Fashion design
Fashion design is the
applied art dedicated to the
design of
clothing and lifestyle
accessories which generally mirror the cultural and social influences of that time. This includes all designs worn to create a statement about the individual or group of individuals. Historians use fashion design as a means of determining social and cultural values particularly deriving those values from paintings and ancient artifacts. Fashion design throughout history has had a direct correlation with status, position and religion. Such an example would be a Roman Toga, which was originally worn by all Romans and then became exclusive, only being allowed to be worn by true citizens of Rome. Fashion design is not restricted to fads (often confused with fashion design), which is generally known as the "current look" or "street wear". It covers everything from uniforms to headwear and is not restricted to western culture. Technically all clothing created for a purpose is fashion design. For example, the Queen of England's coronation costume is fashion design as is the continual restructuring and upgrading of an army uniform. A monk's costume is also technically fashion design since it reflects the monk's culture. Generally this use of the expression
fashion design is also called
costume.
Fashion design dictates and delineataes changes in clothing over time. A man's shirt may generically consist of a front or fronts, back, and sleeves, but shirts throughout history vary in the specifics of their design. It is often and wrongly perceived that fashion design is restricted to high fashion and label names. Below is a history of 20th century fashion more or less because this is the period Fashion Design grew from serving a practical purpose to a recognized form of art.
The first fashion designer who was not merely a
dressmaker was
Charles Frederick Worth (1826–1895). Before the former
draper set up his
maison couture (
fashion house) in
Paris, clothing design and creation was handled by largely anonymous seamstresses, and high fashion descended from styles worn at royal courts. Worth's success was such that he was able to dictate to his customers what they should wear, instead of following their lead as earlier dressmakers had done. With his unprecedented success, his customers could attach a name and a label to his designs once they learned that they were from the
House of Worth, thus starting the tradition of having the designer of a house be not only the creative head but the symbol of the
brand as well. (Foreshadowing another contemporary trend, the House of Worth remained in business long after its founder's death in 1895, continuing until Worth's great-grandson closed the house in
1952.)
Worth's former apprentice
Paul Poiret opened his own fashion house in 1904, melding the styles of
Art Nouveau and
aestheic dress with Paris fashion. His early
Art Deco creations signalled the demise of the corset from female fashion.
Following in Worth's and Poiret's footsteps were:
Patou,
Vionnet,
Fortuny, Molyneux ( who taught Dior, Balmain and Lanvin ),
Lanvin,
Chanel,
Mainbocher,
Schiaparelli,
Balenciaga, and
Dior. Hand in hand with clothing, haute couture accessories evolved internationally with such names as
Guccio Gucci,
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana,
Thierry Hermès,
Judith Leiber, and others.
It was during this period that many design houses began to hire artists to sketch or paint designs for garments. The images alone could be presented to clients much more cheaply than by producing an actual sample garment in the workroom. If the client liked the design, she ordered it and the resulting garment made money for the house. Thus, the tradition of designers sketching out garment designs instead of presenting completed garments on models to customers began as an economy.
The early twentieth century
Throughout the 1920s and '30s, all high fashion originated in Paris, and to some extent London. American and British
fashion magazines sent editors to the Paris
fashion shows.
Department stores sent buyers to the Paris shows, where they purchased garments to copy (and openly stole the style lines and trim details of others). Both made-to-measure salons and ready-to-wear departments featured the latest Paris trends, adapted to the stores' assumptions about the lifestyles and pocket books of their targeted American customers.
Post-War fashion
Most fashion houses closed during occupation of Paris during World War II, and several designers including
Mainbocher permanently relocated to
New York. Nazi Germany continued to support some couture during the Occupation of Paris. Hollywood, largely underwritten by New York garment manufacturers, became the fashion focus during WWII. Paris recovered its primacy in the
post-war era with Dior's
New Look, but Paris was never the sole arbiter of trends again.
By the early
1960s,
celebrities were becoming the new
Fashion icons, even though they in turn wore designs from the
couturiers of the day: influential "partnerships" of celebrity and high-fashion designer included
Audrey Hepburn and
Givenchy, and
Jackie Kennedy and
Oleg Cassini.
The rise of
British fashion in the mid-sixties and designers such as
Mary Quant and
Betsey Johnson signalled a temporary end of French dominance. Taking their cue from
street fashion, these designers catered to a younger consumer and offered retailers a new source of inspiration.
Vivienne Westwood's street-inspired styles "created" the image which is now generally considered as
Punk.
The trend dictation of the old couture houses was over.
Modern fashion design is roughly divided into two categories,
haute couture, and
ready-to-wear. A designer's haute-couture collection is meant exclusively for private customers and is custom sized, cut and sewn.
To qualify as an official "haute couture" house, a designer or company must belong to the
Syndical Chamber for Haute Couture, a Paris-based body of designers governed by the French Department of Industry that includes American, Italian, Japanese, and other designers as well. A haute couture house must show collections twice yearly with at least 35 separate outfits in each show. These collecitons may be shown on the catwalk or in private salons.
Ready-to-wear collections are not custom made. They are sized according to the manufacturer's intended market, which makes them more suitable for larger productions. Ready-to-wear collections can also be divided into designers/createur collections and Confection collections. Designer/createur collections have a high quality, a superb finish and a unique cut and design. These collections are the most trendsetting compared to Haute Couture and Confection. Designer/createurs ready to wear collections often contain concept items that represent a certain philosophy or theory. These items are not so much created for sales but just to make a statement. The designer's ready-to-wear collection is also modeled on international catwalks.
