest shareholder. They wanted to pursue an agenda I didn’t agree with. So one day I told Tom Ford: ‘You’re out.’ He just didn’t understand. He thought Gucci was his.’
Francois Pinault

Ford was devastated.

‘I all of a sudden felt lost. I felt: ‘What do I contribute to the world? What am I doing? Who am I? What is this?’ Because I had worked so hard for so long, and I didn’t really realise how it would feel when I no longer had that platform or that voice. And I felt quite lost.’
Tom Ford

With Ford and de Sole gone, McQueen was isolated. 

‘It can be really lonely. And I think there’s more to life than fashion. And I don’t want to be stuck in that bubble of ‘This is what I do.’ Because everyone in the office, they can go home and they can shut off. But I’m still Alexander McQueen after I shut the door.’
Alexander McQueen

In 2010, shortly after the death of his mother, McQueen took his own life. He was 40.

Meanwhile, over at LVMH, Galliano had increasingly struggled with the work pressures that came hand-in-hand with his accomplishments.

‘Along with the success came more collections. At that moment I was producing 32 collections a year between the House of Galliano and the House of Dior, and each collection would comprise up to a thousand pieces. The drinking did creep up on me.’
John Galliano

In the same year that McQueen died, a drunken Galliano was filmed in a Paris bar directing antisemitic slurs at a group of women. He was fired from Dior.

Jacobs too had issues with alcohol and substance abuse. 

‘I don’t deal with pressure too well. I go off my diet. I smoke twice as many cigarettes and I sometimes get a little angry, rude… I don’t think I deal with it so well.’
Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs

In 2013, after 16 years as artistic director at Louis Vuitton, Jacobs presented his last show for the label.

13. It’s Not What Brands Are, But What They Represent

The demise of McQueen, Galliano and Jacobs marked the end of the era of maverick creative directors at the luxury houses.

‘Super-strength designers were absolutely crucial to a particular phase of the luxury industry – which was building it up from being a name to being a brand. But once they had become real brands, they were businesses and therefore you could find people to work in that business who have creativity, but who are a bit less larger-than-life than some of these designers were at the time.’
Thomas Kamm, PPR

LVMH and Gucci group had driven a phenomenal period of growth and expansion in the luxury goods sector. But they had transformed it into a completely different business.

‘The frenzy for these logos - fuelled by celebrities, the billboards, the magazine ads, the commercials, the placement in movies, the logo-heavy marketing – switched the reason everyone had purchased these products in the first place from what they were – beautiful, handcrafted luxury items, rare, special – into what they represented – wealth, success, power.’
Dana Thomas

'It seems the Babylon dem
Come fight 'gainst I, 
Dem-a fight 'gainst I.
I wanna know the reason why.
Babylon fight 'gainst natty dread.
Babylon no fight 'gainst the rum head.
Babylon no fight 'gainst the wine head.
Only natty dreadlocks.
Natty dreadlock in a Babylon.’
Sylford Walker, ‘Burn Babylon’ (S Walker, J Gibson)

No. 408

My Brief Fascination with Yo-Yos: Setting Aside Time for Atelic Planning

'The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.’
Laurence J Peter

When I was young I had a brief fascination with yo-yos.

Loafing around the house or garden, I would focus intently on the repetitive, mesmerising motion - spooling and unspooling, winding and rewinding, over and over again. The world around me disappeared. Time stood still. Not understanding the physics, it all seemed rather magical.

Though mine was not a fancy yo-yo, I kept it as a constant companion. I learned how to make it ‘sleep’ – spinning at the end of its uncoiled string – and even endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to ‘walk the dog.’ 

Bored one summer, I decided to invent an evolution of the yo-yo: a device that had a more erratic, random movement. I imagined this would have a beguiling charm. For my prototype I tied a piece of string to a wooden cotton reel and bounced it up and down, revelling in its haphazard trajectory. 

After a while I determined that my wayward yo-yo didn’t really work, and in fact made me look rather foolish. I’d been wasting my time…

'In his youth Albert Einstein spent a year loafing aimlessly. You don’t get anywhere by not ‘wasting’ time - something, unfortunately, that the parents of teenagers tend frequently to forget.'
Carlo Rovelli

I read recently in the FT (Tim Harford, ‘Why You Shouldn’t Strive,’ 15 December, 2022) about the distinction between telic and atelic projects established by philosopher Kieran Setiya ('Midlife: A Philosophical Guide').

Telos is the ancient Greek word for end or goal. Telic activities are those that have an objective in mind: distance run, mountain climbed, contract signed, promotion attained. Atelic activities have no specific objective. They tend to be pastimes we enjoy for themselves. Reading the paper, visiting a gallery, snoozing in the afternoon, or having a beer with My-Mate-Andy come to mind. We used to call these things hobbies.

It’s possible to engage with the same enterprise in a telic or atelic way. High achievers see most activities as a competition or challenge. They create aims and ambitions, lists and leagues whatever they’re up to. On the other hand, while sport is for the most part telic in character, my football team, the South Indies, generally played in an atelic fashion.

Setiya observes that telic projects can result in disappointment and dissatisfaction: the stress of striving; the frustration of failing; the hunger for another goal once a first has been achieved. There is a risk that an obsession with objectives can rid an activity of its inherent charms. One becomes more concerned with scores and measurement; with ticking a box or crossing off a list. 

And so Setiya concludes that if we want to avoid a midlife crisis, then we should invest more heavily in atelic projects. 

