Fashion Design
Fashion Design
Pieces of clothing, shoes or accessories do not come to light by chance, but go through many stages of fashion design until they reach customers. For this, the field of fashion design flourishes year after year, and design ideas do not end, as it is a field characterized by creativity and room for many. So how do you enter the fashion design field and become successful in it?
table of contents:
What is Fashion Design?
Fashion design majors
How to design attractive professional outfits
Programs used in professional fashion design
skills of any professional fashion designer
What is Fashion Design?
Fashion design means everything that comes to mind when you think of fashion, on all kinds of clothes, shoes and accessories. and how to apply the art form to the design piece, creating designs that take aesthetic influence from social, geographic, economic and cultural aspects. It also means understanding all the basic elements in the design and their structure, as each line in the design has significance, value and meaning.
The work of a fashion designer focuses on creating and developing designs for clothing, shoes, and accessories, determining fashion and design trends, and choosing colors, fabrics, prints, and decorations. It also includes managing the design process from the concept involved in the design to the production and release of the garments to the public, and the use of 2D and 3D computer design programs.
What are the majors in fashion design?
There is a main classification of fashion design, in addition to some sub-categories. Fashion design is divided into 5 main types:
1. Haute CoutureThis type comes at the top of the hierarchy of fashion designs, and Haute Couture in French means “high-end tailoring.” This type of fashion design specializes in producing unique and meticulous high-end clothing design, and creating limited-edition clothing and accessories, such as custom-made clothes for a specific client.
If you choose to specialize in this type, you will focus on producing customized fashion designs for each client and not repeat your designs, which requires a great deal of creativity and flexibility to adapt each design to its owner. In addition to using the finest materials, haute couture design usually requires handcraft.
2. Luxury Fashion Design
Some confuse the two types of high-end and luxury fashion design, and the separation between them lies in several points, including that luxury fashion designs are not limited to the production of one piece of design, but the design of clothes is produced in small quantities for distinguished customers. Among its characteristics are the use of expensive materials, complex designs, high quality, and a slow production cycle.
Haute Couture is at the midpoint of bridging the gap between exclusive, bespoke haute couture, and mass-produced, ready-to-wear. Luxury fashion design includes high-quality clothing that is not handmade but produced in small quantities and a slower production cycle, and accurate designs of high quality, which affects its price and becomes high compared to ready-to-wear design, but its price remains lower than haute couture designs.
3. Ready-to-Wear design
This type of fashion design is associated with the mass production of clothes in standard sizes, and the quality of the materials used takes into account the requirements and needs of customers. Ready-to-wear designs focus on producing eye-catching garments that fit the current market trends of the season. Ready-to-wear garments often take a shorter time to wear than haute couture designs.
Ready-to-wear designers need to work constantly to stay up to date with the current fashion trends; with the goal of releasing multiple collections each year. Ready-to-wear clothes can be bought in stores in cities, rather than being custom-made by fashion designers.
4. Economy Fashion Design
This type comes down the hierarchy of fashion design, in which fashion designers focus on producing economical fashion clothing in large quantities at a low cost, employing the cheapest labor, materials and materials available; with the aim of achieving increased profits. It is the fashion of economical clothing that is widespread in the shopping centers during the end-of-season sales.
Economical fashion is the most widespread and in demand, but this type of fashion design is less environmentally friendly, as it is standard, low-quality clothing that is suitable for short-term use and then disposed of, due to the poor quality of the materials and the change in the fashion trend.
5. Fast Fashion Design
Fast fashion design means mass-produced clothing and footwear with a rapid production rate, like most clothing brands that regular consumers are familiar with. And it results from the desire of merchants to offer modern clothes that can be marketed and sold at the cheapest possible cost.
Low-quality materials and fabrics are used, so the consumer quickly disposes of them, which negatively affects the environment. Fast fashion designs are produced weekly in stores and lose their modernity and splendor within months, and that is why their fans resort to buying new fast clothes to meet their needs for a new, but short period.
There is another commonly used classification for fashion designs, and you can differentiate between its elements to determine your field of specialization in the world of fashion design. It depends on the classification of designs according to their use, as follows:
Shoes: This includes the design of regular shoes, sports shoes, flat shoes, high heels, etc.
Accessories: These include designing handbags, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and more.
Sportswear: Designing sportswear ensures that the form and function of the materials used are appropriate for sports.
Children's clothing: This includes designing clothing suitable for children of all ages.
Evening wear: includes the design of formal or informal wear; To suit different parties, such as formal suits and occasion dresses.
How to design attractive professional outfits
You cannot become a fashion designer overnight, but you will go through a career path that may extend for months or years. Here are some tips that will help you start producing attractive fashion designs:
1. Find inspiration
Before you start designing fashion, you need to get inspired by the idea on which your design or collection will be based. Get inspired by things that interest you, such as music, art, history, architecture, and the people around you. As ideas flow, you have to organize your thoughts by drawing outlines of them on the drawing boards.
2. Study fashion trends
You may not need a degree to learn fashion and clothing design, but having a basic knowledge of art, creativity, and the business of fashion can help you get started designing eye-catching outfits. He also learned sewing and how to make clothes and apply them to the proportions of the body, and mastered aspects of computer design and hand drawing on paintings. Learn about the latest fashion trends by studying fashion shows and recent fashion magazines, to see the latest trends.
