Trend Scouting on Blogs:
Last time we were talking about WWD, the most imperative resource for people working in the fashion industry. Another great way to stumble upon the latest buzz, new trends and finding inspiration for your stories are blogs.
BTW, it’s a well-known trade secret that many fashion editors comb through blogs on a regular basis to develop their own story ideas.
INSPIRED BY PROJECT RUNWAY® CONTEST CHALLENGES ASPIRING DESIGNERS!
Aspiring designers and sewers are invited to compete in a fashion design competition that’s inspired by Project Runway®. Creative fashionistas are challenged to design a look that others will want to make and proudly wear! The winner will receive worldwide distribution of their design and a trip to NYC, fashion capital of the world! Entries will be judged by Barbara Schneeweiss, Executive Producer of Project Runway® and representatives from Simplicity® Patterns, the creator and sponsor of this exciting competition, as well as sewing industry experts.
An exclusive licensing agreement between Weinstein Company, owner of Project Runway® and Simplicity Patterns enables Simplicity® to market apparel sewing patterns “Inspired by Project Runway”. Simplicity® is the world’s leading manufacturer of fashion sewing patterns. Their Inspired by Project Runway patterns have garnered worldwide attention and become instant collectibles as each season passes. Now, one lucky aspiring designer from the United States has a chance to turn “pro”, by having their winning design added to the Inspired by Project Runway® pattern collection worldwide!
Fashionistas, style-mavens, aspiring designers and home sewers are invited to enter and become part of the world of fashion design! This is a rare opportunity to compete in a fashion design contest where the prize enables the winner’s name to be forever attached to the Simplicity® and Inspired by Project Runway brands. “We are looking forward to reviewing the entries and introducing a fresh, new design to our Inspired by Project Runway pattern collection and the world of fashion” says Bonnie Simmons, Design Director at Simplicity®.
The Grand Prize Winner will receive a trip to New York City to visit Simplicity’s offices for meetings with the Design and Production staff. The winning design will be produced and distributed worldwide as an Inspired by Project Runway® pattern in the Simplicity Pattern Collection. The Grand Prize Winner will be photographed and featured on Simplicity.com and the winning design will be photographed for the Simplicity Catalog.
Entries must be postmarked no later than midnight, May 12th.
http://ping.fm/CQaPt design-contest.aspx
FOR INFORMATION AND IMAGES, CONTACT:
Carin Blankoff
212-372-0517
cblankoff@simplicity.com
Kristen Nweeia
212-372-0679
knweeia@simplicity.com
This is Part 2 of a two part article on fashion and trend forecasting. Part 2 of this series explores colour trend forecasting, how colour trends are determined, and the timelines that trends follow. If you missed the first instalment, you should probably go read that before you read this. Fashion Forecasting Part 1: How Are Trends Forecasted and Should You Follow Them?
This is a sample colour report from Pantone
Colour Forecasting and Timelines Explained:
Colour tends to go like this (in time):
Colours go like this because the couture and high runway client will adopt new trends instantly. They want new things that look rich and unique. They wear the trends before anyone else and they also stop wearing them before anyone else. It is important to know though that they will also reject trends and therefore you can not present them with random new things. New items, ideas and colours must fit into what their current desires and needs are.
It takes time for trendy normal people to become familiar enough with a trend to feel comfortability wearing it themselves. They need to see the clothes in magazines, see pictures, see the colours in ads, etc. Also it often takes a few months longer for the lower priced clothing and fabrics to be produced. The production means the clothing is not ready immediately however if it were ready at the same moment that the high runway stuff was ready people would not buy it because they would not be ready so the timing works well.
In two weeks Fashion Students Online will become a members only website. Memberships will cost €10 per YEAR (approx. $13.50USD) and they can be earned for free also by writing an article for us. The membership fee that is being implemented will help us build the site and pay writers. There are many other sewing, costuming and fashion sites which charge money for their articles. They took these business models because it allowed them to provide quality content and a good service to those readers who genuinely appreciate their site. It is our goal to be accessible and so we are determined to ask only for this small token payment rather than the much higher $100/yr that some sites request.
All current regular members will receive their first year membership for free. If you are currently a registered member of FSO you do not need to sign up again, nor pay any membership fees until May 2011. However starting May 1, 2010 all new members will be required to pay the €10 fee for their one year membership. In the beginning this fee will allow us to pay for our hosting, buy additional software, and pay our authors however as the membership base grows this fee will also allow us to provide ad-free blogs and portfolio hosting for every member.
If you are not a registered member right now, make sure you register before May 1st so that you can also benefit from the one year free membership. If you would like to learn more please read the announcement that was mailed out to the FSO mailing list 2 weeks ago:
FSO to become a paid-member site
The purpose of the croquis is to showcase the clothing and accessory design. There is something to be said for developing an eye catching style that helps evoke the emotion of the designs you want to highlight. It’s through our emotions, after all, that something makes us WANT it; makes us fall in love with it.
