Monday, July 10th, 2017
By now, pretty much everyone in fashion has heard about Lucinda Chambers, former British Vogue Fashion Director who was let go of in “three minutes” by the new incoming editor Edward Enninful. Chambers went on to give a thoughtful interview full of details that many in fashion insiders are already painfully aware of but perhaps not the general public. One of the quotes that stood out to me from her candid interview was this, “You don’t get the best out of anyone by making them feel insecure or nervous.” She was referring to how business executives who have no idea about design or fashion often put talented designers under stress and anxiety. Predictably, it often produced unhappy employees, mediocre fashion shows and less than extraordinary products.
Have you ever worked for someone who is on an ego trip just because they have a little taste of power and control? Someone who treats their subordinates with arrogance and condescension but with a totally different attitude to their superiors? We have all seen that person before. When a less talented person with zero imagination is put in charge of people who are creative, the end result is a company with no authenticity. What we learned from Chambers’s story is that fashion is suffering from advertisers overload and that power is being given to people who have money and looks but not to those with talent. I’m glad that she decided to share her thoughts on her career and fashion and shake up the status quo a little bit even if she is being criticized. The clothes in Vogue might be irrelevant to most people according to Chambers but her words on fashion will ring relevant for many years.