Confection collections are the ones we see most commonly in our shops. These collections are designed by stylists. The brands that produce these collections aim only for a mass public and are in general not searching for a new point of view on fashion.
Although many modern fashion designers work in a "traditional" way some designers have broken these "rules" over the years. These include some now-deceased designers such as
Elsa Schiaparelli, who worked in the thirties, forties, and fifties; Japanese designers
Yohji Yamamoto,
Comme des Garcons, and
Clarence Davis from the early eighties to the present; and designers from the mid-nineties onward. An example of a modern-day rule-breaker is
Martin Margiela and
Warmenhoven & Venderbos. These designers approach clothing, fashion and lifestyle from new angles and explore also the boundaries of fashion itself in order to create new concepts and views for fashion design. Their collections are not only restricted to garments (ready to wear as well as couture) and other fashion-related products, but also contain work in other media. The works of this breed of designers can also be placed in a certain
Art movement.
Most fashion designers attend
art school. Fashion design courses are considered applied arts just like graphic design and interior design.
The types of fashion designer are often confused. A stylist inspires his/her designs on existing things, trends and designers collections. A designer starts from scratch; he/she develops a unique concept and translates this into garment collections, other lifestyle related products or a statement in various other types of media. Some designers approach their work just as a
fine arts painter or sculptor.
However, there are types of fashion designers that only design clothing and are against any form of publicity; these are called anti-fashionism/anti-fashion, namely Maurizio Altieri of Carpe Diem; he doesn't advertise, and refuses all editorials in defiance of the standards of fashion.
Inspiration for fashion designers comes from a wide range of cultural influences. However, just like all artists, designers tend to keep an eye on things going on world-wide to inspire themselves to make their future
clothes lines. Most fashion designers, besides being trained in design, are also trained as pattern makers and modeleurs. A typical design team is made up of one or more designer(s), pattern maker(s) /modeleur(s), sample maker(s), buyer(s) and salesman (men). For presentations and catwalk shows the help of
hair dressers,
make-up artists,
photographers,
modeling agencies, the
model and other support companies/professions is called upon.
Median annual earnings for fashion designers were $48,530 in 2000. The middle 50 percent earned between $34,800 and $73,780. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $24,710, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $103,970. Median annual earnings were $52,860 in apparel, piece goods, and notions--the industry employing the largest numbers of fashion designers.For a free referral to a designer or other sewing professional in the U.S. visit the website of the non-profit trade association for sewing professionals, the Professional Association of Custom Clothiers (PACC) at [
1]www.paccprofessionals.org
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Sewing Professional is the most general term for those who make their living by sewing, teaching, writing about sewing, or retailing sewing supplies. She or he may work out of her home, a studio, or retail shop, and may work part-time or full-time. She or he may be any or all or the following sub-specialities:
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A Custom Clothier makes custom garments one at a time, to order, to meet an individual customer's needs and preferences.
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A Custom Dressmaker specializes in women's custom apparel, including day dresses, careerwear, suits, evening or bridal wear, sportswear, or lingerie.
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A Tailor makes custom menswear-style jackets and the skirts or trousers that go with them, for men or women.
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An Alterations Specialist, or Alterationist adjusts the fit of completed garments, usually ready-to-wear, or restyles them. Note that while all tailors can do alterations, by no means can all alterationists do tailoring.
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Designers think up combinations of line, proportion, color, and texture for intended garments. They may have no sewing or patternmaking skills whatsoever, and may only sketch or conceptualize garments.
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Patternmakers flat draft the shapes and sizes of the numerous pieces of a garment by hand using paper and measuring tools or by computer using AutoCAD based software, or by draping muslin on a dressform. The resulting pattern pieces must comprise the intended design of the garment and they must fit the intended wearer.
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A Wardrobe Consultant or Fashion Advisor recommends styles and colors that are flattering for a client.
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A Seamstress is someone who sews seams, or in other words, a machine operator in a factory who may not have the skills to make garments from scratch or to fit them on a real body. This term is not a synonym for
dressmaker.
Seamstress is an old euphemism for prostitute. At the turn of the last century in Seattle, for example, 80% of the city's revenues came from taxes on sewing machines, which were placed in windows instead of red lights. No doubt respectable dressmakers and tailors had to sew in the dark.
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List of fashion designers *
List of grands couturiers*
Fashion*
Fashion Week*
Haute couture*
Resort wear* Deckert, Barbara:
Sewing for Plus Sizes: Design, Fit and Construction for Ample Apparel, Taunton, 1999,
Appendix B: How to Find, Select, and Work With a Custom Clothier, pp. 142-143.
* Hawes, Elizabeth (1938),
Fashion is Spinach, Random House
* Steele, Valerie (1988),
Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195044657
* DeJean, Joan (2005),
The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour, The Free Press, ISBN 978-0-7432-6413-6
*
Fashion designer @ internetrends.com*
FMD - fashion designer database*
Mens high-fashion clothing trends*
NPR Story about The Essence of Style (and Louis XIV) by Joan DeJean]
The Professional Association of Custom Clothiers (PACC).*
Diaries of Fashion Design Students*
Haute Couture network A groupment of 1200+ websites based around Haute Couture, Designers and Fashion