One way to add emotion to your figure drawings is by using a technique involving line variety, which for these purposes can be called attenuation.
Attenuation is described in Physics as, “… a general term that refers to any reduction in the strength of a signal.” So, applied to line drawing techniques, you can imagine that this would refer to the intensity of the quality of any given line. The bolder the line (in darkness and/or thickness), the more it comes forwards; the finer or softer the line, the farther it falls backwards in comparison.
If anyone here knits, About.com is looking for a knitting pattern writer. Go to About.com, go to the bottom, click “write for about” select to be a contributing writer, then look for “Garment Patterns”. It says garment patterns but it’s for their knitting channel.
Below is information I copied from their site. Please be aware they may change their policies after I post this and it is your responsibility to read the literature, terms and conditions they have.
How are Contributing Writers paid?
About.com will offer Contributing Writers in their first two years a guaranteed minimum monthly payment of $500. After two years, the guaranteed minimum monthly payment will be $250. About.com also pays Contributing Writers by measuring pageview growth (month-over-month for Contributing Writers in their first year, and year-over-year every year after) with payment incentives for pageview growth. There is no cap on what you can earn—the guaranteed minimums are offered as a safety net.
Are there any minimum publishing requirements?
Contributing Writers commit to publishing at least 12 pieces of content every month. These articles will be a mix of short- and long-form content (our flexible tools facilitate publishing everything from long-form articles to glossary pages). After more than 13 years working with About.com Guides, we know that this baseline will help new Contributing Writers grow their subtopics (and their earnings) more quickly by establishing a strong foundation of content that will garner a lot of repeat visits.
Originally written for my personal blog, www.AnnieJackson.me
I have this absolutely amazing book. It is called The Science of Sexy and I feel like every dressmaker, Etsy seller, and designer who plans to design for niche groups should have it. It’s only $12.50 on Amazon so you really have no excuse, btw. The author of this book is a special occasion wear designer for a whole host of A-list names and has developed a scientific way of breaking down people’s body types into categories based on their measurements (so you do not have to visually look at them to decide). Using measurements there are 12 groups you could belong to, and then within each group your body could be of 4 shapes. This gives a total of 48 categories which are discussed and illustrated! Amazon has a look inside, but as usual it sucks so I’ve included a couple of (really bad quality) photos below so that you can see what you get.
Here is the index page for all the body categories. The previous pages explained how to determine your group (colour) and your body shape:
Within the body types the author then breaks each body type down into what cut lines and colours look good on it and demonstrates by using the same body to illustrate two looks. One look makes the body look bad, the other look is very flattering! Since posting my plus-sized survey the other day there have been a number of comments from plus sized ladies that they wish clothing companies would just make clothes in their size. These ladies are frustrated and I don’t think anyone has every really demonstrated why clothing companies just can’t do this — why a lot of the clothing would not sell and thus the company would need to produce new styles and patterns. A company can not simply produce 3 or 4 of it’s 12 item line in a larger size, it doesn’t work that way because if they don’t offer everything in all sizes they will loose clients and the styles that are offered in bigger sizes will not be sold (because those customers won’t be in the store). So, for a company to offer plus sizes they need new designs that are flattering to all body shapes, new patterns, and also new fit models and therefore new samples. It’s really expensive not to mention difficult to design a line that will flatter both smaller and larger sizes. This is the main reason companies do not simply grade up their sizes. I’m going to use my really bad quality photos from The Science of Sexy to demonstrate this.
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I am a member of the Fashion-Incubator forums and recently someone asked about colour trends, why they are important and if she needs to worry about them. I realized this is a great topic that probably many wonder about. I had the good luck of being privy to a presentation from WGSN at my school and I learned a whole lot. The representative had just prepared a presentation she said was worth about $30K for a company and since it was already prepared she decided to give it to us (minus the stuff the company specifically paid for) rather than her standard student presentation. I learned a lot and I’m going to share what I learned with you.
* I attempted to contact WGSN to verify the information I am sharing with you. I was told someone would get back to me. I waited 3 months but I never received any sort of communication outside from the very lovely lady who helped me. Therefore, I apologize in advance if some of the information here is incorrect and I encourage discussion via the comments to correct any errors I may have made due to misunderstanding the representative at my presentation.
This image is found on many blogs but was originally from men.style.com (now GQ.com) and is an example of a forecast image.
What is a forecaster?
