how to searching for Out inventive Partnerships That Work

he is known for the loud crimson lips he paints on the whole thing from retailer home windows to designer handbags. The one hundred fifty,000 lovers on his Instagram account are among these clamoring to meet him in person at Bergdorf Goodman, shopping for the $forty five J.Crew T-shirts and $725 Brian Atwood pumps he is guest-designed.

(“Lips have paid the payments,” he advised quick company prior this year.)

Donald Robertson—the Estée Lauder inventive director and model illustrator—has carved out a spot in the fashion neighborhood together with his Instagram-pleasant drawings and inventive promotional techniques. And today he is releasing a coffee-table guide he wrote together with his spouse filled along with his whimsical fashion-driven illustrations: Mitford on the style Zoo. (Mitford is a black-framed-glasses-sporting giraffe who debuted on Robertson’s Instagram as Anna Wintour’s intern and now frolics within the fictional high-type universe of “Shark Jacobs” and “Mikael Boars.”)

To rejoice the release of the guide, Robertson is launching a collaboration nowadays with Rachel Shechtman’s big apple thought store Story, which changes its theme each month. Robertson has “artwork-bombed” the tenth Avenue retailer along with his work, and Story will sell products from lipsticks to headphones to Rolex watches that he custom-designed with brands like Warby Parker and UrbanEars until September 10.

Robertson not too long ago stuffed us in on how he’s made a lucrative occupation out of partnerships with the likes of Alice+Olivia, Bergdorf Goodman, Colette, Smashbox Cosmetics, and extra:

associate With your folks

“Collaborations beget collaborations,” Robertson says. “Of the folks that you companion with and work with, the most effective ones are the ones that counsel the next easiest ones.”

Rachel Blumenthal—entrepreneur and spouse of Warby Parker’s Neil Blumenthal—was once probably the most first to way Robertson when his Instagram changed into standard. After he labored together with her on her child merchandise site Cricket’s Circle, the Blumenthals presented him to their friend Rachel Shechtman. Robertson did a backdrop for her store, after which when it came time to launch his new e book in the U.S. (he’s Canadian), he knew whom to name.

His limited-run T-shirt line with J.Crew came thru close friend and J.Crew president Jenna Lyons. pal John Demsey acquired him the workforce gig at Estée Lauder . And now not most effective do his chums connect him to future companions—he is also ready to vet every new project thru individuals he already trusts.

“there have been no contracts; there have been no conferences. there have been no large negotiations. there have been no attorneys concerned. It was once just friends getting together and making stuff,” Robertson says of his partnership with Story. “It gives the entire thing a nice vibe.”

“i have now not signed a single contract. no longer one. And if I do [have to], i do not do it,” Robertson says. “If it’s so contract-y and panicky, then i don’t wish to do it. it’s really not the character of the beast.”

His “informal and enjoyable” advertising technique may appear dangerous—or even unattainable—from a trade point of view, however Robertson swears by means of it.

do not Go After the cash

“do not way issues from how much money are you going to make. it’s an entire and complete waste of time. and do not stroll away from awesome opportunities because of silly negotiations. simply get in there and muck around and get it in the market, and worry about it later,” Robertson says. “you’ll be able to get more cash doing a renegotiation off of something a success than you’re going to off of killing a challenge since you had been too arduous-ass in the beginning.”

In may, he collaborated with Bergdorf Goodman to promote his art with the aid of growing paintings on handbags for customers instantaneous without cost.

“a pair folks stated, ‘Donald, you are playing around. You must be charging.’ and that i was like, ‘just watch what happens.’ So I stood there at Bergdorf’s and that i hand-painted issues for prime-end shoppers.”

the following day, Beyoncé posted an image of herself conserving up a Clare Vivier bag on her weblog that he’d painted free of charge. He by no means asked Bergdorf for a fee.

“it’s no longer like a cash factor. it is no longer in reality like a piece factor. I call it paesano advertising,” says Robertson. “Paesano” interprets roughly to “countrymen” in Italian.

“if you’re an concept particular person, you are going to have extra ideas. What drives me loopy are the people that go to their graves with sensible ideas as a result of no one was prepared to pay for it,” he says. “when you have a superb concept, you are a sensible idea person, and you are going to have every other one, and any other one, and every other one.”

keep It within Your means

now not handiest do his side tasks no longer war together with his full-time job at Estée Lauder—he says they love the excitement he generates via his more than a few varieties of experimental advertising (even when he’s doing a capsule assortment for different cosmetics brands like Smashbox). Robertson’s work is constantly what he calls “limited-life”—fun, and disposable.

“the whole lot is geared to the truth that all of our consideration spans were shot to hell by means of Instagram,” he says. “i love to move to the people which can be the very, best possible in their category.” Colette is a favourite model, he says, as a result of creative director Sarah Andelman’s expertise in retail theater. Bergdorf is some other.

He tends to collaborate in a triangle with another prime brand or product and a partnering brick-and-mortar vicinity. It retains him from wanting to remain earlier his expiration date, and the problem of “stock” would not exist at all. instead, he tends to make items himself instant.

“i love the sensation of being so Amish,” he laughs.