There was an excited buzz throughout the class that day because we knew that this designer was coming to talk to us and look at our work. We had heard that he had worked with Calvin Klein and Nautica and that he had recently moved back from America to start up a business here. We were all slightly hyperactive, giggly and nervous. That quickly dissapated as Mr Colin Reed took centre stage amongst us and recounted the story of his career......
He began by informing us that he came from place called Hoic. Here designers such as Prigle and Jaeger had set up business among the border mills.
Leaving school at sixteen, Colin had a few O-levels but nothing that would see him on to University. He went to work for Pringle of Scotland and his first job was as an apprentice frameworker, where he learned about knitting the garments and studied everything about knitwear within the textiles mills.
At the age of nineteen he became an apprentice for the designers of Pringle and after putting together a small portfolio and requesting an appointment with the Managing Director, he was soon designing his own ranges for the company such as the Nick Faldo Golfing Range.
The next step was University. He described the other student's portfolios at interview as being fantastic and his description of their work demonstrated his admiration and inspiration to make beautiful design his passion in life. He describe dhis own portfolio as a work portfolio, but I am sure that he portrayed the same professionalism that day at Kingston University as he did when presenting to us.
As graduate of Kingston in 1990 he moved back to Scotland as Britain had gone into a recession and there were no design jobs to be found.
The opportunity arose for him to work in New York with Donna Karan and so he went over there and began working with her. His best friend Alan Scott aslo moved across to New York and they both worked at Donna Karan. These were the days when designers were like royalty and DKNY, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren all worked within the same area of New York.
He helped to rebrand the CK logo whilst working at his second design position within Calvin Klein, and watched as a company grew out of the power that the brand and the logo conveyed. He claimed that the logo pulled Calvin Klein out of the red and into the black.
Nautica was the nest company that he worked for and he stayed there for twelve years due to the people that he was working with and a feeling that he was able to grow within that company. Whilst there he became the Director for the International Division which meant that he was creating designs according to the nationality of the market as this is a global brand.
He then started his own company called Cailean which is the Gaelic for Colin. This was going back to his roots and was a cashmere line which was knitted into skinny shapes and worn by celebrities such as Liv Tyler and Gwyneth Paltrow.
After a few years though he had to go back to Nautica as they needed his help as the company was going through a bad patch. His design idea of making skinny cashmere pieces was taken over by another company and so was his idea no longer. He seemed to accept this fact as if that was just the way it was.
Colin moved back to scotland in November to start his own business. He an see potential in Britain to succeed as a creative force and with elements such as the Royal Wedding and the Olympics coming up there are plenty of opportunities to take ideas to a global market once more.
