Vogue Festival Day 1 - Paul Smith

I don't even know where to start when describing Paul Smith's talk this afternoon! He was one of the most inspiring people I've ever seen and was so driven and so motivated yet so down to earth that it was quite overwhelming. As soon as he began talking, I thought 'I don't want to forget a second of this talk' and so recorded it on my phone so I could listen to it back whenever I needed motivating! He was joined by Alexa Chung who acted as the interviewer, but their friendship shone through and they were constantly laughing and joking.

He began with a talk about finding inspiration from everywhere ('You can find inspiration everywhere, if you can't, then you're not looking hard enough'), and showed how you can take something as simple as a beach hut, and turn it into a jumper, or shirt, or socks. He offered advice to aspiring designers: 'the world doesn't need any more designers so you need to find something that makes you stand out', 'you need to look and SEE', the importance of lateral thinking, and talked about all of the different elements which come together to create a successful designer.

He then began a talk with Alexa who prompted him by asking questions and something that was very clear from the start was that his mind is all over the place, as many creative minds are. He was up on his feet, then sitting back down, then showing off his socks, glasses on then off, lying on the sofa, talking about one thing then jumping to another, but this just emphasised his creativeness and all the ideas he  had running through his mind at once. Their discussion ranged from how much he likes what the Queen wears and the quality of her clothes, to the fact that so many people get Paul Smith socks for Christmas to his choice of swimwear for his daily 5am swims.

Apparent from the start was his enthusiasm for everything, especially life. When asked what motivated him, he responded 'the love of life'. He also said that he sees 'everyday as a new beginning', and his adoration of his wife and his job were so clear that it made me happy just hearing him talk about how happy he was!

He stated that he didn't like criticism at all and he didn't read press or reviews of his shows because by the time the reviews are in, buyers have already bought his products so it makes no difference to him anyway, and he is already onto the next season. He and Alexa then agreed that the opinions of family and friends are the only ones you should listen to as theyre the only ones who truly know you.

This fast pace and ever-changing face of the fashion industry led to talk about technology. He took a very different point of view form Natalie Massenet and stated that he did not have a computer and his wife doesn't even have a mobile phone. His assistants deal with his emails but he feels that when people spend all their life looking at screens, they are missing the inspiration in the world around them. He then went on to talk about Instagram and the fact that he chooses what goes on his Instagram and blog but doesn't put it on there himself. He does, however, shoot all of his own campaigns and this sparks from his father being an amateur photographer.

There is so much to say about his talk that I could write for hours, so a few final ideas I particularly loved are:

• He is not in it for the money, he feels that he has a duty to keep his brand successful as he employs thousands of workers and they all have families and bills to pay and he owes it to them to keep them all in work.
• It is important to have a point of view and a reason people should buy YOUR clothes, however if you are going into a company, you need to be enthusiastic and have a point of view but be open to other peoples points of view and not be overpowering.
• You have to be interested and interesting otherwise people will not pay attention.
• 'There's a lot of good out there, you have to be better'
• Success like his comes from loving what you do and constantly being inspired by finding beauty in everything

Vogue Festival Day 1 - Natalie Massenet

The first talk I went to was Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-A-Porter. Natalie decided to talk about her life and journey, rather than specifically about Net-A-Porter and this gave the talk a new dimension as there was a very clear path and witnessing other people's journeys into the fashion industry always inspires hope and ambition into aspiring fashion designers/journalists/entrepreneurs etc.

Always wanting to try something new, Natalie created a live Instagram feed (NatAPorter_MyStorySoFar) which she used as a sort of slide show whilst giving the talk. She encouraged everyone to get their phones out and look at the feed and tweet and comment etc. as she really feels that social media is the way forward (very different to Paul Smith's perception!). This was an innovative way to engage the audience and straight away it was clear that she is one step ahead of everyone, a creator.

The talk started with her parents and her as a child ('everything has to start somewhere..and it's usually small') and followed her journey through school and university, her travels from Madrid to Paris to LA to Toyko, and different careers which she toyed with before stepping firmly into the fashion pool.

In her talk, Natalie strongly emphasised the importance of Creative Visualisation, and a photograph of her standing infront of her Net-A-Porter empire, just how she had visualised it, was truly touching. In the talk, Natalie spoke about the difficulties of being a mother and a business woman, trying to set up an online magazine when people's broadband wouldn't let them load too many pictures, the importance of teamwork, and most importantly the importance of hard work.

For me, as an aspiring designer, to hear someone who's business has been recently sold for £230million talk about how they got turned down for a job at Vogue and used to sleep every lunch time at their desk when working as a receptionist, it gave me faith that there is no one route to success and it often looks different to different people, but hard work will get you there one way or another.

Natalie Massenet spoke about so many things in such a passionate and driven way that I can't even describe a tiny bit of what it was like to listen to her speak! I will be posting some quotes into the quotes section of my blog from today that I find especially inspiring.

Vogue Festival 2013

This years Vogue Festival, at the Southbank Centre, got off to a great start today with talks from J.W.Anderson, Mary Katrantzou, Natalie Massenet, Paul Smith and Michael Kors, among many others. I was lucky enough to go to the talks by Natalie Massenet and Paul Smith being interviewed by Alexa Chung and, from an aspiring designer's point of view, found them both extremely inspiring and helpful. Not only was it amazing to be in the presence of such aspirational and successful people, their talks also had anecdotes and quotes which I feel are going to help me, and other young designers, in their path to success. I'll do a blog post of each to share some of what I got out of the talk.