WOMAN POWER
THE DESIGNERS
Founders Meriel Scott and Sophia Wimpenny, joined four years ago by Ali McCulloch, together comprise the Precious McBane design studio, based in the Clerkenwell area of London.
These talented women designers have worked for a string of high-profile clients including Habitat, Nike, Virgin Radio and pop diva Alison Goldfrapp.
The company is part of the VX Collective that brings together and nurtures a wide spectrum of Britain’s hottest, up-and-coming design expertise, and Precious McBane have been advising Vauxhall on visualising a service station of the future, exploring how changing technologies and the increased influence of style and design can be brought together.
They have also worked on the Vauxhall Art Car project, producing downloadable and easily removable tattoo transfers (as described in VHAPPENING) that can be printed onto vinyl and attached to a car’s bodywork to individualise it.
‘All the projects we take on are about attention to detail and injecting some kind of humour and something unexpected’, says Meriel Scott. ‘We love being part of the VX Collective because we really enjoy collaborating with different artists and designers.’
The VX Collective is also split evenly between male and female designers, echoing the trend in the design field generally. ‘It was very male dominated when I started’, Meriel says. ‘Traditionally men were more in evidence but that’s changing now.’
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Emma Harrison is the embodiment of Girl Power in action, a successful entrepreneur, one of the most powerful women of her generation, and chairman of A4e, a company she founded in 1986 to provide training and opportunity for people made unemployed by the decline of the steel industry in Sheffield. She is also one of the 300 Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World, whose joint turnover in 56 countries is over £125 billion.
Emma lives with husband Jim and their young family at Thornbridge Hall, their stately home in Derbyshire which is also A4e’s headquarters. She is passionate about what she does, and wants to see more young women venturing into business. ‘The creation of a business and creation of wealth is true creativity. We need more entrepreneurs in this country because that is where the wealth of the nation comes from.
‘If I go into a school and ask a young woman what she wants to be, I tell her that one thing she could be is an entrepreneur and then she could create jobs for other people.’