Creating Samples and Outfits

Fashion designers come up with amazing trends and collections which people are going to buy in stores later. To set a new stunning trend fashion designers need to come up with ideas which they gain by getting inspired from different things. Big themes that influence them are music, street style, nature, culture, science and biology, architecture and any kind of art.

For example the fashion designer Iris van Herpen who designs incredible looking outfits that refer to different things just as snakes or waterdrops.

Iris van Herpen shows especially with her waterdrop outfit that nothing is impossible to design. Even water which is invisible and has no stable state excited her to design a dress based on that theme.

Looking at out task we sketched six different excerpts of one chosen artwork/ theme. After that we had to get inspired by those shapes and patterns and convey them into small samples made with white paper.

But why white and not coloured paper?

Light colours such as white are better to use for creating the base because the shapes and patterns are better to recognize than using coloured paper.

My inspiration was a ballerina painting because I am fascinated watching them dancing.

 

The first sample I created should show the nice curvy shape of the shoes. I really like the dynamic in it.

The skirt reminded me on a fan. Therefore I designed a fan shaped sample.

The legs and the other part of the ballerina´s outfit inspired me to create a twisting and curvy structure.

After that I thought about designing a nice curvy sample which goes from a big loop into smaller ones. The piece is based on the ballerinas hand and fingers that look elegant.

My last sample is inspired by her bun. The stripes are representing the ballerina´s hair and the circle the actual braid.

 

When we had to decide what sample we want to redo more often I went for the circle with a lot of small lines that stand up. That is because I thought that this sample is different and something special. I also liked about it, that I could form it into different looking shapes just by flipping the up side down.

In groups of three we designed our first mannequin using the samples we have made before. It turned out to be a beautiful dress with fancy looking arm cushion, a triangle shaped front and a butterfly shaped back.

I love our design because it is special and different. From the front it looks sharp and futuristic and at the same time it looks soft and elegant from behind.

 

After designing our own mannequin we switched to different ones and were doing the same thing. My group tried to design outfits based on different themes. For instance the one outfit seemed to have wings and appeared as a costume while the other outfit looked cheeky and Rock ´n´ Roll just as a “Lady Gaga” costume. We also had to draw different sketches of our outfits.

 

Our last and most special design was for a male mannequin. We created a outfit that was based on transformers with its huge angular shoulder pads and a copped collar.

All in one I enjoyed doing the tasks. It showed me that fashion design is not all about doing sketches and afterwards producing the outcome. It is also a lot about experimentation and creating the outfit on three dimensional mannequins. I also liked that we did not have that much time to think about the design first but just started to experiment.

The other thing I really enjoyed was to have a theme on which the work is based and afterwards to work in groups to share all ideas.