‘We can escape the self-destructive cycle of pursuit, resolution and renewal, of attainments archived or unachieved. The way out is to find sufficient value in atelic activities, activities that have no point of conclusion or limit, ones whose fulfilment lies in the moment of action itself.'
Kieran Setiya, 'Midlife: A Philosophical Guide'

Of course, you can argue this both ways. If you spend your youth only engaging in atelic projects, you’ll probably not achieve very much at all. Another route to a mid-life crisis. 

Inevitably I suspect the answer resides somewhere in the middle: the path to contentment lies in striking a balance between telic and atelic undertakings: sometimes striving for attainment, pushing ourselves to perform; and sometimes merely passing the time, enjoying the distractions that the day affords us.

'Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing.’
Miles Davis

I found myself wondering about telic and atelic projects in the world of work. 

Work is necessarily a field of timesheets and targets, ambitions and accountability. Shouldn’t all professional activities be telic?

Actually I think it’s important that a Planner occasionally steps back from specific Client responsibilities and tasks - to take a look at social and industry change; to review competitive output; to learn of the latest technological innovations; to consider different ways of working. Such activities may not be particularly telic. But they serve to recharge our strategic batteries; to broaden our professional outlook; to refresh our enthusiasm and revive our appetite.

We all need to set aside time for Atelic Planning.

'If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.'
Abraham Lincoln

On reflection, I’m not sure there’s much risk of my suffering Setiya’s midlife crisis. If anything I need to embrace more telic activity in order to generate a little more momentum in my week. Perhaps I should put away that yo-yo and invest in a Strava…

'Take it easy, take it easy.
Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.
Lighten up while you still can.
Don't even try to understand.
Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy.’
Jackson Browne, ‘Take It Easy’ (J Browne, G Frey)

No. 407

Film Noir: Lessons from Beyond the Shadows

Still from ‘The Big Combo’

'Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money - and a woman. And I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?’
'Double Indemnity’

I recently watched an entertaining documentary series about the history of Film Noir. (‘Film Noir’, Sky Arts)

Film Noir is a term used to describe a broad category of crime thrillers from the 1940s, ‘50s and beyond. Noir is characterised by strange angles, harsh light and dark shadows; by victims of circumstance, flawed heroes and seductive femmes fatales; by innovative storytelling, psychological insight and a pessimistic view of society.

‘That’s not the way to win.’
‘Is there a way to win?’
‘There’s a way to lose more slowly.’
'Out of the Past'

Let us consider what Noir could teach us today – lessons from beyond the shadows.

1. Question Society and Your Role within It

The term Film Noir was coined by French film critic Nino Frank in 1946 and became popular amongst European intellectuals in the 1950s. It was only used in the United States after the late 1960s.

Noir had its origins in German Expressionist cinema. With society reeling from the defeat and destruction of the First World War, filmmakers expressed uncertainty about hierarchies and tradition; about the impact of industrialisation and technological progress. Prompted by Freud, they were concerned with identity and the subconscious; with what lay beneath the surface.

Films like ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ (1920), ‘Nosferatu’ (1922), ‘Dr Mabuse the Gambler’ (1922) and ‘M’ (1931) presented a warped world of doubts and dreams; an unstable cityscape haunted by deranged hypnotists and masters of disguise; a culture where ordinary people could be killers.

'You know, this’ll be the first time I’ve ever killed anyone I knew so little and liked so well.’
'Murder, My Sweet’

2. Criminals Can Be Fascinating

The rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany prompted many Jewish and liberal filmmakers to flee the country. A vibrant emigree community of directors, screenwriters and cinematographers formed in Hollywood. Their ranks included many who would go on to play a significant role in Film Noir: Otto Preminger, Max Ophuls, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang and more besides.

The innovations of German cinema in the 1920s were taken up by the Universal horror movies of the 1930s. Films like ‘Dracula’ (1931), ‘Frankenstein’ (1931) and ‘The Mummy’ (1932) came drenched in shadows as they explored myths, nightmares and the nature of evil. 

In the wake of Prohibition and the Depression, the United States had seen the rise of crime, corruption and the Mob. A cynical view of an unhinged society was played out in the hardboiled fiction of Raymond Chandler, James M Cain and Dashiell Hammett; and evidenced in sensationalist newspaper stories and graphic street photography.

'I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Believe me, rich is better.’
'The Big Heat'

Warner Brothers’ classic gangster films of this period - like ‘Little Caesar’ (1931), ‘Public Enemy’ (1931) and ‘Scarface’ (1932) - acknowledged that criminals were often ordinary people struggling to survive in extraordinary times; that despite their evil deeds, they could be fascinating.

‘After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavour.’ 
'The Asphalt Jungle' 

Still from ‘Out of the Past’

3. Heroes Can Be Flawed

Film Noir was born with America’s entry into the Second World War and was nourished by the alienation and anxiety of the era.

Noir movies were populated by veterans, cops and crooks; by hapless grifters, gormless heavies and wrongly accused innocents. There were hard-bitten detectives like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade – cynical, world-weary loners who drank and smoked, and were sustained by a sense of duty and a residue of idealism. There was Robert Mitchum in his battered trench coat - at once both menacing and vulnerable. And Humphrey Bogart in double-breasted suit and fedora - tough and stubborn, with an insolent charm.

‘You know what he’ll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me for mumbling.’ 
'The Big Sleep' 

These men were under pressure from without and within. How would they deal with the troubles that fate threw at them? Could they pull through?

4. Glamour Can Be Dangerous

In addressing their trials, the male protagonists often encountered femmes fatales - siren creatures that were both alluring and manipulative; glamorous and dangerous.

‘She can’t be all bad. No one is.’ 
‘Well, she comes the closest.’ 
'Out of the Past'  

Any man that fell for the charms of a femme fatale was in trouble. Relationships were cursed, doomed to failure.

