Are You An Artist or A Scientist… Or Maybe Just Both?

Continuing a series of articles with a careers focus, Mr Mark Woodward, our Head of Careers writes…

Long ago, in his track ‘Whole Wide World’, that old sage Wreckless Eric reassured the lonely romantic that there was someone for everyone, albeit maybe in Tahiti or the Bahamas. Reassuring if you were willing to put in the miles and those locations would be welcome additions to a careers tour!

Call me a traditionalist or woolly dreamer, but if Wreckless Eric did careers advice to parallel his relationship counselling, I’d be tempted to dip a toe in his camp as there’s definitely a tailored role for everyone. The long-distance to find it might well be time rather than air miles though?

I’d say, ‘don’t limit your scope.’ For instance the creative student - hopefully these still exist despite the apparent attempts of recent Education ministers to steer everyone into ‘worthwhile’ degrees and subjects while belittling fluffy humanities degrees – may not be so far removed from being a scientist as you might think.

So where did the stimulus for this thinking develop? Well, it came on the most recent leg of the 2015 Careers department tour and readers of our recent posts may be wondering about the exotic location. Though this time it might have lacked the Brooklyn hipster points and Barcelona’s Mediterranean lure, Earlsdon High Street’s impressive host of delicatessens and chic cafés - including Kendall’s, owned by Old Wheatleyan Marcus Kendall - certainly offered an attractive setting to catch up with Claire Ritchie (formerly Harris) from the Class of 1983.

Claire’s infectious passion for the creative arts and fashion has already inspired a number of Bablake pupils and her impressive CV screams fashion, retail, management and practical arts; by the end of October it will be supplemented with an MSc. Her skillset is broad, as firmly planted in the arts as it is the sciences, but more of that later.

Much had happened since Claire collaborated so generously and so successfully with Bablake pupils on the Fashion and Food issues of Stretch – assistance that offered practical proof of her impressive immersion in fashion and addiction to creativity.

The traditional Bablake Newsroom 'quick questions' were soon rolled out:

Arts or Sciences?
Both – and the success of our economy depends on the mix.

Instagram or Pinterest or Flickr?
Each! They all have specific creative functions, e.g. mood board potential and the chance to display work.

Handmade or Digital?
Again both, though Claire had a clear love of texture and the therapeutic advantages of working with physical fabrics.

UK or Europe?
Obviously, both! Each complements the other and the collaboration works wonders.

So was Claire sitting on the fence? Yes, but in a totally justifiable and correct way. The flexibility of her discipline allows her to sit on as many specific fences as possible and test all directions. 

Claire’s original steer for Fashion had led to a Foundation year at Coventry University. She then graduated in Fashion Design at Liverpool John Moores, before working for a fragrance company. When she helped Bablake with Stretch, she was launching her own fashion label and had been lecturing at higher education establishments such as Nottingham Trent, Northampton and Coventry. Claire never stands still and her current schedule bears testimony.

While Director of International Fashion Studies at the independent London College of Contemporary Arts, and visiting Professor at Grenoble Graduate School of Business, a flying faculty also based in Florence, London and Paris, Claire has also been undertaking an MSc at the London College of Fashion in Applied Psychology in Fashion.

Her MSc has confirmed Claire’s status as artist and scientist. The year has been inspirational and she has really enjoyed being part of a first cohort of around 20 students- with, interestingly, more following the MSc route than the MA path. It's the first course of its kind anywhere in the world, has been academically stimulating and the calibre of students has been immensely rich too.

Psychology and the effect on Fashion, esp the multi-sensory aspects, has gripped Claire and it is clear she is making new waves. Issues with age, body image, racism and sexism interlock psychology with the fashion industry, and surely Claire’s final thesis, accredited with the British Psychological Society, will offer future work. Empowerment also drives Claire and she would love to use the findings of her research to drive social benefit.

Claire has become fascinated with synaesthesia in its many multi-sensory forms and she has been delighted to find her research affirmed not only in her field of expertise. Drawn to the lived experience of synaesthesia in Fashion and Design professionals, her thesis due in early October could be a game-changer.

You would be wrong to assume this is Claire’s current programme fully explained! In addition, she supports countless students, who clearly respect and admire her, while fully in awe of her energy. At LCCA, she has also launched a new Fashion magazine ‘The Fashion Sessions’, each time based around a themed day of lectures and connected creative work. We’d love to say Claire’s Stretch experience had inspired her, but we suspect that seed had been there for years before. To see the showreel celebrating the launch of the first issue, ‘The Indiscipline of Fashion’, please click here.

We asked Claire what inspires her drive and energy and she said:  ‘I really wanted to do something that would challenge me! I’ve always wanted to do well and been self-motivated.’ She’s highly ambitious but not at all in a materialistic way. ‘Bablake gave me confidence to carry out what I had known from the age of 8, namely to be in control of my life.’

Attentive at school, Claire had been developing her employability skills all along. At 13 she was selling Avon products, at 15 she was doing telesales, developing public relations, marketing and project management experience while fine-tuning negotiation skills. She mentioned she wanted to be a change-maker, a quest her online profile confirms. Claire’s recent findings with the psychology of fashion suggest this mission is not over and her determination will drive it to an impressive conclusion.

We wondered how she kept on finding new roles. Her network, Guardian Jobs, industry journals, individual university websites, her own reading and Jobs.ac.uk go a long way to solving this.

We asked about future plans and were not disappointed by the exciting answer.  As well as continuing as a lecturer at Grenoble, Claire will soon be moving to the London College of Fashion three days a week lecturing on a new Visual Fashion programme. As she said: ‘Fashion is constantly evolving, elusive, innovative and I am always learning.’ We look forward to Claire’s thesis appearing and have a suspicion that her findings and continued interest in the links between Psychology and Fashion will further increase her standing. Her curiosity is going to make a difference and a PhD in the future would be an immense project. Her interests in retail, fashion, technology, psychology, creativity and business are perfectly catered for in her current roles and future plans. The new fascination with psychology may turn to assessing the modern fascination with luxury brands and the therapy connected with them.

And if there was any advice for Bablake pupils interested in the creative arts, what would she say? ‘Choose a balance of subjects! My brief flirtation with French A Level has never been more useful than in my work in Grenoble. Work out what ultimately you love or have a passion for. To discover this, don’t be afraid of trying things, talk to those already doing jobs you like the look of and seek short placements. Finding out what you don’t like is invaluable. Always go for what you love. Be open to opportunities, don’t feel you need to be an absolute expert.'

Claire also advised not to let age hold you back. That’s something 19 year old Tavi Gevinson would uphold; starting her blog at 12, she established her style website Rookie in 2011 and is now moving to acting and singing. Like Tavi, Claire has not restricted herself to one field - her interests and energy have guided her stage by stage. Whether each new move has been in the Arts camp or Science category has been irrelevant for her skills lie in different areas... and so it will be for the majority of Bablake pupils on their journey. 

Photograph by Paul Hollingsworth / Richard Smith, from Claire Ritchie's collaboration with Stretch. Model: Shilpa Panchal.