A fashion designer has many things to consider whilst
planning his/her collection. These variables include research on sales, themes,
trends and the most crucial part, the storyboard or the mood board. Collection
planning and creation includes designing a complete range of garments that fit
into a chosen mood, theme or trend. However at the same time there will be a
commonality running throughout the entire collection. Moreover, garments in the
collection should complement each other and carry a specific design
characteristic that is identifiable to either the designer or the brand or
label.
Large retail chains plan their collections
meticulously, some working more than a year in advance. Their plans typically
include the type of garments, number of styles, fabrics too use, price points,
etc. In order to do this the designer needs to have an in depth understanding
of the manufacturing process as well as the costs involved in order to be able
to design for different price groups.
Collection planning is an important part of the
fashion designing process and is based on historical sales data and is created
to achieve maximum sales results so as to make the designer appealing to the
end customer. The planning process will also include identifying colours and
ratios to gain popularity with consumers. Sometimes at the beginning of each
season, some fashion designers might also undertake inspiration trips as a part
of their research. The aim of this research is to seek out new detailing,
fabrics, silhouettes, etc that they feel will appeal to the target customer. A
designer might choose to buy samples to refer as well to refer during the
fashion design process.
From here on, the designer will start putting together
‘storyboards’or ‘mood boards’ that illustrate the collections theme or trend.
Following which the designer might select certain themes that might suit
his/her target market. Story boards or mood boards include images that depict
the mood or inspiration behind the theme that the fashion designer has chosen.
The pictures include silhouettes, colours, trims and text describing the so
called ‘mood’.
A typical designer works on multiple trends so that
all areas are covered to offer something new and updated at regular intervals.
The reason behind this is that the designer will have something that appeals to
everyone’s tastes. Once the story board is over, the designer will move onto
creating colour palettes which embodies creating and using a wide array of
colours that complement the theme and usually will include a core colour
accompanied by highlight colours. Designers choose colours for their
collections using fabric swatches, Pantone books, accompanied by the research
and inspiration from early on in the design process. Once this is completed,
the fashion designer can start designing her collection.
So where does one learn all of the above. In order to
understand and learn the abovementioned processes, a candidate has to undertake
the study of fashion design or fashion designing. Many institutions offer a
variety of career oriented fashion design courses. These can either be diplomas
in fashion design or a fashion design degree. One can also do a short term
certificate Courses in fashion design. Newer courses also integrate fashion
design and retail management together or offer the fashion design degree with a
specialization such as luxury management.
No comments:
Post a Comment