Connecting Creativity

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Connecting Creativity

Luigi Maramotti

What is creativity? How are ideas generated? How do we define a creative
person? Such questions have probably crossed our minds more than once,
but rarely do we realise how much we depend on this very special output of
human intelligence. If we look at the products around us, most of which
today are manufactured industrially rather than handmade, we can appreciate
how their design is related to creative thought and to the necessity for
innovation and change. As the Chairman of the MaxMara group, with an
annual turnover of £600 million, more than twenty separate collections and
600 stores situated around the globe, I have been confronted quite forcefully
with this thought. I have devoted this chapter to discussing creativity, ideas
of what it is, and how, in my experience it can be organized in order to
originate some of the remarkable results that industry is capable of achieving,
particularly in the world of fashion.
The first personal intuition I had about the importance of creativity was
through the Disney character, Archimedes; the light bulb that appeared every
time he had a good idea fascinated me. It may seem an unintellectual
approach, but I have always liked the idea of invention as sudden intuition,
and the magic behind it. The abstract concept of creativity can be linked to
the selection, from thoughts and things, of those which lead to innovation,
change or improvement. Creativity can be formatively defined as behaviour
which includes such activities as origination, organisation, composition and
planning. Any definition we may try will not be fully satisfying because, in
order to make creativity distinguishable from mere arbitrariness, there must
be a sort of legislation. We are perfectly aware, in the world of fashion, for
instance, odd does not mean fashionable. There are plenty of examples, from
the past and in the present. George Brummel was a fashionable trendsetter,
while Liberace was an eccentric oddity; Chanel was a priestess of style whilst
Mae West was provocative, amusing or comic.
Creativity is often associated with irrationality or pure intuition, but this,
in my view, is an erroneous belief. I believe that creativity has to be part of a