With a commitment to recognising excellence and championing the creative industries, the SBID International Design Awards presented its annual Fellow of the Year award to TV Dragon and retail entrepreneur, Theo Paphitis for his outstanding professional achievements. With a business empire that now spans retail, property, finance and consumer goods, he began his career from a low-income background with no formal qualifications due to his dyslexia.
Dr Vanessa Brady OBE, Founder & CEO of the Society of British and International Interior Design (SBID) explains: “The SBID Fellow of the Year is awarded to a successful public figure who has broken through personal and professional challenges, and in some cases prejudices, then progressed to become a household name in a specific field of business or the creative industries. Theo exemplifies the journey and struggles that many young designers and creatives are faced with. His personal and professional success is recognised in this award and acts as inspiration to the next generation of emerging talent to persevere through life’s challenges.”
At the age of 16 Theo started working as a filing clerk in a Lloyds of London brokerage before discovering his passion for retail at Watches of Switzerland. He later went on to carve his reputation in business and retail when he revived the fortunes of notable high street names such as Ryman, Partners the Stationers, Stationery Box, La Senza, Contessa Lingerie and more recently, Robert Dyas. Theo also bought Red Letter Days out of administration in 2005 with fellow TV Dragon, Peter Jones, and in the Spring of 2011, launched what has now become the multi-award winning, global lingerie brand, Boux Avenue.
In 2015 he launched Theo Paphitis Retail Group which encompasses Ryman Stationery, Robert Dyas, Boux Avenue and London Graphic Centre. The combined group comprises over 300 stores and 4,000 employees, serving millions of customers a year!
Theo Paphitis said: “Winning any award is wonderful, but to be recognised for the SBID Fellow of the Year award, amongst so many well-known design individuals, was beyond that. Retail is such a visual medium, whether it is the product, the brand or the store windows and inspiration can come in so many forms. My award is for all of those design specialists who have inspired me and so many of my retail colleagues over the years, helping us to put design front and centre in our businesses.”
The SBID Awards strives to empower design industry talent to exhibit their creative work and celebrate their achievements on its global stage, as a testament to the incredible outcomes that can be accomplished through the power of good design and quality craftsmanship.
Click here to explore the full line-up of this year’s SBID Awards winners across Interior Design, Product Design and Fit Out.
About SBID International Design Awards
The SBID International Design Awards attracts entries from over 85 countries worldwide, serving to recognise, reward and celebrate design excellence across Interior Design, Product Design and Fit-Out. Showcasing the world’s best design talent on its globally respected stage each year, the SBID Awards champions and challenges design standards – a parallel it shares its exceptional entrants. Winning a SBID International Design Award signifies outstanding industry achievement, with recognition that is second to none for the deserving winners.
If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.
Market expectations and perceived building standards are holding back the country’s progress to construct net-zero buildings, according to the UK Green Building Council, UKGBC. The organisation would like to see developers adjusting investor and owner-occupier expectations about green buildings and this should be set out early in a development’s narrative.
It is often said buildings were completely fitted out to maximize appeal during the leasing stage, resulting in over-provision and waste as typically incoming occupiers remove final fit-outs.
UKGBC head of business transformation Alastair Mant said: “Achieving the necessary reductions in embodied and operational carbon requires large scale changes to how buildings are designed, constructed, and operated. There are many barriers along the way and we must work quickly to identify them and the corresponding opportunities to overcome them.”
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Outside the Victoria & Albert Museum in London is a huge hoarding advertising a “unique property” – a “new residential development at a prime cultural heritage location.” There’s also a website to go to for interested parties – crownproperty.info
It’s all a huge joke, of course. Those who click on to the website will find themselves at a page on the Victoria & Albert museum for the artists Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset show Tomorrow. What’s so interesting is that this installation is the fictitious home of a 75-year-old unsuccessful architect called Norman Swann.
Pic 2. Bedroom of Tomorrow by Elmgreen & Dragset
But what does this tell us about the stereotype of the architect?
According to the Boyer Report: “Architecture schools should stop perpetrating the myth of the architect as visionary genius and encourage, along with design and theory, training in management, technology, and do everything in their power to discourage future generations of prima donna architects.”
Pic 3. Industrial-strength kitchen
I’d really like to ask some architects to see the show and tell me whether it misrepresents the profession to society.
Would this belong to an architect?
The artists explain how they started work on Tomorrow: “While selecting objects to furnish the apartment we began to envision pieces of dialogue between characters that we could imagine might inhabit the space,” explain the artists.
“So we wrote a script. It was sort of a reversed process where the props in our film set initiated the narrative. Now it’s our hope that visitors will interact with this set and discover their own clues as to who our fictional and quite eccentric inhabitant might be.”
The style of the house was traditional, old fashioned and tastefully furnished. The ultra-modern kitchen jarred as it was so out of keeping in terms of style and also Swann’s character. I don’t think his cooking ventured much further than a boiled egg.
It also reminded me of house viewings – would I buy this house? Yes I certainly would. Swann might be facing bankruptcy and forced to sell his home but he will get a few million for it and retire to Brighton, living happily ever after.
Author Fiona Keating, Editor at Inside Property
In 2008, SMEs (small to medium enterprises) had an annual turnover of £1,500 billion. £6.1 billion of this is an increase on figures for 2007.
So what does that mean in terms of financing Britain’s economy?
More importantly, what does that mean to you and your business if you are trying to promote opportunities in the year ahead and obtain credit to develop such opportunities as they arise?
The construction and design industry in general is finding different ways to do business; we have created alternative methods to achieve this, but it take time to do something well. We have of course like all new enterprises researched our business opportunity well. The value is ultimately in the R&D – a capital cost – which is what eventually separates you from your competitors.
Recently I attended the property industry event of the year at the Dorchester Hotel with 500 leaders of commercial industry, the biggest investors, developers and construction companies in Britain.
Delegates were informed 33% of all enterprises are in London and South East. These two geographical areas are prime target areas for concentrated business investment opportunities.
The financial year ahead will be a challenge to all businesses. In researching the 10 sectors in which The Society of British Interior Design represents, we have developed a road map defining the most effective categories for development and growth – the areas The Society will concentrate in the year ahead. We have therefore forged partnering agreements within those sectors and stepped back from those that do not fit our strategic goal.
On 22nd October I was honoured to form part of 14 industry leaders on an initiative panel at the Bank of England to present views and conditions for industry sectors, to review the past six months and present consulted industry views of members and stakeholders for the six months ahead.
The aims and objectives of the initiative panel were to identify and present the financial risks of downturn on the design and construction industry sector. The consulted and collated views of the members of The Society of British Interior Design therefore have a powerful influence on how the industry sector is regarded.
With Christmas parties now in full flow, January will be a moment of truth for businesses that have hidden behind their spin to finally deliver on their claims, only the best will now survive. Next year will be a very interesting year for our profession: we come of age, if not at first, then at last!
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