I booked in to do a workshop a few weeks ago. It looked interesting. A lady from the studio recommended it too me, said the guy was AMAZING. So I did. it. Here I am 5 days later still blown away by the power of such an experience. Julian was, well, much more humble than his promotional material had lead me to believe. In fact I was empowered by his openness and willingness to share his ideas. This doesn't normally blow me away, in fact people have said the exact same thing to me when sharing the secrets behind my work. But Julian managed to remind me, that by sharing our ideas, we are pushed to find more. In being pushed to find more, we challenge ourselves. And that's a good thing right. I do preach the idea of not fearing this offering, but at times I'm not sure that I entirely trust in it. It would be true to say that sometimes I loose faith in this mentality. But I reckon that Julian has managed to make it stick this time. Lodged it in a place it hasn't been before. Somehow I feel like he has allowed me the confidence to trust in that idea. I really do feel it. Without this mentality as designers we can hold ourselves back. Without this mentality we can loose trust in the world to provide us with a playground for learning and interacting and growing better within ourselves. Without it, there's no reason to be brave and to move forward.
As I said, Julian appears not quite so humble on his facebook page (!) but in real life he presents a truly inspiring picture of someone purely driven by the desire to inspire, push boundaries, challenge convention (and ourselves) to dig below the surface. His philosophy goes well beyond the limitations of a designing a dress. That's what I love about his work. You could spend hours perusing his site. Thankfully it's only open Wednesday's. Yep, one day a week between 10am-8pm, so I can't. Just Wednesdays. That way only those who truly want to know what he's up to will bother setting their alarm not to miss it! Apologies I'm posting this a bit late, you'll have to wait till next week now.
Incredible. I love a bit of unexpected inspiration. It's mind blowing. Hard to put into words.
Now here's some visuals to help disperse the intensity of all the text...
