Field Guide: How to be a Fashion Designer

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FIELD GUIDE: HOW TO BE A FASHION DESIGNER

ure that even today is still used as a

reference for defining a collection.

The silhouette, being the first impres-

sion one has of a garment, dictates

the general spirit of the collection

from the get-go. For this reason, it will

serve as a guide in the making of each

of the garments and will determine,

among other details, the volumes,

the proportions, and materials—for

example, a geometric silhouette will

need a more rigid fabric than a free-

flowing silhouette.

The standard term used for defining

silhouettes is the line, articulated by

the cut, the placement of pleats,

and the effect these create. There

are various kinds of lines: the A line,

which refers to a garment that is

narrow in the upper part with a low

waist that widens toward the lower

extreme; the trapezoid line, recog-

nized by its broad backs and non-

round forms that extend to the lower

border of the garment; and the Y line,

characterized by very wide shoulders

with narrow skirts or straight pants, to

name a few.

To preserve coherency and order in a

collection, it is important to maintain

common lines or details that recur

throughout the pieces.

COLOR

Color is fundamental to the concep-

tion of a collection. It is one of the fac-

tors that first draws the attention of

consumers, conveying the spirit and

emotions that the collection wishes

to express: sensuality, mystery, inno-

cence, maturity, madness, etc. Such

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esigner

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DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

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is its importance that over the his-

tory of contemporary fashion, there

have been designers associated with

a particular color to the extent that

it identifies them, resulting in a sym-

biosis where one cannot exist without

the other, such as the case of Lanvin

blue, Valentino red, or the shocking

pink of Elsa Schiaparelli.

In order to create a color menu (a

selection of between four and ten

tones to be used in the production

of a collection, some more frequently

as base colors, others exclusively for

details) it is important to keep in mind

the three dimensions of a color if one

wishes to obtain a chromatically har-

monious color menu in which nothing

is too shrill:

– Color: the color itself, such as red,

blue or yellow.

– Value: the degree of luminosity or

darkness a color has. The highest or

most luminous values of a color are

its hues and the lowest or darkest

are its shadows.

– Saturation: the degree of intensity

of a color, the brightness or pale-

ness that it emits depending on

its level of purity; when it is pure,

and neither black nor white or any

other color has been added to it,

the color is at its maximum level of

saturation.

Playing with colors and their dimen-

sions in various ways produces differ-

ent harmonic ranges:

– Monochromatic range: the selec-

tion of a single color; varying its

saturation and/or value produces

different shades.

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esigner

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