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Saturday, 6 October 2012

8OTH YEAR - SIR TERENCE CONRAN

8OTH YEAR - SIR TERENCE CONRAN

One of our country's leading design influences thankfully has seen the value of what we've got here in our ARCHIVES - LeslieCreasey.com

Sir Terence Conran

Whilst Terence was Provost at The Royal College of Art in Kensington he very kindly appraised the content and value of my archives for education and research and wrote the following

“What Leslie Creasey has accumulated since he first began taking press clippings 35 years ago is a truly remarkable achievement – he is part historian, part sociologist and part librarian. But his greatest accomplishment, and Leslie’s gift to us all, is the content of his planned website which brings this encyclopedic catalogue and hundreds of thousands of articles and press photography to life. It is an invaluable resource that will enthral and educate students, press officers, researchers, scholars, scientists, designers, anthropologists and, like me, those with an inquisitive nature. The site that is nearly ready for launch has been brilliantly designed – not only does it look great, it is easy to use and functions perfectly allowing you to navigate through several decades of contemporary history. The cuttings have been remarkably preserved and the photography is clear. Whether for work, education or just curiosity this website is a serious almanac of recent times and I cannot recommend its worth highly enough.”

Terence  Conran


The use of our images taken from LeslieCreasey.com falls within the "FAIR USE" principles for education and research 

 

Terence Conran the multi faceted designer now in his 80th year has been a beacon and inspiration to me going back many years to the early 60's when I used to drive past his furniture factory in Thetford - Norfolk (termed the salesman's graveyard) when a representative for an engineering company that made plant for the civil engineering and construction industries  - those were the days!!

  In the days of Storehouse,  when Terence was the CEO, I approached him as they  were in a consortium with amongst others, Ralph Halpern (who was running the Burton Group and one of my clients) and bidding in 1985 for Debenhams to see whether, after they had secured 'the deal',  they might be interested in using some of the 'new space' created by the planned atrium in the Debenhams' Oxford St. Store to take a franchise from Gordon Segal who was the creator and CEO of Crate and Barrel to help rev up their 'home sector', C&B being  the most successful of 'home' stores in the States, unfortunately it came to nothing as Ralph and Terence ultimately "didn't see eye to eye"!!

 

When attending Mary Quant's husband's -  Alexander Plunket Greene -  funeral in 1990  I met up with Terence's son Sebastian by his marriage with Shirley which led on to my working with him and his brother Jasper .

 

Terence with one of his protege's TOM DIXON -designer of lighting and furniture and many other products

 

Thomas Heatherwick is another of Terence's protege's who amongst other  masterpieces designed the fabulous and jaw dropping 2012 Olympic Cauldron and ever more innovative creations.

Terence recently described Thomas as a modern day Leonardo da Vinci

 

All images used on the Leslie Creasey Blog are from my hand clipped archive documenting 35 years of Style and Design media.  For all enquiries please contact leslie@charismatic-brands.com.


 

 

 

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