14 Leading Women Creatives Share The Best Career Advice They’ve Been Given
Over the past two years at Service95, we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing so many incredible women leading the charge in their respective cultural fields in our The Way I Work… series. To celebrate International Women’s Day, we have brought together some of our favourite career advice from these gamechangers across the worlds of art and books to fashion, food and music…
1. Laila Gohar, Chef & Food Artist
“Put your head down and keep working. There are no shortcuts. Also, surround yourself with great people. I am lucky to work with an extremely loyal, hardworking and funny team. Success is about partnership, it doesn’t just come to one person. If I hadn’t figured out a way to express myself and found this career, I think I would be in a lot of trouble…”
2. Tatiana Kartomten, AKA Tati Compton, Tattoo Artist
“David Bowie once said something that I totally live by. He said: ‘Never work for other people at what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside you that you felt that if you could manifest it in some way, you would understand more about yourself or how you coexist with the rest of society.
‘I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people’s expectations. I think they generally produce their worst work when they do that. If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.’”
3. Arlo Parks, Musician & Poet
“Do what you find unbearable not to do.”
4. Caroline Rush, CEO Of The British Fashion Council
“Strive for excellence, but if you fall short, remember no one died. It is all about perspective.”
5. Michèle Lamy, Fashion Creative
“I am very comfortable with what I am doing now, but other people would call it chaos. I guess the advice was just to follow my own path but make sure my spirit was good enough to see a blank page and say: what are we going to do here? I like the chaos. If I wasn’t doing this, [do] you think I could be a brain surgeon? No, I think I would just be a nomad in the desert; someone who tells stories about the sky.”
6. Loretta De Feo, Beauty Entrepreneur
“I was told I shouldn’t launch Dizziak until I had a full product range, as no retailer would want to partner with me with just one product. I ignored this, launched with one product [the best-selling Deep Conditioner], and it went straight in the windows of Liberty. Selfridges came a few weeks later.”
7. Bettina Korek, CEO Of The Serpentine Galleries
“A few years back, I was getting frustrated and being hard on myself and an amazing book editor told me, ‘A career is like a painting, the small strokes add up to the big ones.’ It’s so easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, so this was such generous wisdom.”
8. Esi Edugyan, Chair Of Judges For The Booker Prize
“When my husband was a student, his writing professor told him, ‘Enjoy this time in your writing career because, as you’re undiscovered, you can do anything. So be at your most playful in your work and don’t be worried about recognition, or publishing, or impact, or awards. All of these things add this layer of anxiety to your creative process.’ That’s a wonderful thing to say to a young writer. I still try to follow it today.”
9. Isamaya Ffrench, Makeup Artist And Founder Of ISAMAYA
“Do it yourself – don’t wait for anyone else.”
10. Anissa Kermiche, Designer
“My friend Sabrina Herlory-Rouget, the CEO of Mac Cosmetics in France, told me: ‘If you talk about it, it’s a dream. If you envision it, it’s possible. But if you schedule it, it’s real.’ I’ve taken that with me: whatever it is in life, if you don’t schedule it, it gets easily lost and remains a dream.”
11. Anna Jewsbury, Jewellery Designer At Completedworks
“Take the time to collaborate or learn from other people, especially from different disciplines. Often, collaborating with an artist is about opening up to a new way of working and a new way of seeing something. Be continually curious about things.”
12. Isabelle Allende, Author
“Something I heard from the writer Elizabeth Gilbert: don’t expect your writing to give you fame, or money, or even publication. Write because you love the process, because it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.”
13. Imogen Kwok, Culinary Artist
“Don’t rush into a new idea just because you’re super excited and impatient to see it realised. It’s important to wait for the right moment instead of letting your emotions lead the way (which is what I tend to do). Obviously, you also need to be unafraid to take risks, but it should be balanced with understanding – you don’t want to botch what could potentially be an amazing project because you were restless and not ready.”
14. Dr. Barbara Sturm, Skicare Expert
“The most valuable lesson I learned was from my mother and that is to be kind and respectful to everyone. Approaching people with kindness and respect is a beautiful deed that takes no extra time.”
Jamie Styles is Digital Editorial Assistant at Service95
