On arriving at St Andrews from Eton College, Crispian Riley-Smith (MA 1989) was looking for a blank canvas – a chance to write his own story after a childhood surrounded by connections.
‘It was liberating to be somewhere that no-one knew me,’ says Crispian, who now works in the art world, leading over 80 art and luxury goods specialists as the founder and owner of Art Advisory Group. ‘Nobody from my peer group had come to St Andrews, and I was keen to experiment. I’d always had a flair for creative ventures and an entrepreneurial mindset, and my student days gave me the clean slate I wanted to carve my own path.’
Thursday nights at Katie’s
In 1980s St Andrews, the Students’ Union, Crispian recalls, hosted a ‘heavy metal and beer-swilling-type’ event, which was ‘chalk and cheese’ compared with the nightclub he founded at the back of what’s now Hotel Du Vin (formerly the St Andrews Golf Hotel) on The Scores. Katie’s was a place where students would flock to dance, have fun, and listen to ‘chill-out music’. He knew he’d made it with the nightclub when all the taxis started lining up outside at closing time, ready to deliver party-goers home to halls and flats.
‘I had these credit cards printed, which would give you access to Katie’s. They were incredibly popular and if you bought one of those, you’d have access for the whole year,’ he explains. ‘You could also pay on the night – it was all notes, of course. I’d go and collect the speakers, which we rented from the Student Union and return them the next day – always a Friday morning.’
How did Katie’s get its name?
‘It was partly inspired by the Kate Kennedy Club. I was quite involved with that at the time and organised events like balls, activities, and Raisin Weekend. I was also involved in the charitable side of the Club. Then there’s Annabel’s [the famous London members’ club in Berkeley Square], which provided some of the inspiration. Giving a nightclub a woman’s name is quite a common thing.’
It was in the days before social media and smartphones existed, and photos of Katie’s are scarce, but Crispian has managed to unearth some adverts, which were printed in the student-run St Andrews University Chronicle at the time.
Entrepreneurial sparks
Revolutionising St Andrews’ nightlife wasn’t Crispian’s first – or only – entrepreneurial venture. There was a play staged and directed with friends while at the University – The Cocktail Party by T.S. Eliot – and even as a child, he was selling daffodils and eggs at the end of the lane.
Student life presented countless opportunities and was a far cry from the single-sex boarding school environment he had grown up in in the early 1980s.
‘I did also study but I think students work a lot harder now,’ reflects Crispian. ‘I obviously got my degree in Art History – I got a 2:2 in the end – but I wasn’t the hardest worker academically speaking.’
The same can’t be said when it comes to business. ‘I came from a background of entrepreneurs and businesses, so I knew I needed to cut my teeth in the commercial market,’ he explains. ‘I had my business ventures, some holiday jobs, and one summer I went to work in Florence and learned Italian. I got a job at Sotheby’s [one of the world’s largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles] in Florence, then the next summer I got an internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. That was great because they actually paid you.’
Making it in the art world
Upon graduating from St Andrews, Crispian joined the graduate training programme at Sotheby’s, which was highly competitive.
‘They only offered 10 places, and I didn’t get onto it initially – I was number 11,’ he remembers. ‘Then over the summer someone dropped out and I got a place. I moved around different departments, learning about Impressionist art, Modernist art, and so on. I moved from there to the British Museum, then Phillips Auctioneers, then Christie’s, after which I left to set up my own business in 1998.’
Today, Crispian lives in Norfolk with his family and friendly Italian Spinone. Since branching out on his own, he has run a trading business and founded an art fair in London and in New York City specialising in Master Drawings.
He now heads up Art Advisory Group, which is a ‘one-stop-shop’ for the luxury goods and antiques market. Crispian and his team provide independent advice across the market and work with law firms, accountancy firms, solicitors, auction houses, museums, institutions and dealers around the world.
Next on his agenda is a book, which he is writing with the aim of supporting others who are looking to make it with a career in the art world.
‘I’m often asked how I got into the art market, so this is almost a self-help book on just that,’ he explains. ‘The sector’s not for everyone and it’s definitely not all champagne and amazing people. It’s hard work and it’s difficult to make money. You have to be very focused on it, very determined, and you have to expect a lot of rejection.
‘I’m really looking to help people who are looking to start out in it.’
