Seamless

Introduction

The future really belongs to those brands that are able to weave together the past, the present and the future into a seamless and inspirational hero's journey.

The modern metaphor of seamless

The mathematics of metaphor are fairly simple: x = y. For example, in Shakespearean terms, ‘Juliet is the sun'. Now, we all know that she is not literally the sun, but that she has the sun's characteristics; attributes such as ‘warm', ‘glowing', ‘bright' and ‘beautiful' are bestowed upon Juliet by virtue of the metaphor. But while this mathematics may seem simple, our use of metaphor has a powerful influence on how we think about our lives. And, as I expand on later in this book, text (ideas) and textiles (fabrics) have always been closely linked, both literally and metaphorically.

For example, interestingly in the English language, we can both weave stories and tell lies by reference to textiles. As noted by the English Language and Usage website (in their analysis of the metaphor ‘Thought is a thread, and the raconteur is a spinner of yarns'), expressions like ‘loom of language', ‘weave a story/spell', ‘thread of discourse' and ‘warp and woof' indicate textile–story associations, while ‘fabricate evidence', ‘spin a yarn', ‘tissue of lies', ‘pull the wool over your eyes', and ‘out of whole cloth' indicate that textile metaphors are morally neutral and can be used for authentic tales as well as the invention of false anecdotes to serve the interests of the raconteur. ...