Tired of a plain old white apron all the time? Hedley& Bennett apron is the choice to go for. Ellen Bennet, the CEO of the apron empire was one of the first people to renovate the ideas of aprons. Within 5 years, Ellen turns an abstract idea, an idea that was rather playful, an idea of making aprons more appealing to the eyes, into a multi-million dollars company of apron that is ubiquitous to restaurants all over the country, if not the world. Her influences across the culinary world is undeniable. Her ideas make their appearance from Mastro’s Steakhouse in Los Angeles to Baco Mercat’s restaurant. Hedley & Bennett has even been called the “Apple” of the culinary world.
Starting as a line cook, making around 10$/hour at 2-star Michelin restaurant, Providence, Ellen revolutionize kitchenware industry. Frustrated with the quality and the impracticality of her current apron, Ellen wanted to simply make an apron that is both nice-looking and practical. Ellen biggest desire at the moment was “to have fun–all the while making “Proper bad-ass apron”.” After her first set of self-made apron, she started to gain popularity among chefs and restaurants across the country. Disposing of the old, rigid, unnecessary big tradition of the apron, Ellen made her product colorful, stylish and “fit” to the purpose. 
Rebellious, yet stay within boundaries, live in fantasy but also stay with reality, escape the status quo and being passionate about it are all the qualities talked about in Csikszentmihalyi’s book about creative people. Ellen is a designer, a dreamer, an entrepreneur, a rebel, she is them all. With her passion for designing and continuation of experimenting, her products keep getting better. Just as pointed out by Teresa M. Amabile, creativity is only partly due to talent, the rest is from hardworking and passion for the profession. Ellen keeps on working, experimenting and getting feedback from her customer, she perfects her products day by day, improving as well as creating more creative aprons. Hell, she even outfitted actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson to host the James Beard Award wearing a red apron she designed.
To be able to create such creative products, Ellen would go to the fabric warehouse, cutting out all types of fabric, try them and feel them. It gives her a better idea of what she wants in her aprons. Then she would incorporate her ideas with that of the customers to create what best fits the needs of the restaurants. Different from stereotype creative geniuses like Einstein or Picasso, Ellon does not want to lock herself up in a room with a computer and drawings and stay in there until she can create an idea that would work for her. She would bike in the park, see the scenery around the city, go swimming, find her inspiration “from real life”, said Ellen. She would then let those ideas, inspirations incubate. Then she put those inspirations, those colors that she saw into her aprons. She would think like a child, making colorful rather than plain, old, white aprons like adults would. Her openness to experience has allowed her to explore ideas from all sort of fields items while doing different activities. Ellen said that “My inspiration comes from all the adventures I have everywhere. I can be walking down the street and I love the way a green trash truck looks as it’s behind a yellow wall that it’s driving by.”
To sum it up, Bennett’s aprons fame has not only penetrated in the culinary world but has also diffused into different fields for different professions such as artist, florist, sculptor, potters, etc. The creative styles and the distinctive colors of its aprons make Hedley & Bennett the company that revolutionizes the traditional ways of the aprons.
I found it interesting how Ellen Bennet’s creative idea was sparked from simply trying to make her day job better. I think that her creative process fits well into the model of creativity we have been discussing which is that to be creative is to find a unique solution to a problem. Do you think most creativity is sparked from more tangible problems, like Bennet’s quandary of how do I address the problems with aprons that I have encountered, or do you think creative problem solving tends to be more abstract problems solving, for example, how do I translate this feeling or idea on to a page or any other medium?
ReplyDeleteThis is something super interesting to think about! When you think about revolutionizing an industry, you would never think about the apron industry, and yet it needed to be revolutionized out of necessity. I enjoyed her creative process and how she really does draw inspiration from everyday life, like how she mentioned the trash truck. I wonder how she will continue to change the apron because for me it seems there is only so much you can change about an apron, but clearly there an infinite things you can change.
ReplyDeleteI really like this! As weird as it may sound, a small part of me has loved aprons since I was a little kid. And to have someone rethink something as seemingly basic as an apron is so cool. I really like how you showed where her first bit of inspiration came from. It crazy how something simple like a odd job can spark a creative idea. The people who not only see areas for growth but have the skill and talent to act on them are really unique.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the idea that she was given an issue that was affecting her and used her own knowledge and expertise created her own brand of apron. I believe that her past also has a direct affect on her as she had knowledge about aprons and cooking. Once she came to her realization she was able to come to a creative thought that was influenced by her own issues. Its so cool that she could come up with this idea.
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