‘I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.’ 
'In a Lonely Place' 

Of course, the femme fatale archetype was very much an expression of masculine anxiety. Some say veterans returning from the war had forgotten how to engage with women. 

‘I was warned.’
‘You mean you’re afraid… of me?’
‘The Woman in the Window’

It’s important to observe that, played by the likes of Joan Bennett, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Greer and Veronica Lake, the women in Film Noir were smart, resilient and independent. They were navigating the same mean streets as the male characters. They had to do what they had to do.

'What I like about you is you’re rock bottom. I wouldn’t expect you to understand this, but it’s a great comfort for a girl to know she could not possibly sink any lower.'
'The Big Steal’

Still from from ‘The Lady from Shanghai’

5. Shadows and Light Create Tension and Fear

The action was played out on rain-sodden streets and in dark deserted alleyways; in shabby bars, seedy nightclubs and opulent apartments. 

'Kiss me, Mike. I want you to kiss me. The liar’s kiss that says I love you and means something else.’
'Kiss Me Deadly’

The artificial light of neon signs and streetlamps was harsh. Everywhere, inside and out, there were long shadows: at the deserted doorway, in the dingy stairwell, across the empty parking lot; shadows cast by mysterious figures and menacing hoods, by banisters and venetian blinds; shadows that fell across troubled faces. 

'Come on, read my future for me.'
'You haven't got any.'
'What do you mean?'
'Your future is all used up.’
’Touch of Evil’

These shadows prompted foreboding and fear. And the atmosphere of paranoia was often enhanced by low, wide or tilted camera angles; by frequent recourse to mirrored reflections and close-ups on the characters’ apprehensive expressions.

'When your head says one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses.’
'Key Largo'

Still from ‘Touch of Evil’

6. Style Trumps Story

Film Noir plots were often labyrinthine. (Try explaining ‘The Maltese Falcon’, ‘The Big Sleep’ or ‘DOA.’) There were coincidences, red herrings and MacGuffins aplenty. Characters came and went. They were deceived and double-crossed. Events spiralled out of control.

'We didn’t exactly believe your story, Miss O’Shaughnessy. We believed your two hundred dollars. I mean, you paid us more than if you’d been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it all right.’
'The Maltese Falcon'

Ultimately style trumped story. The perilous settings, confused narratives, woozy angles and stark lighting conspired to express the psychological disorder at the heart of the film.

'You're never around when I need you.'
'You never need me when I'm around.’
'Kiss Me Deadly’

7. Restrictions Liberate

Often Film Noirs were B-Movies, created on low budgets by small studios. But imaginative directors demonstrated that restrictions could be liberating.

Edgar G Ulmer had to make ‘Detour’ (1945) in 6 days with $117k. He was allocated just 15 thousand feet of film and required to shoot within a 15-mile radius of the studio. Despite all this, he managed to create a compelling tale of a doomed hitchhiker’s encounters with death and deception. 

'That’s life. Whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you.’
‘Detour’

For ‘Side Street’ (1950) Anthony Mann employed the lighter cameras that had emerged during the Second World War to shoot on location in New York. The film moved freely through the streets, cut to dramatic overhead shots and culminated in one of the first modern car chases.

'Take that fifteen grand out of your pants or get out! I got a dinner date.'
‘Side Street’

‘Narrow Margin’ (1952) was shot in 13 days, and most of the action took place in a railway carriage. To save money, the train sets were rigidly fixed to the floor and a hand-held camera was moved to simulate motion. It became RKO's biggest picture that year.

'This train's headed straight for the cemetery. But there's another one coming along, a gravy train. Let's get on it.'
‘Narrow Margin’

8. Find a Different Way to Reveal Your Narrative

Noir cinema was always looking at new ways of telling a story. It often employed first-person voiceover, flashbacks, fragmented narratives and multiple viewpoints. These techniques created an uncertain, dreamlike quality. Nothing was quite as it seemed.

‘Doesn’t it bother you at all that you’re married?’
‘What I want to know is, does it bother you?’
‘Gilda'

‘Laura’ (1944) featured a detective who falls in love with the victim of the murder he is investigating. ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950) began with the narrator lying face down dead in a swimming pool. ‘DOA’ (1950) commenced with a man reporting his own homicide to the cops. He has been poisoned and wants to track down his killer before the toxin takes effect. He will be ‘dead on arrival.’

'I want to report a murder.'
'Sit down. Where was this murder committed?'
'San Francisco, last night.'
'Who was murdered?'
'I was.'
‘DOA’

Film Noir fell out of favour in the 1960s. The genre lost out to a combination of television, Technicolor, affluence and youth culture. But its influence lived on. And you can detect the spirit of Noir in the shadows and cynicism of ‘Chinatown’(1974), ‘Blade Runner’(1982), ‘The Last Seduction’(1994) and ‘LA Confidential’(1997).

'A woman doesn't care how a guy makes a living, just how he makes love.’
’The Big Combo'

Communication professionals could still learn a great deal from Film Noir: about the power of mood and lighting; about the nuanced depiction of heroes and glamour; about liberating constraints and inventive storytelling; and about great writing.

'Maybe I’ll live so long that I’ll forget her. Maybe I’ll die trying.’
'The Lady from Shanghai'

'The shadows on the wall look like a railroad track.
I wonder if he's ever coming back.
The moon's a yellow stain across the sky.
Oh baby, this one's from the heart.
Maybe I'll go down to the corner and get a racing form.
But I should probably wait here by the phone.
And the brakes need adjustment on the convertible.
Oh baby, this one's from the heart.’

