Exercise 03: Initial Research

 -Week 3- 

(6.9.2021)

Introduction to Fashion Design

Lecture 3: Designing

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Topic: Ways to develop a fashion collection- Initial Research

From the lecture, Ms. Maria introduced to us how to generate initial ideas and developing a fashion collection. When we are developing a fashion collection, we have to pay attention to overall looks, fabrics, color scheme and also styling.

FASHION COLLECTION is a range of garments, apparel or a product that brought together to tell a distinctive story. A fashion collection may consist of traditional pieces, such as tops, bottoms, and outwear or focus on a single product available in multiple colorways. After the collection is finished being created and tailored, the designer usually puts on a fashion show.

These are some examples of fashion collection illustrations:

source: https://www.elle.com/runway/g28900140/nyfw-spring-2020-collections-inspiration/

source: https://www.elle.com/fashion/g12173500/new-york-fashion-designers-sketches-inspiration-spring-2018/

To create a fashion collection, we can start by doing initial research about the theme, types of collection, target market and summary.

         First, we can start by determining the theme of our collection. We can do some research on Pinterest, Vogue magazine or photos for fashion inspiration. This may help us to explore different themes. And also, save or keep the pictures that inspire you as a reference. Then, we can create our own moodboard or storage bank by using the picture to brainstorm more ideas and present our design ideas.

Examples of moodboard/storage bank:

source: https://blog.sampleboard.com/fashion-design-inspirational-moodboard/

My first moodboard:

         Then, we have to choose the types of collection that we want to develop. There are many types of collection, such as seasonal collection, pre-collection, special collection and others. It is important because the types of collection are linked to the types of fabrics we use for our garments. I would like to develop a summer collection since my country, Malaysia is summer all year round.

As fashion can actually be divided into four seasons, the Seasonal collection included Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter collection. The two main seasons are Spring/Summer(SS) and Autumn/Winter(AW).

Examples of Seasonal Collection :

Fendi Spring/Summer 2020 Womenswear Collection

Balenciaga Fall/Winter 2017 Collection

Pre-collection is a fashion collection create available shortly before the usual season for such garments.

Examples of Pre-Collection:

Versace's Pre-Fall 2021 Collection

Dior's Pre-Fall 2021 Collection

         Furthermore, We have to select and identify our target market. The fashion customers can be separated into different groups according to geographics (country/city/area), demographics (age/gender/occupation), behavioural (usage/occassion) and psychographics (lifestyle/value/personality). I would like to target young women, 18-35 years old because this group of people like to shopping and have highly sensitive to the latest fashion trends.

         In conclusion, initial research is quite important before we start to develop a fashion collection and sketch our ideas. Initial research may help us identify our theme and explore more ideas for our design. Besides that, we can do more design experiments to improve our fashion collection.