Being Understated

People often tell me that I am understated and when I was younger this felt like a criticism. However, over the years I have come to like being understated as it appeals to my sense of curiosity and playfulness.

I spoke recently at the Festival of Marketing conference in London and at the end of my talk I asked the audience to look under their chairs as one of them was a lucky winner of a Semple Dress. Prior to the start of my session, I tied a tiny version of a Semple dress under one randomly chosen chair. As delegates entered the hall I was intrigued to see how many people sat down, changed seats, saved seats and moved up to make room for others. My designated chair with the hidden dress had at least three possible winners. In the end, Alessandra, an Italian woman won the prize. How ironic, given that our designs and fabrics are from Italy.

November has been a month of prize winning. As a guest at the London College of Fashion charity dinner we contributed a Semple dress to the silent auction that was raising funds for fashion student bursaries. As the evening progressed I could see that a bidding frenzy had begun. There was a lot of activity and at one point bidders were tweeting so that they could up their game. Interestingly the final bidders were men who were buying the bespoke Semple dress experience for their partners as a Christmas gift. I was delighted that we raised over £1,000 for such a good cause.

So I guess having a mixture of understatement, curiosity and playfulness works for me. But what about you? Have a great month finding out.