Day 49 -18th Feb

DELIGHT

Mise en place

Everything in its right place.
Not a thing out of place.

The Calvin curse
Of mothers on our shoulders,
Demanding standards
Through love and avarice—
On your behalf.

If you chanced upon
Their woodland dance,
The Maenads would pull you apart for less.
No less than a reclamation,
An exhumation—
Knowing you will be left with nothing
But yourself.

Cloth and hefty silver scissors
To cut through this cloud-star tapestry.
Some go and just cut the fucking arm off a dress,
Tear it limb from limb
With the same scissors,
And self-select
For their ascension to atelier.

So take off your dirty shoes
Of the everyday
At the stoop of the fashion house,
The genkan of the tea house,
The boot room of the big house.
Walk as Maenad—barefooted,
Boundless,
Unravelled.

Pick a piece you like,
And with delight
And joy in your heart,
Make it better.

Niall Campbell

When working with a client recently, two French terms emerged as deeply useful for the creative process—mise en place and atelier.

Mise en place (French for "everything in its place") refers to the practice of organising ingredients, tools, and equipment before cooking.

An atelier is a workshop or studio, particularly for artists, designers, or craftsmen. Traditionally, it is where apprentices learn under master artisans in a hands-on, mentorship-based setting.

These ideas resonated because of a common struggle among recovering creatives—whether they’re just dipping a toe back in or are already successful but stuck. The realisation? You often need to reorient yourself toward play and delight before getting stuck into the craft of actually making the work.

This distinction is crucial. It is the tension between the Dionysian and the Apollonian elements of creativity.

Dionysus, before being bastardised into Bacchus—the god of drunkenness—was the god of wine, sacred reverence for nature, and play. He was not strictly masculine but an embodiment of both masculine and feminine energies. His androgynous depiction bears striking similarities to Jesus of Nazareth, as do many elements of his narrative arc.

His followers, the Maenads, were wild priestesses who worshipped in ecstatic frenzy. This act was not to be witnessed by men, and if stumbled upon, the intruder would be torn limb from limb. This represents the shadow side of the feminine—a force often suppressed in corporate culture and, historically, violently repressed. It will not be denied.

Like Maleficent in fairy tales (who, if not invited to the party, will crash it in destructive ways), the suppressed feminine creative energy resurfaces as self-sabotage—subtle against oneself, passive-aggressive toward others. Not for everyone, but a predictable pattern.

However, when embraced and integrated, it undergirds nothing less than taste. It is passion. In men and women, it generally manifests differently, but if not thwarted in childhood, its fruits are extraordinary.

The Path to Taste: Structure as a Servant

My insight from working with this client: the Dionysian energy has almost always been oppressed, and we must carve out space to restore it.

If you have a creative project, you must first indulge in this space—a bit like an atelier, where fashion houses in the grand old cities would spend extravagant amounts of time and money experimenting, providing deep hands-on mentorship to apprentices.

My wife, a clinical psychologist with a background in fashion design and textiles, once made me watch McQueen on a plane—a documentary about Alexander McQueen’s rise in fashion. I initially resisted, thinking the fashion world vapid, but she was (as usual) right.

It was fascinating to see this East End working-class boy defy his father’s suggestion to flog dresses for a few hundred quid in Brick Lane and instead stay true to pure creativity. For all his chaos, McQueen at times embodied something beyond mere talent—he channeled raw creative energy, unfiltered.

Some saw him as anarchic, but watching him cut the arms off couture dresses wasn’t just rebellious—it was a gut-level expression of taste. There’s a difference between audacity and talent. He wasn’t posturing. He knew what was true, good, and beautiful.

People gravitated to him. Colleagues described how they couldn’t help but contribute to his work, drawn in like Maenads to Dionysus. He simply carried the sacrament of pure creation. That's a lot to carry

This kind of taste cannot be faked. You either have it, or you don’t.

And yet, for those who do, it is often conditioned out of them. Subtle and unconscious jealousy.

The fashion world, despite its excesses, understands the deep importance of atelier. Pure creativity is lightning in a bottle—ridiculous in the cold light of day. It’s easy to mock the Met Gala or fashion elites, because out-of-context, attendees do look like characters from The Hunger Games’ Capitol.

Still, our job is to translate pure creativity into something wearable—to launder it into the everyday world.

Mise en Place: The Apollonian Counterbalance

This is where mise en place comes in.

It is, at its core, an Apollonian force—order, systematisation, task completion. It is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

Yet it is the backbone of taste.

Michelin-starred chefs don’t just wing it; they subordinate every detail to mise en place, allowing them the freedom to taste on the fly. This is what separates cooks from chefs.

For creatives, mise en place serves as a firebreak between Dionysian play and structured execution. You must first allow space for uninhibited creative flow, but then, structure must follow—not to dominate, but to serve.

This is where many go wrong: they try to impose structure too soon.

If you have taste, you must see it for what it is—a blessing.

You have been placed at the altar of taste.

You did not choose this,
But you must choose whether or not to worship.