Crystal Gayle and Tom Waits, ’This One’s From the Heart’ (T Waits)

No. 406

Setting Sail for Uncharted Waters: Creative Counsel from David Bowie

‘I was determined, ever since I was 16, that I would have the greatest adventure that any one person could ever have. And I set my sails in the general direction of uncharted waters. I put myself through everything, absolutely everything that came along. It was very important for me to expand my horizons and to see just how near the line I could get.’
David Bowie

I recently watched the splendid film about David Bowie by Brett Morgen, ‘Moonage Daydream’ (2022).

It’s not a conventional biographical documentary. Rather it is a cinematic tapestry woven from sequences of Bowie in performance, in interviews and on his travels; with news footage of the time, and imagery that suggests the themes that interested him: isolation, marginalisation and change; fragmented modern living, a world in chaos and space travel.

You get a real understanding of Bowie’s personal and artistic odyssey; his considerable intelligence, wit and charisma.

‘I hope none of us are static throughout our lives. I guess one has a formed personality from quite an early age. But it is tempered and subject to change. We all to a certain extent create our lives and create our culture daily.’

In the midst of the Ziggy Stardust UK tour a reporter quizzes a distraught young woman, sitting on a step near the stage door of a concert hall. She sports a blue jacket, purple tie, bold nail varnish and a Bowie lapel badge.

Reporter: What are you so upset about?
Fan: I want to see him. They said he was coming round the back. I’ve been waiting ages to see him.
Reporter: Why are you so upset?
Fan: He’s smashing.

Above all, ‘Moonage Daydream’ offers an insight into Bowie’s ideas and working processes. This was a man who thought deeply about identity, creativity and the human condition.

‘At the turn of the twentieth century Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that god was dead and that man had killed him. This created an arrogance within man that he himself was god. But as god, all he could seem to produce was disaster. That led to a terrifying confusion: for if we could not take the place of god, how could we fill the space we had created within ourselves?’

Let us consider the lessons Bowie offers anyone working in a creative business.

'Wake up you sleepy head,
Put on some clothes, shake up your bed.
Put another log on the fire for me.
I've made some breakfast and coffee.
I look out my window, what do I see?
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me.
All the nightmares came today,
And it looks as though they're here to stay.’
‘Oh! You Pretty Things'

1. Escape and Get Out

David Jones was born into a lower middle class family in Brixton in 1947. When he was 6 they moved to Bromley, a London suburb that the young boy found incredibly stifling.

‘In suburbia you’re given the impression that nothing culturally belongs to you, that you are sort of in this wasteland. And I think there’s a passion for most people that have an iota of curiosity about them to escape and get out.’ 

From the outset Jones considered himself an outsider.

‘I think that I felt often – ever since I was a teenager – so adrift, and so not part of everyone else… [I felt] very much on the outside of everything.’

Jones found solace in American rock’n’roll and modern jazz. He studied art, music and design, and learned to play the saxophone.

2. Find the Individual within Yourself

Jones’ half-brother Terry, who was 10 years older, introduced the frustrated teenager to Kerouac and Coltraine, Buddhism and Beat poetry. Terry’s recommendations prompted Jones to consider his identity and role in the world. 

‘Once upon a time your father, my father, everybody’s father, wanted a good job with a good income, or reasonable income, some chance of promotion to secure their family life. And that’s where it ended. But now people want a role in society. They want to feel that they have a position. They want to be an individual. And I think there’s a lot of searching to find the individual within oneself.’

Terry suffered from schizophrenia and was eventually hospitalized. Jones was prompted to reflect on his own mental health.

David Bowie COURTESY OF DAVID BOWIE

3. Adopt a Grasshopper Mentality

Jones formed his first band, the Konrads, at the age of 15. He subsequently performed in a series of mostly blues-based combos. The King Bees, the Manish Boys, the Lower Third, the Buzz, the Riot Squad.

None of these enterprises met with much success. Jones took on the stage name David Bowie, developed an acoustic folk-rock sound and released a solo album. When this failed to chart, he applied himself to learning dance, mime and avant-garde theatre from Lindsay Kemp.

‘Rather than being pinned down, my momentum was to hit and run very fast. Once I’d done something and said it, drop it and move on.’

It’s striking how Bowie was consistently thwarted in his early creative endeavours. But all the time he was experimenting: learning more about music, performance, the business and himself.

‘I’ve got a grasshopper sort of mind, and I can’t resist bringing things to a conclusion, and saying that’s a piece in itself and now I’ll move onto something else. That’s a freedom-giving umbrella. It gives me a chance to do anything I want – successfully or unsuccessfully – without being tied down.’

'They say your life is going very well.
They say you sparkle like a different girl.
But something tells me that you hide,
When all the world is warm and tired,
You cry a little in the dark.
Well so do I.
I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to say,
But I can see it's not OK.’
‘Letter to Hermione’

4. Deny Dualities

Bowie was also exploring his sexuality. He was bisexual and happy to discuss it. Throughout his life he took against labels and simplistic dualities.

‘From micro to macro, from yin to yang, from male to female, there is no scissor cut, no absolutes.’

In one TV interview Russell Harty drew attention to his flamboyant platform shoes.

Interviewer: Are those men’s shoes or women’s shoes or bisexual shoes?
Bowie: They’re shoe shoes, silly.

5. Question All the Established Values

Finally, in 1969, Bowie had his first UK hit with 'Space Oddity’, released just ahead of the Apollo 11 launch.

'This is Major Tom to ground control.
I've left forevermore,
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way,
And the stars look very different today.
For here am I sitting in a tin can,
Far above the world,
The planet Earth is blue and there's nothing left to do.’
'Space Oddity'

However, ‘Space Oddity’ did not lead to sustained success, and Bowie was forced back to the drawing board. On a tour of the USA in 1971, he came up with a plan to invent ‘the ultimate pop idol,’ a fusion of the personality of Iggy Pop with the music of Lou Reed and a bold theatrical presentation.