3. Start your business smart
At the beginning of your career, you should gain as much experience as possible by asking questions and building relationships with experienced people and coaches. You can look for an internship at a fashion design house or an entry-level job; To get closer to the products you want to design for your customers. collaborate with people who share a similar interest in fashion design; To push each other towards progress in the field.
4. Sketch out your thoughts
The first goal of drawing is to visualize the design in your head and bring it out on paper, while the second goal is to create an outline of the design in which the details of the piece are clear, including seams, sleeve length, overall length, symmetry, and finish. You can select the fabric material that can be used for each garment by attaching a piece of fabric to the design swatch. The design gives an adequate idea of the weight or stiffness that the garment should have, and whether it is printed or patterned.
5. Decide on your style and signature
You don't have to stick to a certain style or type of fashion design, but you do have to build a personality that makes your designs unique, and develop your signature to accompany all your designs. All you have to do is keep the spirit of creativity in your designs and focus on communicating an integrated story from each design, then go between different styles of design without restrictions.
6. Build your own group
You can build a collection of uniform designs that present a unique idea, or create a variety of shapes that represent different ideas. The collection may focus on one size, unite the color or vary its different elements. Present your point of view, ideas, and imprint on the group, then ask about the opinion of those around you in the group, and whether the pieces of the group fit together or not, and what stories and ideas you got from them.
Programs used in professional fashion design
You need many tools and programs in the field of fashion design. There are necessary design tools that help you implement the design on the model, including: a tape measure, a set of scissors and chalk, a sewing machine, needles, various threads, and sewing rulers. In addition to the design programs that make it easier for you to see the design before implementing it, and thus help you to produce a professional fashion design, and among these programs:
Techpacker
It is a first-class fashion design software, suitable for small and medium-sized companies. Its design simplifies the fashion design process, facilitating design coordination and layout, and creating 2D drawings with precise measurements. The software is easy to use by individuals or fashion design teams.
CLO-3D software
The program helps you visualize fashion design in 3D, while providing an unlimited selection of fabrics, accessories, and sewing patterns. You can create a complete simulation of your design on it, which makes it easier to visualize your design before you actually start implementing it. Other programs are available that help promote fashion designs and communicate them to a wide audience, such as Shopify.
What are the skills of any professional fashion designer?
Each profession requires a number of technical and personal skills to successfully complete the work, and the necessary skills for any professional fashion designer include:
1. Drawing and design skills
Design sketching is the structure of the fashion design field. Therefore, it is necessary for the fashion designer to master the skill of drawing schemes and designs, and to learn about everything related to colors, shades, and color tones and their coordination, in order to improve their application in choosing fabrics and comparing their colors. The fashion designer's knowledge of the technical details of his design; Its design makes it easier to implement.
2. Sewing skills
It is essential for a fashion designer to master sewing, which is an essential skill for a fashion designer. Therefore, any new fashion designer must develop the craft of sewing that transforms designs into tangible reality, and learns about the different fabrics and the characteristics that distinguish each type from others, and thus facilitates the selection of appropriate materials for designing clothes in a better way.
3. Familiarity with raw materials
The fashion designer is exposed to different materials and many elements that make up the design piece. In order to master your design, you have to be well aware of the material of each element, its different types, texture, appropriate size, and more. The matter is not limited to familiarity with a specific list, the design materials are endless, and there are materials that you would not expect to be able to use in fashion design, but they prove their quality and effectiveness with time. Each person or event has materials and colors that suit him.
4. Creativity and openness
One of the most important skills of a professional fashion designer is technical and creative skills. A fashion designer should possess great curiosity and an active imagination, constantly looking for new ideas outside the box. Plus the ability to continually jump beyond your limited concepts in order to attract more customers, and keep your brand on top.
5. communication skills
Any fashion designer needs strong communication skills to develop their brand. Communication skills help the fashion designer to communicate his ideas through his designs to the public easily. In addition to the ability to cooperate with the work team to bring design ideas to life.
6. Decision making
The fashion designer is exposed to many steps during his work in which he needs decision-making skill. He is the one who determines the type of design that suits the person, the appropriate colors for him and the occasion on which he will attend his design. Fashion design is not limited to a plan on paper or to professional design programs without making an actual model. Executed design makes you feel like representing your ideas and turning them into reality, and this can only be achieved by having the skill of decision-making.
7. Interpersonal skills
It takes a lot of effort, time and patience to become a successful fashion designer. There are many successful fashion designers who are not known to the general public, but are known and asked by their audience by name. There are few cases of rising stars in the fashion design industry, and you focus not so much on fame as on success. So, you will need to arm yourself with patience and not give up when you are going through some hardships.
In conclusion, getting started in the field of fashion design is not difficult, and it is not limited to a systematic, long-term study. If you possess the passion and basic skills, it will be easy for you to start in the field and achieve success in it based on your ambition, effort, study of your audience and their needs, arm yourself with the necessary skills to meet these needs, and make your mark in the world of fashion design.