Terence: The Man Who Invented Design - Hardcover

Mavity, Roger; Bayley, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408715198 ISBN 13: 9781408715192

Publisher: Constable, 2021

Synopsis

'A terrific read, bubbling with anecdotes and insight' Daily Mail, 2021's best biographies

'Bayley, the author of books on style, design and taste, tells the Habitat story with his customary polycultural panache . . . [Mavity is] good at conveying the experience of being in a room with Conran' Sunday Times

Terence Conran, a visionary and a myopic. A design entrepreneur and imaginative restaurateur, he was a democratising idealist who was also a selfish hedonist. His influence is everywhere in modern Britain from where we live to what we eat.

Terence: The Man Who Invented Design is the most definitive, intimate and revelatory biography of this design legend, by two of his closest collaborators, Roger Mavity and Stephen Bayley. Frank, amusing, indiscreet, sharp, rude, respectful and knowing, it tells Terence's story as it evolved, from before Habitat's humble chicken brick to Bibendum's sophisticated poulet de Bresse, via personal successes and corporate calamities, culminating in that peculiar temple to the religion he invented: The Design Museum. It celebrates Terence's genius and immeasurable impact on British life - and ensures his rightful status as national treasure. Terence: The Man Who Invented Design is the most candid, up-close insight into the man and myth.

About this title

About the Author

In the 1970s, Terence Conran plucked Stephen Bayley from the obscurity of provincial academe to do his good works. One result was The Boilerhouse Project, promoting design in London's V&A, which became the most successful gallery of the eighties. Another result was the influential Design Museum. Stephen has since become one of the world's best-known commentators on design and popular culture.

Roger Mavity had been hired by Terence many times and fired nearly as often. First at the French Gold Abbott ad agency where Roger won the Habitat advertising account; then at two more agencies including Mavity Gilmore, his own business. In 2006 he became Chief Executive of Conran Holdings, Terence's business empire, where he stayed for seven years. Roger also ran his own ad agency for ten years and was Chief Executive of Granada Group's technology and leisure divisions for another ten years. He quit business to work as a writer and photographer.

From the Back Cover

'Here I saw wonderful, ineradicable things: Maggie, the office manageress, a delightful woman with few affectations, being manhandled, squealing, down the stairs by Terence who was hissing: 'Gypsophila is fine. Daffodils are lovely. But not in the same fucking vase!' In its mixture of manic attention to detail, a keen sense of style, snobbery, humour and cruelty, this seemed a perfect miniature of the man's personality.'

From the Inside Flap

Terence Conran: a visionary and a myopic. A Francophile who could not speak French. A democratising idealist and a selfish hedonist. His was a life of contradictions, simultaneously a national figure and an enigma.
A design entrepreneur and imaginative restaurateur, his influence is everywhere in modern Britain from where we live to what we eat. He made it his life's work to escape suburban mediocrity, and to help the rest of us escape too.

An astonishing life, if not a contented one, Terence leapt from one idea to the next: he was a furniture manufacturer, a hotelier, an author, educator and patron. He married and separated from four women, fathered five children, made several enemies, antagonised countless shareholders, provided thousands, possibly millions, of column inches, and smoked over £1 million worth of cigars.

Terence: The Man Who Invented Design is the definitive biography of this design legend, by two of his closest collaborators, Roger Mavity and Stephen Bayley. Frank, witty and revelatory, it tells Terence's story as it evolved, from before Habitat's humble chicken brick to Bibendum's sophisticated poulet de Bresse, via personal successes and corporate calamities, culminating in that peculiar temple to the religion he invented: The Design Museum.

Providing an authentic and intimate insight into his life and legacy, Terence celebrates his genius and immeasurable impact on British life - and ensures his rightful status as national treasure.

Edition details

• Publisher: Constable
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1408715198
• ISBN 13: 9781408715192
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336