‘I wanted to define the archetype messiah rock star. I used the trappings of kabuki theatre, mind technique and fringe New York music.’

In 1972 Bowie introduced Ziggy Stardust to the world with a flamboyant live show and an album, 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars', that created a glam rock paradigm.

Ziggy looked like no other pop star. He sported knee-length boots and orange-red feather cut. He donned a metallic jacket with jagged epaulettes. He strutted across the stage in a colourful, figure-hugging knitted leotard, in a short silk kimono. He was extraordinary.

Ziggy provided Bowie with a vehicle with which he could challenge everything that had gone before.

‘I think we took it on our shoulders that we were creating the twenty first century in 1971. We wanted to just blast everything in the past, question all the established values, all the taboos. Everything is rubbish and all rubbish is wonderful.’


'Sailors fighting in the dance hall.
Oh man, look at those cavemen go.
It's the freakiest show.
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy.
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know,
He's in the best selling show.
Is there life on Mars?’
'Life on Mars?’

David Bowie photographed by MICK ROCK – On board the QE2, Southampton, UK, January 1973

6. Put Yourself in Danger

At last Bowie had the critical and commercial triumph he had sought for so long. He scored a golden run of hits: from the Ziggy Stardust album, from its predecessor ‘Hunky Dory’ and its successor ‘Aladdin Sane.’

But the fame took its toll. Bowie found it difficult to separate his extravagant onstage creation from his private offstage self. What’s more, he didn’t want to be tied to a formula. In 1973 at a performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, he announced Ziggy’s retirement.

‘If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being. Go a little out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.’

Changing tack at the height of his success was clearly brave. But it was a conscious decision that Bowie would repeat throughout his career.

‘I put myself in dangerous situations. I put myself in any situation which I feel I can’t cope with… It’s sort of trying to strengthen myself.’

Bowie determined that he needed a new environment and fresh stimulus. In 1974 he moved to the United States, settling in Los Angeles.

Interviewed at the back of a limousine making its way through the California desert, Bowie, pale faced and wearing a black fedora, takes a sip from a half-gallon carton of low-fat milk.

‘There’s a fly floating in my milk. He’s a foreign body in it. And he’s getting a lot of milk. That’s kind of how I felt. A foreign body here, and I couldn’t help but soak it up.’

7. Create Micro-Worlds Inside Your Mind

Bowie’s time in the United States was incredibly fertile. It produced the apocalyptic vision of ‘Diamond Dogs’ (1974); it led to the ‘plastic soul’ of ‘Young Americans’ (1975); and in ‘Station to Station’ (1976) it introduced a new persona, the unfeeling ‘Thin White Duke.’

‘I’ve never been sure of my own personality…I’m a collector and I’ve always just seemed to collect personalities.’

Bowie also performed his first lead role in a movie, ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ (1976), playing an alien who succumbs to human vices.

Throughout this period Bowie was coming to terms with his lifelong sense of solitude.

‘Thematically I’ve always dealt with isolation in everything I’ve written… [The isolated individual] tends to create a micro-world inside himself. And it’s that peculiar part of the human mind that fascinates me: the small universes that can be created inside the human mind.’ 

Fundamentally Bowie was exploring his own identity, role and purpose.

‘I’ve spent an awful lot of my life actually looking for myself and understanding what I existed for, what was it that made me really happy in life and who exactly I was, who are the parts of myself I was trying to hide from.’

8. Put Together Elements that Wouldn’t Naturally Be Good Bedfellows

Around this time Bowie adopted a compositional technique from the writer William S Burroughs. It entailed cutting up existing texts and rearranging them in order to generate new meanings.

‘I guess I’m trying to articulate these mysterious corners of the mind where there exist grains of truth that we don’t often touch on, because we don’t have the words to capture them. So I’ll write on three or four different subject matters and then integrate them together by cutting them up.’

The cut-up technique chimed with Bowie’s conviction that, despite out best efforts to create coherent narratives, for the most part we live fragmented lives in a world of chaos.

 ‘People, especially in a city context, think in fragments… It’s a labyrinthine existence that we live, and so it makes sense for me to put together elements in a song which wouldn’t naturally be good bedfellows.’

'Give me more
Than one caress,
Satisfy this
Hungriness.
Let the wind
Blow through your heart,
For wild is the wind,
Wild is the wind.’
‘Wild is the Wind’ (D Tiomkin, N Washington)

9. Challenge Yourself with Change

Sadly Bowie’s time in the States was also characterised by addiction and poor mental and physical health. He needed to get away.

‘I got to the point in Los Angeles where I got very tired with my method of writing and I wanted to invent a new musical language… I knew I had to get to an environment that was totally different to Los Angeles, and so I thought of the most arduous city I could think of, and it was West Berlin.’

In 1976 Bowie moved to Berlin, renting a modest apartment above an auto parts shop. This new location offered relative anonymity, access to a vibrant experimental music scene and a chance to clean up.

‘I went naked in Berlin. I really did try and strip down my life to what I believed to be absolute essentials, so that I could build up again everything that I thought that I had lost.’

Bowie was always prepared to challenge himself with change.

‘Well, an awful lot of changes with my musical career were challenges to myself. I have to feel that I’m stepping on new ground, that the ice beneath the feet is very thin. Any second I could crack it and plunge through and drown.’

10. Find Other Outsiders

Though an independent spirit, Bowie had always been curious about other people’s beliefs and ideas, and throughout his career he collaborated with fellow outsiders. Producer Tony Visconti had worked with him since 1969. Mick Ronson’s guitar work was critical to the Ziggy sound. And John Lennon and guitarist Carlos Alomar co-wrote the 1975 single ‘Fame.’

