Design Education and Growth

Baroness Kingsmill Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kingsmill]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Whitaker for introducing this debate and for suggesting to me that I might speak in it. It happens to be an area in which I am most interested.

I started my working life in Paris, sitting on little gold stools at Christian Dior, Yves St Laurent and the like, scribbling away, trying to determine which fashion trends would be the hits of the following season. Under the tutelage of two very stylish French women, I began to understand and recognise good design. I spent six years in the heady world of fashion, working with highly talented designers, whose creativity and innovation contributed to establishing France as a global leader in the fashion industry and to the growth of some of its biggest companies, such as LVMH and PPR.

We, too, have a flourishing fashion industry, which last year is estimated to have contributed, directly and indirectly, £37 billion to our GDP. However, this is small beer compared to the giant fashion design houses of Italy and France. We are well known for our brilliant young designers and their edgy, innovative styles, but many of these young British designers are head-hunted away to France and Italy, where their talents are often more appreciated than they are here in the UK. Designers such as Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Phoebe Philo are well established names who have found the design environment more supportive in France and Italy than it is here, and have been enabled to develop their own hugely successful global brands as a result.

What is perhaps less well known is that many of the big international design houses, such as Marc Jacobs and Prada, are full of the brightest and best British designers, who have been unable to find an outlet for their talents in the UK. One distinguished magazine editor told me that British designers are the creative engine of the French fashion industry. We seem to be able to produce design talent but it appears that we just do not know how to use, develop and nurture it. We do not take design seriously. What a waste of an opportunity. As we slip down the world’s economic rankings, it is vital that we do not neglect the talents of designers.

I have been talking about fashion design because that is where I spent several years, but there are many other sectors where design is a significant driver of growth. As others have mentioned, the brilliant Jonathan Ive, whose creative partnership with Steve Jobs made Apple one of the world’s biggest companies, is a perfect example of how a business can be transformed by a great designer. The superbly designed terminal 5, which has so enhanced the air passenger’s experience of airports, is another. Dyson, too, demonstrates how innovative engineering design can completely change our perception of mundane domestic appliances and create economic growth and success.

Design and technology is a popular subject in schools. Young people like the problem-solving it entails and it is always satisfying to have an end product. I remember the stool that I designed when I was in school with more pride than any essay I ever wrote. We need to encourage and improve the teaching of design and ensure its place in the national curriculum. There is an enormous appetite among children and young people for this. I was deputy chairman of the Design Museum for six or seven years and this superb institution, under the consistent sponsorship and guidance of Sir Terence Conran, ran many hugely popular education programmes for young people. Its exhibitions raised awareness of the importance of design in a variety of fields, from street furniture to wallpaper, from shoes to aero-engine turbine blades, and many more. However, more needs to be done to ensure that the creative and innovative design talent for which we are justly praised in other countries is properly nurtured and encouraged at home.