Blowout: A Community’s Engagement with Fracking

Items

• Ignaz Gorischek - 05 - Relationship with retail practice
  "Three-dimensional story telling," relationship with theater, visuals that connect with someone, "opportunity to try to get someone to stop in their tracks," would take escalator rather than elevator to hear what customers are saying to get feedback, problem solving and risk grow as career does
• Ignaz Gorischek - 04 - Building career in retail
  Importance of building own craft and style, need to stand out, highly motivated in workforce rather than academia, "my talents came out in the retail world," looked to short and long-term goals and for mentors across the field, "the further up the ladder you go, the further you get from the creative part," providing vision rather than creativity further up towards management, made the choice to move up the ladder but always have one project to flex creative skills, value of growing people
• Ignaz Gorischek - 03 - Early interest in fashion illustration
  Intrigued by advertising, combination of commercial art and advertising, liked to draw, fashion illustrations appeared in newspapers regularly, but then sidetracked into visual through sporting goods store job, applied commercial art concepts to display which also used design principles, "people are playing me to go into work and play," follow opportunities and learn along the way, importance of trying things when you're young
• Ignaz Gorischek - 02 - Beginning of career in retail
  Career began with first display "based on a joke," made goofy display in ski shop in sporting goods store, had aimed for career as commercial artist but pivoted with that job
• Ignaz Gorischek - 01 - Introduction
  Biography of narrator, in department store world for over 40 years, started right out of college, made career "out of being creative," with Neiman-Marcus for over 25 years, focused on customer experience, later dec
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 35 - AIDS crisis and Neiman-Marcus response
  Not much response to AIDS formally, did get involved with fundraisers
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 34 - LGBTQ people in Dallas fashion community
  Some homophobia in older people, very widely accepted today
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 33 - AIDS epidemic and fashion
  Slowly lost colleagues, has a friend who survived, lost a lot of talent and good apparel designers and artists, worked with a lot of gay people in visual environment
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 32 - Dallas fashion community
  Dallas Apparel Mart gave greater opportunity to flourish, Market Hall with gift market, publications were helpful (like "Inspirations"), important to stay in touch with people you've been exposed to
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 31 - Typical day of work in Neiman-Marcus corporate
  Look over area for "little things," review merchandise, know what was ahead to learn about next promotion, work with artists like Allen Shaffer for paper sculpture make make display more special
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 30 - Fortnight as fantasy
  Balancing education and entertainment, "plenty to absorb that was true culture" but at times compromises made to make facade work for the store, "there's a lot of make believe in visual"
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 29 - Fortnight products still owns
  Table of tiger eye wood from Brazil fortnight, wool rug from Irish fortnight, purchased small pieces along the way, has several posters including one from Japan that was framed
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 28 - Japanese Fortnight
  Personal interest and travel before event, merchandise felt different than most Neiman-Marcus offerings, food was very different
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 27 - Learning about Fortnight countries
  Staff relied on information from Alvin Colt and merchants, who traveled to countries up to years in advance and worked to find funding for the events
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 26 - Fortnight as Dallas community event
  Event that families attended, "you could learn a lot from it," a lot of history, tradition for people in Texas
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 25 - Fortnight in other Neiman-Marcus locations
  Minor props, some of the merchandise from other country available, occasional personal appearances, sometimes bring in local examples of culture
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 24 - Rest of merchandise during Fortnight
  Stored in back, some still available on sales floor, earlier on more happened than later on, became very expensive, later didn't have the same impact
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 23 - Neiman-Marcus fortnight staging
  Seeing facades at Applied Arts in advance, knew about merchandise in advance, immersed beforehand, mannequins prepared in advance, "village of people" to assist with installation, hung an artwork from the Dallas Museum of Art that was torn
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 22 - Neiman-Marcus fortnight preparation
  Theatrical, "store turned into another country," working with Alvin Colt as designer, worked with buyers to find merchandise from other countries, working with Applied Arts to build props, music and food from other countries, Japan includes bonsai trees, escalator turned into a dragon, epicure shop for France
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 21 - Differences between Neiman-Marcus stores
  Advertising differed in each city, some stores more casual, varied in scale, put together manuals as directives for different departments, corporate travel meant "eyes" on other stores
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 20 - Corporate growth at Neiman-Marcus
  Carter Halle Hale bought Neiman-Marcus, new stores opening, earlier NM tried to take TX history to other locations, in St. Louis store windows included cactus and sand with fur coats to mimic west Texas, later drew inspiration from individual cities, oil derrick gushing chocolate in another store
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 19 - Downtown Neiman-Marcus as "mothership"
  Tried to replicate flagship in other stores, clean and upscale look
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 18 - Neiman-Marcus way
  Merchandise speak for itself, no excess trim, plexiglass risers and blocks to display jewelry
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 17 - Corporate cohesion
  Store opening in St. Louis was earlier one outside of Texas, seasoned corporate staff train new store staff in the "NM way," worked with different departments
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 16 - Working with buyers and products
  Buyers giving presentations of merchandise, directives from visual and advertising, create cohesive feel