‘I’ve been so eclectic all my life. I’d been admiring so many different people and so many different things that they’d done. I feel that I owe so many for the way that I think and do things. I guess anybody who’s had the integrity to always work outside the system has always appealed to me.’ 

In Berlin Bowie shared an apartment with Iggy Pop, co-writing and producing the former Stooge’s solo albums, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘Lust for Life.’

Bowie also approached producer Brian Eno.

‘I contacted Brian Eno who is definitely one of the keenest brains in modern music and I said: ‘Look Brian, I need to know some processes and new methods of writing. Please help me. Otherwise I’m packing it in.’’

Bowie had a clear but challenging brief for Eno.

‘What I’m trying to do is mould the traditional methods of rock’n’roll with newer processes, trying to find a new form of language.’

11. Adopt New Processes 

Eno prompted Bowie to follow a number of formal rules. For example:

Faced with a choice, do both.
Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element.
Change instrument roles.

Through these rules Bowie endeavoured to shed light on his unconscious realm.

‘It probably touches areas of emotion that aren’t normally dwelt upon, because they were arrived at other than by the regular channels of creative thought.’

This period produced Bowie’s revolutionary Berlin Trilogy: the minimalist ambient ‘cold war’ music of ‘Low’ (1977) and ‘Heroes’ (1977); and his response to new wave, ‘Lodger’ (1979).

'I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen.
Though nothing will drive them away,
We can beat them, just for one day.
We can be heroes, just for one day.
‘Heroes'

12. Follow the Thread of Meaning

As the ‘80s dawned Bowie kept on the move. 

‘I’ve never bought a house. I still have no intention of buying one… Because with me the way I live is very much also part of what produces my work. So I have to keep examining my life to make sure that I’m in constant change and not getting too bloated with philosophic opulence. Keep throwing bits and pieces away. And to change countries is one way of doing that.’

The album ‘Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)’ (1980) affirmed his influence on, and his alliance with, the emergent New Romantic scene in London, and provided Bowie’s first innovative contribution to the video age.

Bowie found himself in a very positive place. 

‘I think it’s an heroic act to be able to obtain enthusiasm and joy from the actual process of living from day to day.’

Accordingly he set out to create music that was simple, warm and emotionally uplifting.

‘I believe that there is a thread of meaning running through my life at the moment that I have no wish to break. And I believe it is leading somewhere fulfilling and positive.’

This resulted in 1983’s ‘Let's Dance’, a hugely popular album, and one that Bowie toured with great success all over the world.

‘I don’t begrudge any artist for getting an audience. I’m sorry. I never found that poverty meant purity.’

13. Don’t Give People What They Like, Make Them Like What You Like

Before too long Bowie became uncomfortable with the trappings of mainstream stardom: the stadium shows, MTV videos, promotional tours and corporate sponsorships. He realised that he had compromised his creative soul.

‘Even though it was enormously successful, there was no growth going on at all… I never wanted to do this. I never wanted to be out there pleasing people. I wanted to be really stubborn and have people like what I like, not give them what they like.’

Bowie determined that henceforth he would avoid the middle of the road.

‘If there’s an area that I think an audience I know would really like, I just remember back to how much I hate the centre of the social strata – how I hate being drawn into the middle, to the middle of the road in anything, to that which is most popular.’ 

Ralph Gatti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

14. Keep Searching

Bowie embraced change once more. 

‘My work as an artist has always been to do with transition. The nature and study of change in our particular era is most important because never in our history has there been such a rapid curve of change.’

He decided it was time to be part of a group again, and so formed and fronted Tin Machine. He subsequently experimented with hip hop, jungle, drum and bass and electronica. He collaborated with a wide range of contemporary artists and created soundtracks to movies and to a computer game. He curated festivals and wrote a musical.

Bowie found that with maturity came a kind of liberation.

‘There’s a certain buoyancy that you can develop as you get older. If you are capable of absorbing that it’s a finite life and a finite existence…And I think if you are really honest with that reality, you can have a kind of freedom – artistically, spiritually and emotionally – that you don’t have when you’re young.’

In 2014 Bowie was diagnosed with liver cancer, but he kept his condition private. His final album ‘Blackstar’, released on 8 January 2016, his 69th birthday, was met with critical acclaim. He died two days later. His long time producer Tony Visconti revealed that Bowie had planned the album as a ‘parting gift.’

Interviewer: Do you indulge in any form of worship?
Bowie: Erm life. I love life very much indeed.

To many of us Bowie’s death seemed untimely. He was still so vital and current. But he had lived a full and rewarding life. He had taken from it and given to it everything he could.

‘I’ve had an incredible life. It’s been amazing. I’d love to do it again.’

To the end Bowie kept on searching.

‘I’d be really scared of finding that I’d got somewhere. Because for me art is about searching, and if you come to a place where you think you’ve made a discovery, god, that could be really demoralising. I think the search is the thing.’

'Where are we now?
Where are we now?
The moment you know
You know, you know.
As long as there's sun.
As long as there's rain.
As long as there's fire.
As long as there's me.
As long as there's you.’
‘Where Are We Now?'

 No. 405

The Plump Roman General: Recognizing the Enduring Power of Show and Tell

Winslow Homer - The Country School
Oil on canvas , 1871

‘Why did the Roman Republic ultimately fall, Mr Carroll?’

My venerable Tutor was a kindly soul, but she had a sharp mind and an intense gaze. I shifted nervously in my seat.

