How Painting Changed My View of a Spreadsheet

For years I have run HACOY out of Italy and Lithuania, and I spend most days wrestling with spreadsheets. They are full of numbers and data which keep the brand going. The other day it dawned on me that my life in fashion is a lot like my painting. When I started painting regularly again, I noticed how similar they were. In both cases there are lines, colors, and shapes that must be handled with care. The canvas or spreadsheets have to be filled in a way that makes sense. In fashion the fabrics need to fit together for a cohesive line. It is all about patterns. In painting, if something goes wrong you can scrape off the paint and start over. With HACOY it's not so simple. I cannot just scrap an entire season or discard a collection. I have to work with the tools at hand and move on from mistakes without destroying what has already been created. In both cases, you need to keep going forward. The small details are important in both worlds too. There is always something that can be refined; a color here, a number there. It's not about one thing being perfect but many things adding up to a whole.