The Creative Role of Sources of Inspiration In Designing Clothes

Fashion designers usually take inspiration from painting, sculpture, architecture, furniture, flowers, animals or any possible object that fascinates them. It is important to learn about the start of any design process - the inspiration. Finding inspiration is probably the most important part of designing clothes. It serves as the first component of the entire design process . It could be something that is either tangible (something that can be touched and felt) or intangible (something that cannot be touched or seen).

Difference between ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ sources of inspiration

Many famous fashion designers take tangible inspirations from paintings or sculpture or architecture, furniture, flowers, animals or any possible object that fascinates them. For example, the Faberge egg, created for the Russian imperial family, became an inspiration for Oliver Rousteing, the creative head for the luxury house, Balmain. 

Designing clothes can also take intangible inspirations from culture, street, movies, events, memory and fancies, travel, any social movement, art, history or simply a famous fashion trend. For example, Viktor & Rolf, in their Autumn-Winter collection, was inspired by the theme, ‘Fashion is Art’, where they showcased deconstructed paintings as garments.

Inspiration is the starting point for the process of designing clothes. For a designer, it becomes one of the first important steps to look for inspiration relevant for the target audience, relevant for the time, and relevant for the clientele. Also, there is added pressure for the source of inspiration to be novel. 

How to choose the correct kind of source of inspiration for designing clothes

A lot of times, students of fashion designing are very confused about inspiration. It is true that the process of designing clothes can become quite cumbersome when the source of inspiration is vague. The primary question that they should ask themselves is whether the source of inspiration is motivating them in the first place. A lot of time, under the pressure of looking for a very complicated inspiration, they are not able to conceptualize it properly, and then they end up getting less time for the entire execution process. So, the idea is to look for a source of inspiration that is easy to conceptualize. 

A lot of designers are good at taking up tangible inspiration like a flower or an object or a piece of furniture or a painting, and it becomes very easy for them to conceptualize it into a design collection later. For many, again, taking an intangible inspiration, something like a memory or a feeling or a movement that is going on works better to serve as a source of inspiration for their design collection. The idea has to be very original, period. 

Someone as big as Jeremy Scott is inspired by something as petulant as Mickey Mouse, and he utilized that in his collaboration with the retail behemoth, H&M. So, most of the time, it is also about how true to oneself one is  while taking inspiration for clothing designs. 

A lot of times, design students end up taking very personal inspirations, like from their immediate family members or a personal story that motivates them, but sometimes the audience fails to connect with that inspiration because the story might be important to them but not to the larger audience. So, it is important to choose a source of inspiration that is relevant to the kind of collection that one wants to design, but also one that is relevant for the target audience.

One important step in finding sources of fashion inspiration is to keep documenting every idea that a design student gets on a regular basis. So, maybe, keeping a research journal would help, so that when the designers stumble upon an idea, while they are watching a movie or traveling or visiting some historical place like an art museum or simply talking to a fellow designer, they can immediately note it down. 

To sum it up

Once the inspiration for designing clothes is found, the rest of the steps follow effortlessly and rather seamlessly. The rest of the steps would take one to create designs, silhouettes, colors, and styling. Therefore, the creative role of sources of inspiration in clothing design is of paramount importance. If you are one such clothing brand that needs the inspiration to manufacture their collection, Fashinza can help you connect with related suppliers. Reach out to Fashinza if you need to source clothes for your clothing brand.