Charles Darius – Bespoke Designer & Founder of Charles Darius, a Luxury Lifestyle House; Dealing with critics / haters; making a name for yourself; getting into a flow; where creativity comes from

Segment 1: (Length :05:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Charles Darius and his journey as a designer thus far, as well as his background; from creating a brand production company to starting his own.

Charles’ finer points:

“We spent the past few years developing brands from the ground up for many people. We were super successful at doing so. We worked with the kids of Bob Marley on their own brands and they made Forbes. Essentially the became a global brand.“

“That being said, and I still own the agency, working for someone else you still are doing something for someone else.”

“As exciting as it is to work on something like headphones for the kids of Bob Marley and the next day you’re working on the new F1 engine and the next day you work on some jewelry design, when you work on your own products and brands allows you to come back to being an artist.”

“When you’re working on your own brand, you express for yourself your own products, your own vision and how you imagine the world.”

“When I came back to design later on, it was really by passion. At the end of the day, I was never happy with sitting somewhere else with someone else’s technology. . . I was always frustrated with what was in the world. So that’s how I got back into my craft.”

Segment 2: (Length :07:00) – Talking with Charles Darius; Dealing with the industry, the critics / haters and making a name for yourself.

Charles’ finer points:

“You will always have haters. At some point you will just need to tell yourself not to take it personally. You cannot appeal to everyone. The most important thing to do is stay true to what you intended to do.”

“As a designer, it sucks sometimes. For instance. We have these bracelets. It’s basically a leather bracelet with a metal clasp with gold . . . but when you open the bracelet it’s a wifi cable for your iPhone, iPad or whatever. . . “

“. . . And the way we went through, we did a lot of pre-sales. We had to deal with a lot of manufacturing issues even though we spent a year developing everything – perfect prototypes, prices were set, all the vendors and manufacturers were set up and we had a schedule and so on . . .”

“. . . Going from prototyping to mass manufacturing can have technical issues, which can delay everything. Then you have guys who spend about $5o on a product and they know that it’s a preorder and they have to wait 90 days, that start to assassinate you on social media. As a designer you’re like, ‘That’s my name. That’s my baby. I spent a year and a half doing this stuff.’ So, it’s important to deal with this kind of stuff. It’s hard to anticipate it when you’ve been designing for other people and you don’t have to deal with that aspect of the business.”

“As far as spending time on creativity as well, when we get into now making product and marketing product and so on, you can still lose yourself in that aspect for a moment. As a creative, you need to take a break. At the end of the day, I made this because I like making stuff. The rest matters, but you still need to go back to the root of creating.”

Segment 3: (Length :07:00) – Balance between design and business; Sticking to your vision & mission

Charles’ finer points:

“Some days it gets very blurry. When you design for someone else it’s very particular . . . We start by analyzing the entire infrastructure and business model. Meaning, we want to know what’s your infrastructure, what’s your business plan, what’s your manufacturing costs, what’s the number of uniques you want to make, what your distribution strategy, etc. etc. . . . This is very targetd“

“As far as for my brand, there is part of that, but part of it is designing because I like it. When I design for someone else, I don’t have to like it because I’m not the target demographic of that person. I need to make a product that fits a specific segment in the world that people are going to like and purchase in the world.”

“For my brand, the point is to be an artist and hopefully make money on it to sustain the activity on it.”

Segment 4: (Length :07:00) – Where Charles’ creativity comes from; Getting into flow of creativity

Charles’ finer points:

“It took me awhile to answer this. Where does my creativity come from? A lot of it comes because I was fortunate to work and be acquainted with so many different industries. The more exposure you get, the easier it is to find your matches.”

“Because I’ve been exposed to so many industries, I get to find some added values between one industry to another that has nothing to do with each other but you can find opportunities.”

“Just being able to travel a lot. Last year I went to 15 countries so I get to see a lot of cultures, what they need, how they behave. It’s a lot about observing people’s lives.”

Segment 5: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:

“Design is not only about drawing something beautiful. It requires to understand and master the entire paradigm in which lives the intended artifact from the consumer benefits, to the qualities of the material, the manufacturing techniques . . . It is both an art and a science.”

– Charles Darius – From his Website

GENERAL NOTES:

Charles Darius – Bespoke Designer & Founder of Charles Darius, a Luxury Lifestyle House

• Originally from the Champagne region in France, Charles Darius started his career designing for a variety of industries.

• After successfully co-founding the global strategy & design agency, Ateliersavant, based in Beverly Hills, CA – he decided to create and share his own vision, unencumbered by corporate branding decks and so-called brand stewards.

• Ever collaborative, Charles Darius designs and crafts his artifact collections with some of the most talented artisans from France and around the world.

• Through his label, Charles Darius, he offers a range of fashionable accessories including eyewear, jewelry, leather goods, sculptural Objets d’Art and other artifacts available by pre-order and private consultation.

• Because he has specialized in the design & craft of one-of-a-kind items, Charles Darius has created the bespoke design service “Un Entretien Bespoke™” (a Bespoke Interview) with the intent to answer the needs of the never-ending imagination of the most powerful people in the world.

 

###