Tim Gunn on Theory

Tim Gunn

Years and years ago I worked at Par­sons School of Design in New York, where I got to know Tim Gunn. Tim Gunn has gone on to become quite famous from the tele­vi­sion show “Project Run­way.” So when there was a large fea­ture arti­cle about him in the New York Times yes­ter­day, I read with interest.

He recently left Par­sons to accept a posi­tion with Liz Clai­borne. Of this move, and the changes from acad­e­mia to the busi­ness world, he said,

‚ÄúI‚Äôve been liv­ing in a rar­efied bub­ble, really, for a total of 29 years. Because we were deal­ing with the­ory, we could write our own sce­nar­ios, where noth­ing ever fails and noth­ing is ever lost in the ship­ping process. It‚Äôs a very dif­fer­ent universe.‚Äù

Aha! The­ory! The­ory can really get in the way, can’t it? For cre­ativ­ity to work, you’ve got to get your feet wet, get a lit­tle rough-and-tumble, mix it up (and all those other cliches). The­ory is safe and know-able. With cre­ativ­ity, you’ve got to be will­ing to get a lit­tle messy and see what hap­pens. Every once in a while some­thing will “get lost in the ship­ping process”, but always be will­ing to look beyond the “rar­efied bub­ble” of theory.