When I travel, I see things in a different way. I know, Hello Obvious, but bear with me. They say you should only travel with those you love. That is so true, especially when you are traveling alone. I have to get myself into the head space of loving who I am and staying in a receptive and resourceful state if I want to have any fun. That head space allows me to change my perspective of the world. It’s like clearing the camera lens with a cloth. Suddenly you can see things clearly, perhaps closer to how they really are.So, in travel, whether I am reading a magazine, listing to my iPod or looking at the zillion pictures I have on it, because of the time I have, my perspective changes. I get informed by the past, by familiar music and images, and inspired by the new settings around me.
So, this is a shot of me on the rue Cambon in Paris, outside Chanel, the site of the old atelier where she received her clientele. She lived at the Ritz mostly, but this was her showroom, and it still is. I learn from the example of a creative genius like that, a great businessperson, innovative, yet set in the rigid classical context of the architecture and society she lived in. She shaped the fashion landscape of her day leaving an unmistakable trail that is timeless still today. Diana Vreeland, one of her close friends, once said that “Beauty is restraint”. Or was it elegance? Chanel embodied both.
She came from humble circumstances, but brought a sharpness, inquisitiveness and an acumen for business uncharacteristic of many in her industry. She sold elegance. She exuded elegance. And she had a private plane at Le Bourget, relationships with the most influential people of her day, made a ton of money and left a trail of iconic beauty and elegance.
In business, we prize an elegant solution. It is stylish, well-crafted and simple, with great bone structure, just like in fashion, architecture and office furnishings. It endures. The most elegant things do. It’s not about ornateness or gilding. It’s just that all the parts work perfectly and beautifully together.
Some seem to come by elegance easily, but frankly if it was easy, we’d all be there. It takes work, and an elegant solution might go through tons of iterations and distillations before it seems remotely elegant. It takes refinement, restraint, to arrive at an elegant solution.
Or it might just appear miraculously, and forever change the landscape of the world around it.
But don’t count on that only! Do what Chanel did. There is the old tale of how she selected the fragrance of the enduring No. 5. Rows of white handkerchiefs lined up on the mirrored mantle, the result of years of research. Each one sniffed, evaluated, ruthlessly scrutinized, even though she reputedly had a migraine that day. Shades of minor distinction to choose from. All her life experience to that point in the setting of great personal weakness informed her final choice. The result endures to this day.
An elegant solution.
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