There are two ways to create: adapt to a trend and blend in, or do something original. An original style comes straight from the life and personality of the artist and is full of life and energy, where a follower of a trend only touches the surface.
Yves St. Laurent, what you say about the relationship of style and trend?
“Fashions fade, Style is eternal.”Yves St. Laurent
What is this eternal element of style that holds up while all the trendy things fall to dust?
Style is originality, rooted in the personality of the creator and because of this direct and true connection is original and the creation is alive. Trend copies successful artists and blends in with a generally accepted standard and has no inner life.
Style and Trend, Heaven and Hell
Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, what are you thoughts on shortening the path to success by following a trend or copying a successful artist or brand?
“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man’s.”Ralph Waldo Emerson
If original is the way to be if you are a living being, why isn’t everybody just original?
Because it is hard and risky work, like mining. The gold is not being found in solid bars. It is locked into masses of worthless material and has to be refined over a long period of time with a sure hand to discard the worthless rock and grab and work the gold.
Herman Melville, isn’t originality difficult to achieve and risky in itself?
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”Herman Melville
But failure, doesn’t this mean the end of all dreams?
Winston Churchill gets up, steps over Hitler’s dead body, and comes to the microphone:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”Winston Churchill
Failure is not final, just like success, and you just get up and try again. The biggest misconception of failure is that it is a judgement. But failure just means that another attempt is needed. The creative process puts so many things together that is is highly unlikely that anything works the first time. Or as Ernest Hemingway put it:
“The first draft of anything is sh*t””Ernest Hemingway
Style, Originality, Courage
The biggest fear of a creative is: what if they don’t like me? What if I spend years in developing my style and the don’t like it?
Gore Vidal, do you think style needs courage – or can a coward have style?
“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”Gore Vidal
Courage is a necessary ingredient. Creativity is not for the faint of heart. This is why there are so few originals, and why there is so little style.
The Economics of Style and Originality
Economically, originality and style are the best possible investments.
Originality and style are a force that can take the same resources and create something a thousand times more effective than a copycat following a trend, whose work blends in with the masses.
Discovering original talent is like a stockbroker discovering an undervalued stock. This is where you can win big.
Why few companies are using artists of Originality and Style – and what they can do to Improve that
Then why don’t companies just hire original artists?
They do it because original artists who are successful costs ten to a hundred times more than hiring imitators. And original artists usually demand higher production budgets as well.
Then why don’t companies just hire original artists with a true style that is not yet famous?
Because they are hard to find, just like gold. Most people cannot judge, they compare. An unknown, original artist doesn’t compare to anything and then they don’t know what to do and fall back on the trendy copycat stuff.
This is why highly able and original chief executive officers are so valuable for companies: highly talented, sophisticated and educated themselves they can spot talent before the masses see them. And then they go and their campaigns outperform those of companies with much bigger budgets.
Victory
Leo Tolstoy, can you win a battle against a force with deeper pockets and better resources?
“A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win..”Leo Tolstoy
So the creative executive with the absolute desire to win for his company hires an original artist who has his own style and they create a campaign that is outstanding and has not been seen before, and starts a trend itself, leading ahead of the pack.
People, who dodge all commercial messages whenever possible, see this and are impressed and reward this company with their attention and their business.
This is the reward of true originality, style and courage: amazing artistic and economic success!
I deeply agree with you, Robert. Being original is unique.That’s always my statement.
The pressure is always to be like the others, Claudia. That’s the biggest challenge for originality: that call to conform. And that judgement that your originality, because it is something unaccustomed, is wrong.
This pressure to conform is even bigger at the age of social media, which is the biggest equalizer possible. But one has to weather the storm and one will reach the personalities who will not just compare to the standard, but who will see what is: a new style, a new way to express oneself – because it’s a different artist.
And each artist can only have one style: his own.