Ideas towards my concept

Ideas towards my concept

Creativity is a connection, originality, and innovation of a designer’s ideas. My final year collection is put together through a design process. I am emotionally connected as I makes use of personal aspects of my life for the design inspiration, drawing insights from where I grew up. With a close affiliation to the inspiration I am bound to be attached to the design process.

Inspirations can come from anywhere to create a concept. One can be inspired with the day to day things, movies, nature, art, childhood memories or inspired by a fashion designer. Inspirations take it to the next level, doing research. From there on things start falling in place and a concept is formed.

A successful design is supported by well-defined ideas. Ideas are developed through drawing, note taking and personal interpretation. Research involves reading books, visiting museums, and finding information on the internet. One may want to investigate works of leading designers and determine what influence them most. Reading through fashion forecast to see for emerging trends can also be a starting point to gain ideas.

I was inspired through my childhood memories seeing some women who wore colorful clothes and stood out from the rest. We called them ‘Lamani’. They were also known as the Indian gypsies. They were strong, bold women and nonconformed. Their clothes were colorful and embellished with mirror work and other embroidery. I remember the woman walking door to door looking out for glass bottles or metal, which they cheaply bought and sold for recycling, which was their earnings for the day. After a detailed research, done through searching articles based on these Lamani people, I gained a lot of information in relation to their lifestyle and the clothes they wore. Initially they lived in the forest and moved from one place to the other in search of food and work and were a nomadic tribe. They wore dangling jewelry attached to their hair, wore anklets and bangles on their arm and wrist. I was inspired by colour, shapes, texture, and emphasis it had on its garment. Lamani’s made use of old clothes, where they joined pieces of different old garments together to make new garments. Apart from color and texture I want to add patch work of used garments adding sustainability into my collection.

Denim is worn worldwide and is available easily, if not worn, goes into landfill. Denim is creating a dumping problem and is impacting the environment. Denim waste is either dumped in landfills or incinerated in solid waste incinerators. A proper recycling of this waste can result in novelty products and the possibilities are unlimited. And the adoption of an effective strategy will reduce the environmental impact. There is an increasing attention for this high-end recycling of denim and many well know designers are embracing it. I will be making use of used denim or denim off-cuts, sourced from friends and a denim manufacturing company known by Three by One, where I get all their samples that are not required by the company. Making use of old denim is a way of making people aware that old garments can be reused by deconstructing and reconstructing.

To impart color in my collection, I will be making use of felting, ruffles, painting, embroidery metal/bead/mirror work.

All these ideas will be drawn to build my concept and form my runway collection. My next blog will be about, what the “concept” is. So, stay tuned