Some designers seem to know just what their customer wants. They produce something a bit different every season and every season it is welcomed and heralded. This is what sets a great designer apart from another. A great designer understands the customer and society and has an inherent feeling for what is right and wrong for their target market. A great designer understands that their target market may not be ready for something great and will sit on it and wait for the right time and they also always have a feel for what is coming next, even a few years down the road.
Some designers also use forecasting reports to do this and that is the purpose of a forecast. Forecasting agencies employ people who are especially good at understanding society, group behaviour, and individual thought processes. This is something most of them are born with. And in addition to their natural intuition they may take a formal approach through research. They look at the state of the world and look at what has happened in history during similar situations and they predict what the moods and desires of people will be in the upcoming future (18months-5years in advance).
How are forecasts decided upon?
This one is really interesting and was a big surprise to me when I found out. I can not be sure how things are done at other companies but the representative gave us a breakdown of how trends are decided at WGSN. In order to ensure I do not give any misinformation I am going to keep this basic and not elaborate much on anything.
This tutorial demonstrates in detail how to make an underbust or waist cincher Victorian corset using a synthetic sport mesh. Mesh corsets were made in the late Victorian, but they were constructed using strong, natural-fiber mesh, like linen canvas for embroidery. Heavy-duty sport mesh is a much more economical choice and works very well. Be sure to choose a mesh that is described for heavy-duty use, which has a mesh hole size of no more than 1/8″.
When at a future date I make a mesh corset using natural fiber, I will take detailed photos and describe any differences in the construction.
The corset shown is a commissioned tight-lacing corset, with an 18″ waist when fully closed. The mesh is a heavy duty sport mesh. The boning channels are made from black coutil. The 8″ busk is backed. The re-enforcement is high quality polyester double-satin ribbon.
Piecing for a mesh corset is unlike piecing for any other kind of corset. I want to place the boning along each seamline, like with a normal corset. It will need to be cased in coutil, and that coutil is also needed to secure the mesh in such a way that it does not tear free. At scale size (graph paper) I drafted up a normal, vertical-panel underbust corset.
I decided to make 3/4″ wide (finished width) coutil strips for the boning and mesh anchoring. The center of that 3/4″ is the location of the seam line on a standard pattern, so to create the boning panels I removed 3/8″ from both sides of each normal vertical panel developed at scale. Between each of those mostly-normal patterns, I created a 3/4″ wide strip panel. Thus, the final pattern has 13 panels per side. The “normal” 6 are mesh, and each mesh panel is couched with perfectly straight coutil panels.
I decided that rolling over the mesh and coutil together would create a strong seat for the mesh, so the coutil panels have 5/8″ seam allowance and the mesh panels have 1.5″ seam allowance.
The three following images are the entire pattern for the corset. Sorry for the poor quality of the images. They are drawn in pencil, and the lighting was not ideal. The right-most panel on the top image is the grommet panel at the back of the corset. The left-most panels on the third image are for the busk.
I am a member of the Fashion-Incubator forums and recently someone asked about colour trends, why they are important and if she needs to worry about them. I realized this is a great topic that probably many wonder about. I had the good luck of being privy to a presentation from WGSN at my school and I learned a whole lot. The representative had just prepared a presentation she said was worth about $30K for a company and since it was already prepared she decided to give it to us (minus the stuff the company specifically paid for) rather than her standard student presentation. I learned a lot and I’m going to share what I learned with you.
* I attempted to contact WGSN to verify the information I am sharing with you. I was told someone would get back to me. I waited 3 months but I never received any sort of communication outside from the very lovely lady who helped me. Therefore, I apologize in advance if some of the information here is incorrect and I encourage discussion via the comments to correct any errors I may have made due to misunderstanding the representative at my presentation.
This image is found on many blogs but was originally from men.style.com (now GQ.com) and is an example of a forecast image.
What is a forecaster?
Some designers seem to know just what their customer wants. They produce something a bit different every season and every season it is welcomed and heralded. This is what sets a great designer apart from another. A great designer understands the customer and society and has an inherent feeling for what is right and wrong for their target market. A great designer understands that their target market may not be ready for something great and will sit on it and wait for the right time and they also always have a feel for what is coming next, even a few years down the road.
Some designers also use forecasting reports to do this and that is the purpose of a forecast. Forecasting agencies employ people who are especially good at understanding society, group behaviour, and individual thought processes. This is something most of them are born with. And in addition to their natural intuition they may take a formal approach through research. They look at the state of the world and look at what has happened in history during similar situations and they predict what the moods and desires of people will be in the upcoming future (18months-5years in advance).
How are forecasts decided upon?
This one is really interesting and was a big surprise to me when I found out. I can not be sure how things are done at other companies but the representative gave us a breakdown of how trends are decided at WGSN. In order to ensure I do not give any misinformation I am going to keep this basic and not elaborate much on anything.