‘Well, I think it was fairly complicated. An ever expanding empire, cheap foreign labour, lack of land reform, increasing social inequality, restless veterans…Erm…’

‘Well, yes, all of those things, Mr Carroll. But what fundamentally was at the heart of the decline?’

‘There was also the in-fighting amongst the ruling elite, crime and corruption, opportunistic populists, private armies…’

With a sigh the Tutor reached for a dusty tome and opened it on a picture of an ancient Roman statue. It was of a rather portly, bald man in uniform, sitting on what I imagined was a resentful horse.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t recognize him,’ I said.

‘It doesn’t matter. He was a little known Consul in the late Republic, who went on to lead the Rhine army. What do you see?’

‘I don’t know. He does look quite plump. Not very military.’

‘Exactly. The Roman Republic and its ruling classes had grown flabby – physically, mentally, functionally, spiritually. They were rotten to the core.’

Of course, today we may regard the Tutor’s remark as somewhat lookist. Nonetheless, the point she was making stayed with me. I think I found it compelling because it was so simple and visual.

'The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.’
Marcus Aurelius

I read recently (The Guardian, ‘Cool Leaf’, 14 November, 2022) that chimpanzees sometimes present each other with an object with no other reason than to share their interest in it.

Researchers at the University of York studying the Ngogo chimpanzee community in Uganda filmed an adult female grooming a leaf - plucking it, peering at it and stroking it - and then holding it out to her mother to inspect.

‘She’s not offering it for food. She doesn’t want her mum to do anything. She just wants them to look at it together, and be like ‘Oh, cool, nice!’’
Prof Katie Slocombe (co-author) 

In another random perusal of the papers, I came across an article about children’s first words (The Times, ‘Baby’s First Words?’, 2 January, 2023). Researchers at Cornell University have established that, after ‘mama,’ babies’ first meaningful utterances across many different cultures tend to be ‘this’ and ‘that.’ (‘Dad’ comes further down the list.) Early use of such demonstratives indicates that they are eager to share attention. Look at this! Look at that!

To my mind these studies confirm that there is something primal and powerful in the age-old teaching method of Show and Tell: the practice of showing something to an audience and describing it to them. Typically this classroom activity is used to help young children develop presentational and storytelling abilities. The kids describe an item that means something to them. They explain why it’s important. And they thereby learn the fundamentals of communicating to a larger group.

So often in the world of work we present arguments in intricate detail and arcane language. So often we confuse and complicate.

We would do well to remember that one of the most effective forms of communication is also one of the most straightforward: a simple visual reference that illustrates a clear, comprehensible theme. Look at this. Look at that. Show and tell!

'He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.’
Epictetus

It’s a good many years since I studied ancient history at university. Reflecting now on the demise of the Roman Republic, it’s reassuring to think that at least today we don’t have their problems…

'These are the hands that can't help reaching for you
If you're anywhere inside.
And these are the lips that can't help calling your name
In the middle of the night.
Oh, and here is the man who needs to know where you stand.
Don't you know I've done all I can, so decide.
Oh, show and tell.
It's just a game I play, when I want to say
I love you.’
Al Wilson, 'Show And Tell’ (J Fuller)

No. 404

The Textile Sculptures of Magdalena Abakanowicz: ‘We Find Out About Ourselves Only When We Take Risks’

Magdalena Abakanowicz, 1960s, photo artist’s archive

'Art does not solve problems, but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine.'
Magdalena Abakanowicz

I recently attended an excellent exhibition of the work of Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. (Tate Modern, London until 21 May 2023)

In the 1960s and ‘70s Abakanowicz took tapestries from the wall into three-dimensional space. She made sculptures that were organic, soft and fibrous. And she employed traditional craft skills in the service of high art. Her huge haunting textiles bring to mind vibrant plant life and mysterious foliage; rippling garments and pulsing body parts. These are enchanted environments.

Abakanowicz teaches us that, in whatever field we’re working, we can always rewrite the rules.

'It is easy to follow, but it is uninteresting to do easy things. We find out about ourselves only when we take risks, when we challenge and question.'

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Abakan.
Photo credit D. Cummings-Palmer

Abakanowicz was born in 1930 into an aristocratic family in rural central Poland. Her early years were overshadowed by the Polish-Soviet War, by Nazi occupation and then by Communist rule. She studied at the Academy of Plastic Arts in Warsaw and began her career painting large biomorphic designs on fabric. But her real interest was in weaving.

‘I am interested in constructing an environment from my forms. 
I am interested in the scale of tensions that arises between various shapes which I place in space. 
I am interested in the feeling when confronted by the woven object. 
I am interested in the motion and waving of the woven surfaces.
I am interested in every tangle of thread and rope and every possibility of transformation. 
I am interested in the path of a single thread.
I am not interested in the practical usefulness of my work.’

Abakanowicz was naturally independent minded. From the outset her tapestries dispensed with preparatory designs or templates (‘cartoons’). Rather she improvised on the loom, creating colourful, fluid, abstract shapes, switching between materials with remarkable dexterity - from sisal to wool to horsehair. 

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Abakan.
Photo credit D. Cummings-Palmer

In the mid-1960s she discarded the rectangular format of traditional tapestry. Instead she hung curved fabric forms freely in space. The burnt umber sculptures she created at this time suggest cocoons, shells and insects; a beguiling journey into the forests of her childhood.  

‘Strange powers dwelled in the woods and lakes that belonged to my parents. Apparitions and inexplicable forces had their laws and their spaces.’

Abakanowicz went further still. She took to arranging her fabric sculptures - or what an art critic dubbed ‘Abakans’ - in specially lit clusters, so that they cast compelling shadows and could be in dialogue with each other. She sought to create immersive ‘situations’ or ‘environments’, places to explore and hide.

