After 7 careers and many a success story, Tony Porter is still asking Whatever Next? As if, like a cat satisfied with what he has made 7 achievements of a lifetime is raring to strive for what is to come of his lives 8 and 9.
Whatever Next? Bring it on, he says.
This book is written for its own sake, and is a sequel to his new career in writing, as an author of his own history in non-fictional though non-trivial style. His first book, The Great White Palace, being such a huge success, beget the question of ‘what did you do with the rest of your life?’ Thus Whatever Next was born.
The White Palace was a great point of intrigue for readers. 16 years out of Porter’s life was dedicated to a self-financing business and home, almost a retirement to the countryside that turned into an esteemed avant-garde art-deco revival. A masterpiece restoration of a forgotten hotel on Burgh Island in picturesque pastoral of the South West, the man managed to spark a successful career in property renovation and subsequent Host of the major refined establishment on his first try. A theme of getting a ‘whole in one’ that prevails throughout his life.
This was not without the help of his beautiful and loving wife – a success story in its own right, for here is a story of when Porter ‘got the girl’, and have continued to be the perfect pair.
This partnership not only covered their parenthood of their three children – who are also successes in their own right – but also when Porter fell ill for the first significant time since his misfortunate childhood. B, the pretty abbreviated name for his beau, took command and co-piloted the business away from the cliff face and steered them into calm waters. B was like the stabilisers to his bike, she didn’t let the bike topple, showing that with B, Porter was never truly working it alone. With Tony taking a turn for the inert, B stepped in and saved his thriving, though young, PR firm at a crucial time in his 4th Career.
Since his career selling paint at ICI, team Porter conquered the Fashion PR world. With the journey beginning at Biba, as the head of the Mail Order campaign for the highly successful, universally venerated and loved by girls of high passions for their fashion in the 60’s Porter strung the first string of his fashion career Bow. Injecting all his efforts into his sister-in-laws fashion powerhouse the mail order died a death and so did Tony’s role in the company. As Biba grew exponentially, mail order could not keep up with the pace of growth and demand of the store born Biba brand. Struggling with a disproportionate supply to the fervent demand for the beautifully catalogued pinafores dresses Mail Order got swept under the rug in the chaos of Biba Fever.
“Biba’s fame grew and grew on an international basis, and brought famous stars of the sixties into the shop. Twiggy, a close friend of Barbara and her husband Fitz, was often around. During my time there, Marianne Faithful, Mia Farrow, Cilla Black and Yoko Ono all came in. On one occasion, word went round that Brigitte Bardot was in the shop, and I couldn’t resist going in to goggle at my favourite star!”
Knowingly tuning his mind then to the world of Fashion PR, using all his life experience of Sales, People, Places and Publicity, in the heat of the hour of leaving Biba, Porter climbed to the next rung on the ladder of his escalating career. With simple, forthright insight, Tony Porter became an instrumental force that reckoned with the logic of hosting a Collective Fashion Event in London, England, like that of the twice-yearly processions that took place in Milan and Paris. And, henceforth, London Fashion Week was born (then, 40 years ago, called British Fashion Week). With the help of his friends and colleagues in the field of fashion, Zandra Rhodes, Jean Muir and the Clothing Export Council of Great Britain, Porter unbeknownst to him at the time, literally changed the history of British Fashion and its place in the international fashion arena.
Now, in the midst of London Fashion Week at present, it seems appropriate to salute the founder of such a momentous and advantageous consortium. With only £1000, and a curious and agile mind, Tony Porter asked the question of England’s need to campaign their home-grown fashion ingenuity, and 40 years on we have one of the world’s most effectual fashion milestones in the year and the world.
With his colourful and extraordinary life, and knack for founding and rolling out such effective ideas that gain so much momentum of popularity, that came to shake the worlds they occupy, it becomes one to question whatever could be next? He first became famed in the field of fashion for his excellence of PR and singular model agancy, then came his fundamental input into the conception of the world reknowned LFW, and proceedingly he became a local legend and a celebrated author for his commitment to rescuing a relic building of a bygone era, and finally, with his taste for old vintage cars, he then began the Averton Gifford Classic Car Show – what started as a fundraiser for a pre-school he was trustee to turned in to a highly popular annual car convention for lovers of the vintage automobile, which proved to have a lot of appreciators.
It is quite astounding the life this man has led, and “Mixing, as [he does], with so many ages and careers, [he] found that people could not believe how many things [he] had done,” and so wrote a book about it. Enter, his 8th career.
This autobiography is intriguing, quick, witty, and somewhat beguiling. Thinking to look to the future of his writing career he says he won’t think to touch on fiction for fear of being ‘too naughty’, however, whilst reading this epic chronicle one does find themselves wondering how on earth this story if bound to the life the non-fictional man. There is no embellishing and no need for fiction, Porter really has led an extraordinary life, which, as a book, will bring entertainment to many, but in the grand perspective of it all, has and will continue to bring richness to many, many more lives in the many things that have sprouted, budded and flowered from the seeds that he planted.
He was once an imaginary and faceless Creator and Parent of the LFW we know today, and he is now, unmasked in his memoirs, as creditable Father of Fashion.
Now, as the narrative reaches near to the present day at its closing pages, it is hinted that perhaps his 9th and last jovial play and concluding career could be the sequel to these lively anecdotes. Perhaps this auspicious autobiography will become a preproduction screenplay and animate into a film of his life and a lens to the man that took brave strides and a happy casualness to make such successful careers that have come to somewhat shape the respective fields we see today.
What a dynamic man, what a motivated man, what a vivacious man, what an inspiration, what a man. He got many balls rolling, and so he will keep on rolling, onwards and upwards Porter, bowling onto new ground, undaunted and excited.
We have got to ask, whatever next?
Book Retails at £9.99 here
