The art of perfection

I discovered Ann Gish a while back when I was surfing on the net. Her story is one I can sort of relate to – the being paranoid part anyway. She started out as an interior designer, and decided to try her hand at designing placemats and napkins. She pitched her idea at the biggest showroom in downtown Los Angeles, called Mottura. They asked her for some samples, but she didn’t have any, so they asked her to come back the following day. She had kids and Halloween was around the corner, she told them, couldn’t come back till the following week. So she stayed up day and night for a week making the napkins and placemat samples. Once she brought the samples to Mottura, she became paranoid that the samples weren’t perfect. The first day she went back to make sure the placemats were straight. They were. The second day she went back again to make sure the napkins were straight. Of course they were. The third day she checked the showroom to make sure no one ripped off any of her products. Everything was there all right. Then orders came piling in – they wanted 144 of each of seven colors of placemats and napkins. From there the products took off and she now designs bedding as well. Today she's considered by many to be a leader in the industry. Everything came out like a bed of roses.