‘The Abakans were my escape from categories in art. They could not be classified. Larger than me, they were safe like the hollow trunk of the old willow I could enter as a child in search of hidden secrets.’

Abakanowicz employed industrially woven cloth, rope, hemp, burlap, flax and found material. Sometimes her work seems like tall trees or vines; sometimes like strange boulders or pods; sometimes like huge heads or interior organs. You can walk among them, as if through a magical forest or a mysterious alien landscape. There is a sense of comforting softness; of germination and budding; of brooding silence.

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Abakan.
Photo credit D. Cummings-Palmer

‘I see fibre as the basic element constructing the organic world on our planet. It is from fibre that all living organisms are built, the tissue of plants, leaves and ourselves… our nerves, our genetic code, the canals of our veins, our muscles… We are fibrous structures.’

In the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s Abakanowicz went on to create humanoid sculptures and outdoor installations, working with metal, wood, stone and clay. All the while she continued to explore humanity’s relationship with nature. She passed away in 2017 at the age of 86.

So often in life and business we are boxed in by convention and tradition. We feel obliged to follow the crowd along the beaten path.

Abakanowicz, the weaver of sculptures, teaches us to deny hierarchies; to transgress rules; to see opportunity everywhere.

‘I like neither rules nor instructions, these enemies of the imagination. I make use of the technique of weaving by adapting it to my own ideas.’

'So tonight, gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf,
And just enjoy yourself.
Groove. 
Let the madness in the music get to you.
Life ain't so bad at all,
If you live it off the wall.
Life ain't so bad at all.
Live your life off the wall.'
Michael Jackson, ‘Off the Wall’ (R Temperton)

No 403

‘Sunset Boulevard’: Beware the Corrosive Effects of Cynicism, Delusion and Deceit

'You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.'
'I am big. It's the pictures that got small.’

‘Sunset Boulevard,’ Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 movie, holds a mirror up to Hollywood – its cruelty, greed and narcissism. It raises questions about the human cost of the creative industries’ relentless drive for progress and profit.

The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter who has been worn down by one too many disappointments.

'Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along.’

Gillis is cynical and bitter, short of money and considering packing it all in.

'I'd always heard you had some talent.'
'That was last year. This year I'm trying to earn a living.’

While endeavouring to evade his creditors, Gillis stumbles into the mansion of Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star, now long forgotten. The house is all faded grandeur: heavy ornate furnishings, a bed ‘like a gilded rowboat’, an unused tennis court and pool, an organ that whistles in the wind. Everywhere there are portraits of the star in her dazzling youth.

'The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis... out of beat with the rest of the world... crumbling apart in slow motion.’

Desmond is a sad, delusional figure. She refuses to accept that the arrival of cinematic sound represented an advance; and that her career is long since over.

'There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! Talk!’

Desmond’s stiff, taciturn butler Max maintains that she is still a legend beloved by the public. And he forges her fan mail to sustain the deceit.

'You don't yell at a sleepwalker. He may fall and break his neck.’

Learning that Gillis is a writer, Desmond hires him to edit a script she has drafted for her planned return to the screen. Though Gillis thinks the work is execrable, he is happy to take the money. 

'What it needs is maybe a little more dialogue.'
'What for? I can say anything I want with my eyes.’

Gillis moves into the mansion, and, accepting clothes and gifts from the besotted actress, he gradually becomes her paid companion. At night they watch old movies together on her private screen – all of them starring the youthful Norma Desmond.

We realise the melancholy runs deep. Desmond has tried to commit suicide on a number of occasions, and so the locks in the house have been removed. Max is in fact Desmond’s former director and first husband, and he remains pathetically devoted to her. 

Ultimately Gillis’ cynicism, Desmond’s denial and Max’s deceit hold the three central characters in a vortex of self-destruction - one from which they cannot escape.

'No one ever leaves a star.'

Director Wilder introduces further resonances through his casting. He gives the role of Desmond to Gloria Swanson who was herself a major silent star in the ‘20s. Max is played by Erich von Stroheim - a famously fastidious director in the silent era, who shot Swanson a number of times. Indeed in 1929 von Stroheim was fired by Swanson from one of her productions, an incident that ended his directing career. And the ‘waxworks’ that visit Desmond’s house to play bridge in the evenings are genuine silent film actors, including the illustrious comedian Buster Keaton.

'We didn't need dialogue. We had faces.'

‘Sunset Boulevard’ is a story of lives blighted by ambition, success and failure; of the relentless drive of progress; of an industry that devours talent, spits it out and moves on. The film has some lessons for anyone working in a creative business. 

'There's nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25.' 

Beware the corrosive effects of cynicism - the misanthropy that deprives Gillis of his intuition and flair. With every new setback the bitterness increases, and the chances of making it next time diminish.

Beware denial of change; yearning for past success and former glory. Where Desmond rages against sound, today’s former heroes resent the advances of performance marketing, data analytics, behavioural science and in-housing.

‘Poor devil - still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by.’

And finally, beware the petty deceptions: the everyday falsehoods that sustain the illusion that everything is fine, when it patently isn’t. Don’t, like Max, confirm the biases and prejudices that are holding back advancement. Don’t bury your head in the sand.  

‘Sunset Boulevard’ ends where it began – with tragedy. Desmond descends her grand staircase. She pauses, and then steps towards the cameras, addressing the attendant press and the audience beyond.

'You see, this is my life. It always will be. Nothing else! Just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.’

'Are we really happy here
With this lonely game we play?
Looking for words to say.
Searching, but not finding understanding anywhere.
We're lost in a masquerade.’

The Carpenters, ‘This Masquerade’ (L Russell)

No. 402