Deidre Woollard, Editor of Luxist (INTERVIEW)

Luxist is an online collection of the most high-end luxury goods, and Deidre Woollard is the site’s editor. Not a bad job, and she doesn’t seem to think so either. We talked to Deidre about Luxist and the role trend spotting plays in her work. 

3 Questions with Deidre Woollard

1. How do you keep your work on the cutting edge?

These days there is no cutting edge, or rather the cutting edge isn’t something off in the distance, it’s everywhere. The world is cutting edge, it’s just a matter of filtering out the mundane but also staying open to the new.

It used to be that if someone was working on an idea they might not let the world know about it until it was fully fleshed out. These days creativity is more collaborative and so ideas flower more quickly but also the attention span of the world is shorter so things are quickly evaluated and discarded. It becomes a question of focus and being able to see the gold and zero in on it.

2. How do you reset yourself to become creative? Do you have any rituals?

Sometimes to reset you just have to unplug. Nature is the greatest creator and the greatest inspiration. I’m a big archaeology and history nerd and images of ancient places and art restore me.

I also cook. Cooking is one of the greatest forms of play and invention as well as a teacher of mindfulness. There are many ways to cut an onion and different reasons for each. Details like that are the foundation for greater leaps. Preparation yields inspiration. When I’m scattered and not creative, it’s because I’m out of touch with the basics.

3. What is an example of a time where you have thrown away an existing idea to force yourself to find something new?

Sometimes scrapping an idea is the hardest thing to do. The ego gets in the way and at times it doesn’t matter what other people say, you have to run with something until you realize you can’t make it work; you just have to prove it to yourself. 

For me one personal project outside of Luxist has been the idea of creating a way to wear technology in a way that is more like jewelry.  I don’t like carrying my iPhone in a purse and am not satisfied with clip-on cases. I’ve tinkered with a bunch of different cell phone cases and straps and haven’t found something that really works. It may be that the technology is going to shift in a way that may eventually make this easier.

It’s likely that I’m not the person to create this (I’m not a designer) or it may simply be a bad idea. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, it’s not going to happen right now. The important thing is to realize that there is always something else out there, always a new project even if at times the death of an idea can feel like the death of creativity.