"Any Man’s Death Diminishes Me"

When I first came into this industry, in the early 1990s, as the editor of Display & Design Ideas, I was a sponge, trying to soak up information from as many credible sources as possible. What’s good design? What’s good visual merchandising? Who’s doing it right?

Over and over, I’d hear: “Well, you know what Cecil Bessilleau was doing at Belk?” “Cecil used to say ….” “They don’t make them like Cecil anymore.”

Cecil was on the DDI editorial advisory board but had just retired, and I only ever had a few phone conversations with him. When I drove up to Charlotte, N.C., to visit Belk, Joe Powers was in Cecil’s chair. And Joe, another great industry veteran, shook his head and lamented: “Budget, staff, commitment, responsibility – visual’s changed. It’s not like it was in Cecil’s day.”

If Cecil Bessilieu was Old South – even his name conjured images of soft magnolias and sipping lemonade on the lawn – Randy Ridless was pure New York. He was born there and was long associated with his work there at Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue before he opened his own Manhattan design studio. And if Cecil represented the old visual, Randy represented the new, doing more with less, sparking imagination and interest through his sophisticated windows and interior spaces.

But to capture the true essence of this industry, consider David Morgan, a veteran of the supply side: Goldsmith, Lifestyle, Bernstein, DK Display, ALU, Seven Continents. Those who knew him well apparently called him “Sparkle.” Those people have told us about his passion, energy and the enormous stable of friends he had made in the industry.

There will be a celebration of David Morgan’s life during the NADI Retail Design Collective on December 11 at 6 p.m. at the Goldsmith Studio in the Starrett-Lehigh Building.

This is a relatively small industry, and nearly everyone in it crosses paths with everyone else at some point – colleague, competitor, customer, supplier, client. It’s also an industry of great passion and emotion, and those crossed paths lead to deep associations and lifelong friendships. Someone told us about David Morgan, “I don’t know much about his family. We were his family!”

In a tribute to Randy Ridless, Architectural Systems referred to his “graceful and elegant way of communicating intimacy and comfort in commercial environments.” Intimacy and comfort are the personal characteristics, too, that are so much the hallmark of this business.

Randy Ridless, Cecil Bessilieu and David Morgan have all passed in the last month. Cecil apparently lived a good long life; Randy and David went too soon. Our condolences to all those whose lives were touched by these three industry icons.