Monday 17 May 2010

Creative Design Practices. Trends, Market levels & Historic research.

CREATIVE DESIGN PRACTICES
TRENDS, MARKET LEVELS AND HISTORIC RESEARCH EVALUATION

The brief for this project asked me to identify trends and design six outfits for a specific market level. During this project I have completed a trend report, shop report and two A3 file containing my historic research from Temple Newsam House, development sheets, design ideas and my working line up.

As a starting point to this project I attending a trip to Temple Newsam House to begin drawing and sketching furniture, wallpaper and other objects that I found inspirational or interesting. I found this process quite difficult as I did not find the trip very exciting. Despite this, I managed to find the wallpaper designs appealing, especially the designs of birds and flowers. As the next stage in my project, I gathered my best areas of research and looked at shapes and silhouette. I research further into birds and bird wings. I looked at how the shapes of a bird’s wing can hang on the body. I also looked at other winged creatures such as butterflies and dragonflies. Using this research, I tried to drape on a half scale mannequin to create these shapes. I found the research process difficult and found myself falling behind as I couldn’t seem to get inspiration.

Once I had gathered a body of research, I began designing. I really enjoyed the design process and found it easy to design with my chosen trend of ‘Underwear as outerwear’. I had decided from the start after I had completed my shop report that I was going to design my collection for Topshop. Although I was comfortable with designing for my chosen trend, I struggled with incorporating the influence of bird wings that I had decided to focus on from my Temple Newsam House research. I began designing garments with flare in the sleeves, skirt or short and using ruffles as a detail. The flares in the garment linked to a bird’s wing when in flight. Gathered fabric also created this look.

After I had completed a strong body of design sheets, I started to piece garments together to create outfits. I did this in collections of six outfits. Once I had tried out variations of outfits, I only completed two different line ups before I had made up my mind on the which collection I decided to develop for the final working line up. I am pleased with the outcome of my final working line up. I found the selection of fabrics hard to find and had trouble deciding which fabrics went together to create the outfits. If I were to do the project again, I would spend more time focussing more on the fabrics and how they work to create a balanced outfit.

Alexander McQueen bird inspired collection: