Designer Connections

I was flipping through a fashion industry magazine the other day at the hairdressers, when I came across a short piece on a friend from my early uni days. We were both in the industrial design department at the time, and he was planning to move into interior architecture (I ended up transferring to engineering). Turns out, Clarence is now a sought-after fashion designer based in London, soon to be opening an office and retail space in Melbourne.

I always suspected that Clarence would end up being kind of a big deal. He was that guy who would rock up to uni wearing head-to-toe metallic gold while everyone else was in their jeans and jumpers (yes, even in the design department). He was an overachiever, too – I recall hearing that he’d gotten permission from the department to make his graduate project double the scale of what was required.

Given all of that, I can’t help but wonder what his new HQ is going be like. I can’t imagine him holding back when it comes to office and commercial space design. Melbourne might not be London, but still, it’s relatively permissive of innovation around this type of thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went for something like putting a studio/workshop in a floating glass box suspended over the retail area, or VR fitting rooms.

Basically, I predict that he’ll be out to make the whole thing an experience. Visionary thinking was always his strong suit. On the side of the coin, bringing ideas to fruition was something that he used to struggle with a bit (and an area in which I, having the opposite problem, was able to balance him out). I wonder if he’s started looking for commercial fitout companies. Melbourne interior construction firms are probably already zoning in on the job.

Of course, there’s no doubt that Clarence should team up with me and my engineering connections on this. I feel like I’d be capable of understanding his vision better than anyone, seeing as I was privy to it in its primordial stages.