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The Mark Of A Great Fashion Designer
Leaders and managers; You can read books on how to become a good manger, taking care of all the tasks, processes and the administrative responsibilities in support of leaders who go out into the forest in search of trees. Management Guru Peter Drucker has written many best sellers, the bible for successful managers is “Management Tasks Processes and Responsibilities”

But this is about the skills you don’t necessarily need to become a great fashion designer. It’s about complimentary and compensatory factors that makeup a business, front end to back end, strengths and weaknesses.

If your eye is on leadership and you’ve consumed all the knowledge and information on the subject, but, questions still burn. Consider this. Don’t be put off by the title; it’s been a best seller for almost twenty years. “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R Covey. It’s about life’s integration with work, adhering to priorities, leading with your left and managing with the right. For you, it will be like switching on a light on a moonless night. But beware, inherent in the 7 habits is a commitment to change the way you are, change your old habits, improve.

It is not the kind of book to read on a stormy Sunday afternoon. You’d do better to weather the storm, because there’s a lot of intensity in the words. Evoking thought, you’ll be grabbing a high-lighter to underline all the phrases you don’t want to forget. And you’ll use it as a constant guide as you grow and learn about principle leadership in business.

Then there is Michael E Porters’ complex analytical approach “Competitive Advantage” This is for economists, sales executives, etc. It’s about maximising, expenditure, resources and knowledge. If you have the staying power to weave your way exhaustingly through a labyrinth of thought provoking literature, then there’s a lot learn. Less effort for greater return is one obvious driving principle throughout; another is value processes, no weak links in the chain, so to speak.

Unless you are a very special type of accountant, don’t pick up this book, you will burn your fingers. CA is not about minimising costs, and saving time. You can stop the clock, but the metre keeps running in New York Taxi Cabs. A smart taxi driver will take you the long road home, like a good economist he’ll want to maximise his return on effort. Here the vast difference between minimisation and maximisation are spelled out in a way that challenges logic in a very powerful and honest way.

For the strategist, there’s “Strategic Selling” it’s a brainstorm. Once digested you will stop trying to sell and learn the demand o your target market, then simply supply accordingly. “Research”

Now, try to find a book that teaches you how to be a great fashion designer or any kind of designer for that fact. You can easily be taught the technical aspects of design and theorise all you like about its beginning and transformations. But unless you are gifted with the skill of being able to realise scattered ideas and thoughts, being able to visualise their end before putting pen to paper then you can only achieve to a certain level.

On this subject of truly great designers, three names come immediately to mind; Frank Lloyd Wright, Isambard Brunell and Vivienne Westwood.

There is only one “falling Water House” one “Clifton Suspension Bridge” and only one “Orb”.

But even behind the designer façade of Westwoods London store, mangers offer administrative support for their leader; the two go hand in hand.

Without harmonious integration of leadership and management disciplines, businesses can never fully achieve their desired goals.

The Accidental Creation Of The First School Tie
It’s well documented that in 1880, the rowing club at Oxford Universities Exeter College, invented the first school tie.

After an emotional win over their rivals, they celebrated by removing their ribbon hat bands from their boater hats and tying them, four in hand around their necks. When they ordered a set of ties, with the colours from their hatbands, they had accidentally created the modern school tie. Schools, clubs, and athletic ties appeared in abundance. Some schools had different ties for various grades, levels of achievement, and for graduates. Thanks to historians and their method of accurate documentation all the original college colours are still available from archived samples and replicate ties can be made to order. Reference 201.6

The four in hand knot used to tie their hat ribbons has its own unique origin. Coachman who lead a team of two horses en route would take the four reins, two for each horse, and tie them in particular fashion across their hand , thus four reins in hand, or, four in hand. Later the knot and the phrase the coachman used were adapted to neckwear. Two unrelated occurrences made contribution to a style that survives in tact to this day. Working class and upper class made equal contribution, the coachman’s phrase and the university student boating hat band.

Let’s not leave Cambridge University out of the race; they also played a part in establishing an everlasting style, albeit forty five years after the first Oxford school tie.

A Cricket Club, founded by a group of Cambridge University students in 1845 is believed to have created the first sporting colours. They designed a flag of black, bright, orange-red, and gold, symbolizing "out of darkness, through fire, into light." Blazers, caps, and ties were eventually created in these colours. Reference 201.7

So maybe the next time you knot your favourite designer silk ties four in hand around your neck, you’ll appreciate its colourful history. A word of warning, when tying the knot, don’t’ think too hard about the coachman pulling tight on the reins, ‘four in hand’; you might choke yourself, accidentally.