My first job interview as a fashion designer was to be a fabric and print stylist at Gap Inc, and I was asked to complete a project for my interview where I created a color palette and group of fabrics for two seasons, transition from summer to fall, and fall.
In today’s video, I share that sketchbook with you.
I collected images, references, colors and inspirations, and then wove them into a geometric and florals and stories.
I always loved mixing patterns, prints, stripes and plaids, and this project was right up my alley.
Here is the sketchbook, as well as my finished gouache fashion illustrations that I used to bring the color, print, and fabric fashion stories brough to vivid life through my eyes and prersonal fashion sensibility.
PRESENTING YOUR FABRICS
I strongly suggest photographing or scanning your fashion fabrics in a way that shows their thickness or thinness, knit or woven construction, etc. This means that drop shadows are useful!
Notice the photo below and how it feels like you can actually feel those fabrics. The surface textures are crystal clear.
(Although there is no substitute for TOUCHING FABRICS whenever possible!)
OVERLAP AND OVERLAY FABRIC SELECTIONS
I used double stick tape to lay out my fabric swatches.
I also cut along a single thread on each fabric swatch edge so that there wasn’t a riot of unraveling yarns all over the page.
SO MANY STUDENTS and designers cut little squares out of their fabrics. At that point, they just look like paint chips to me!
Generous swatches that show weight and texture pulls the viewer into a delicious feast of sensory joys to invite them deep into the collection they are about to see.
FABRIC IS FELT
FASHION DESIGN is SO INTIMATE!
It is worn directly against your skin.
So you better bet we want to know by looking, how that collection is going to FEEL and MOVE on our bodies!
FABRICS COLORS, TEXTURES and WEIGHTS are relative
I always overlap my fabrics when I present them.
WHY? Because when I wear them, I overlap them.
Because when I design my fashion collections, I intend the pieces to be worn together, layered, interactive, and mixed with pieces in the customer’s closet.
This is the joy of fabrics and fashion! The mixing and interaction, and the creativity and sensory experience of wearing them, seeing them, and making decisions to style your own outfit.
FABRIC WEIGHTS AND CONTRAST
Each fabric you touch you relate to in various ways.
Print, texture, and color are VERY STRONG COMMUNICATORS in themselves. Even if they were printed on paper!
Right?
So give yourself the moments to close your eyes and FEEL your fabric. What is it telling you?
Is it brushed, soft, or gritty and dry? Silky, sticky, smooth, rough?
Is it micro or macro textured? Loft and thick, dense or airy?
Utilitarian or delicate, foldable or springy, bouncy, resistant? Does it defy gravity or slip through your fingers onto the floor?
Does it say summer? Winter? Does it need a lining?
Does it say jacket, pants, underlayer?
Undergarment? Evening gown? Beachwear?
Cozy? Formal, military? Baby? Active sporty? Masculine? Feminine? Handmade, synthetic, indigenous, outer-space?
Plastic? Plant-based?
I love that fashion studies and fashion design fabrics REQUIRE us to tune into our senses so acutely.
Fashion color palettes and prints
Print, texture, and color are VERY STRONG COMMUNICATORS in themselves. Even if they were printed on paper!
Right? Notice how you respond to colors, textures and patterns, what feelings and associations come up for you
At the same time, if you make a habit of collecting swatches and creating fabric boards and/ or mood boards, ….
You will start to notice that your color sense is very unique to you and recognizable. WHICH IS A BEAUTIFUL TRUTH.
It’s your voice, your fingerprint, your brand identity if you will.
RENDERING FASHION FABRICS ON CROQUIS With gouache
After I made my fabric selections, I didn’t focus on this as a garment design project, but rather presented silhouettes that brought the prints to life interacting with each other.
Gouache on watercolor paper by ARCHES, with UniBalle Deluxe ball point ink pen.
I use gouache techniques for fashion illustrations when I design because I know I can mix the paints to match absolutely any fabric color that I need at any time.
AND I know that the textures will come up looking and feeling like fabrics to me.
CAREER, PROFESSION, CREATIVITY, PLEASURE
As professionally supportive as these skills are, that I’ve taught to my students at Parsons School of Design for 3 decades…
What ALSO moves me about this work is what happens while we are learning it.
How it brings us to know ourselves better in such a powerful, immediate and surprising way!
AND
How soothing, therapeutic, adventurous, curious, experimental, sacred, fascinating, exciting, satisfying, gratifying, magical, imaginational and creatively limitless the experiences of creating this way are.