Connected through Kaleidoscope
That willingness to support others is where fellow St Andrews graduate Jade Mkparu (MA 2024) comes into the picture. Crispian and Jade were connected to one another through the University’s Kaleidoscope Alumni Network (KAN). While not seeking to enter the art world, Jade is a fellow entrepreneur, and the pair have been exchanging memories of their student days over three decades apart, and sharing advice, insights and experiences about setting up in business.
Since graduating with a degree in English, Jade has started working as a management consulting analyst at Accenture and is based in London. On the side, she’s pouring her heart and soul into developing BRAIDAR, which is a paid membership community connecting black girls in UK sixth forms and universities to braiders – and with that, to a feeling of home.
Jade grew up between Lagos in Nigeria and boarding school in the UK – Hurtwood House – and started BRAIDAR in 2022 while a student at St Andrews to address something she had identified as a pain point for black students – the inability to access black hair styling services.
‘This lack of access can be so frustrating and isolating for black girls especially,’ says Jade. ‘We have to resort to expensive return trips to bigger cities to find black hair salons, or we feel cornered into wearing wigs or keeping our braids from home for longer than we’d like. It’s a problem when all you really want is to put your best foot forward while making friends and settling in.’
The solution to the problem
Jade applied for – and was accepted into – the FastStart Innovators programme at the University of St Andrews in September 2022. It’s a start-up incubator run by St Andrews Innovation. A long and rigorous semester spent creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version of BRAIDAR and starting to build a community ended with a pitching competition to win grant money from the University.
‘I pitched for £100 to go towards cloud storage for the videos and graphics I would need to make, and I won,’ explains Jade. ‘In April 2024, I won a further £1500 from the Entrepreneurship Centre and Santander bank as one of the winners of The Start-up Challenge.’
From there, Jade has continued having conversations with prospective users – friends and others who may benefit from the service. BRAIDAR now has a website, which gives users an almost magical gamified experience as you enter the ‘lobby’ and are given the options to ‘talk to the concierge’ or ‘pick up keys’. It feels very much like the full VIP treatment.
‘I connected the dots between the demand and the supply – or lack of,’ says Jade. ‘I thought that even in a non-traditional form, it [a braiding or hair styling service] must exist somewhere within our reach. Before BRAIDAR I’d been playing around with other hair-related business ideas, but I hadn’t progressed them.
‘I feel like there is such a robust support system at St Andrews that I was able to do what I set out to achieve. I taught myself how to build a website using Wix – it was actually a friend I met at an Entrepreneurship Centre event who told me about the platform – and set about testing it with users, changing it as I went to meet the needs of the community.’
Jade’s business has developed into something of a social enterprise. Yes, there’s a membership fee, but at the heart of it she is creating a community of people who simply want to feel at home.
A different start
Her experience of starting out at St Andrews was very different to Crispian’s. Jade had never visited the town before matriculating and started her studies at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead of a vibrant social life, she navigated hybrid teaching and learning, lectures through Microsoft Teams, and meeting new people while wearing a mask.
Lockdowns aside, Jade joined a subcommittee of the Afro-Caribbean Society called Ubuntu, which organises a charity fashion show with dancing and song. She became a co-director, and by her second year at St Andrews, the committee were able to put on an in-person show. It was through the Afro-Caribbean Society that Jade started to witness the demand for a braiding service.
‘People would say that they wanted to refresh their style, but they didn’t know where to go, or they didn’t have the time or budget to travel. I thought there must be a way for us.’
Sharing experiences
Crispian has become a mentor of sorts for Jade, despite their different experiences and interests.
‘We were introduced over email through the Kaleidoscope Alumni Network, and I started researching Crispian’s background,’ says Jade. ‘I was just really fascinated despite our different expressions of entrepreneurial talent. Crispian has linked that with his art expertise and studies so masterfully. For someone like me who’s starting out and building a concierge platform, I found speaking to him really illuminating in terms of how to approach clients, and how to position yourself and your value proposition.’
For Crispian, the connection has been an opportunity to give back.
‘I’m really happy to give advice – I like helping people, and it’s been a real learning experience for me, too.’
You can listen to Jade Mkparu in conversation with Crispian Riley-Smith in the latest episode of ‘Ad Lib’ – part of the Kaleidoscope Alumni Network podcast series. Listen now on Spotify.