The Inspiration: Where Fashion Design Begins

1. Trailer: Hi, my name is Daniel Vosovic, creative director and owner of Daniel Vosovic. Today I am teaching about inspiration. For this class, we're going to be focusing on building a mood board. As a designer, you have to figure out how to harness creativity but do so in a very structured environment. I'm a fashion designer. I'm here to tell a story and people will buy into that story. That's something that I'm really trying to encourage people who take this class, to go above and beyond and have a story that's worth telling. Take all of those great ideas and then channel it into actual garments for the right customer to hopefully get something out of it. 2. Finding Inspiration Part 1: Welcome to the first class, I'm excited to have you here. We're going to be focusing right now on opening yourself up to inspiration. I know from my own life that it can get a little repetitive, and we started to get into routines, talking to the same people, going to the same place, going to the same office all the time, and as a designer it's important for you to open yourself up, so that you can pull in inspiration whenever and wherever it hits you. I have the luxury of living in New York City, and being bombarded by things left and right all day every day, but that being said, inspiration can come from a structured environment such as a museum visit, one of your favorite movies, a great song that just trigger something in your gut. But it also can come from a style moment of someone passing you on the street or a chance encounter with a great, this is so stupid but it's happened to me, but like a dog on the street got me to actually stop and look down at what this girl's shoes, what she was wearing. If I didn't have a camera, I didn't have my phone on me, I wouldn't have been able to capture that five second moment to say, "I love this color leather." So, what this first class is really focusing on is open yourself up or be staying open, so that you can just be a sponge, especially in the first phase of design in a collection, it's imperative for you to not just stay focused on one linear inspiration, and say that's what I'm going to be designing for, that's what I'm designing from because it really can come from anywhere. A lot of us can be inspired by the same inspiration, but what's going to make your work stand out is your personal take on it, your life choices, where you are creatively, your point of view, that's what really is going to make the story and then the garments have lot more exciting than just designing clothes, which is of course what we do, we just want to be fed up with the story. It's funny during New York Fashion Week, they'll have these trends stories after Fashion Week happens, and all of a sudden 15 designers were inspired by Frida Kahlo for example, and you're wondering did a memo go out that all of us were inspired by the same thing? But no, no memo goes out, but the reality is it's our personal take and what we combine that inspiration with and our customer, and how do you take that inspiration and go above and beyond, just the literal translation of it. Being on the go I have two things with me always which is my phone, which obviously is camera a smart phone, and my sketchbook. It's not a massive sketchbook, it's just a little of that's only about this big that fits in my back pocket depending on how skinning the jeans are, and it's just a place to write down those ideas. When you're having these random moments of inspiration, it's important to capture them, catalogue them whether it's in your phone or on your sketchbook something, the trigger word, denim, schoenbrodt, cowboy, tomboy, whatever it is so that you can go back to it when you're in the right place because that might happen when you're on your way to work or in an argument. It may not be the best time to pull out an actual sketchbook and start designing, so just be sure to open yourself up to wherever that's going to come from. As a creative person, I'm loath to tell you exactly how to do things because obviously we all work differently. For me though, compiling imagery is a crucial part of just the design process for any designer. For me, keep my phone, sketchbook on me at all times, but that's not enough because I end up getting really distracted because then you are like "Oh, I should check emails or oh, Facebook's right there." So, what I do is I immediately slot it into inspiration for that season. It's not sub-categorize, there's no subfolders, it's literally just a beautiful folder of inspiration. We have the same folder which links through iCloud to the desktop so that when I come back to the studio if inspiration hits me at 2:00 AM, it's instantly seamlessly, I can have that dialogue here in the studio the next morning with my team here. So, for you what works best is truly up to you whether that's throwing it on a Pinterest board that you keep private until you unveil it, it could be magazine tears, it could be found objects, but basically at this stage of the design process, it's really important for you to just compile, you're just gathering right now, you're not editing, you're not necessarily thinking I want to design a collection based off of Renaissance paintings, just focus on being open to where that's pulling you, and it can be a really exciting place and you have no idea where the hell you're going, but that's okay. At this phase, just keep gathering and just be a sponge and soak it all in. 3. Finding Inspiration Part 2: The next phase once you've sort of taken the time to really just become a sponge, go back to your folders, go back to your board, and start to say, what are the key themes that are really popping out of all of this stuff? You'll know that subconsciously, you've really been gravitating towards strong structural shapes, or embroidery, or clean lines. Whatever it is that you're continuing to gravitate towards, be open to that and just sort of start sifting. It's an important part of the inspiration phase, is what is your message for the season? As a designer, it's really important to have a very clear clear message and why someone should choose you over the hundreds or thousands of other designers out there. So, editing at this third phase is important. If you're a tactile person and have a lot of magazine tears or actual physical inspiration images, it's really important at this phase to print them out, get them offline. For me, I need to have them just on their own. What that means is, if I keep them digital, I find I get into a routine of clicking through and just seeing them one-by-one. Even under Pinterest board, I think you're only going to get maybe nine to ten images on one screen, unless you have a huge massive computer screen. But at this phase, it's really important to look at where this inspirations is leading you for the season, and look at it as an entire breath, and you say, what is my message for the season? What are my key themes? And to really look at this. So, that's going to mean breaking your main themes up into your main boards, but then also then sub-categorizing those things into folders. I know it can sound really daunting, but basically you'll know when you've hit that phase of you have your sixth or seventh image of the same thing. Choose the best ones and really start to build into them. At this phase, you probably have a huge stockpile of inspiration and right now, it probably just looks like a huge massive mass and you want to start categorizing these into subfolders. Again, I work digitally at this phase. So, right now, it's going to be really figuring out what those key themes are, that keep coming up again and again in your research. Defining those as key themes and secondary themes or inspirations. For me, Spring Summer 14, Frida was our main, secondary was Turkey. Then, with under that or under that, we had sport and a few other references. But it's important to figure out what the statement is for the season, so that you're very clear and concise as you go into building the collection, that you can always go back to it. It's also at this phase you want to acknowledge who your customer is. If your customer really hates prints, then maybe you should phase the print inspiration out of your inspiration folders and not move it up to the board. At this point, you'll also start to acknowledge a color story that's starting to be born for the main inspirations. Whether it's soft neutrals or clashing, both primary colors. Something is going to be there for you to start to decipher, and it's important at this phase right now, to start to edit out what is working and what isn't working, acknowledging maybe great colors that have sold well in the past, or colors that your customer is responding to. This is the phase where that starts to happen. For me, silhouette is a very very important element of design. I have what I call a 50/5 rule, which is from 50 feet away. Hopefully, you'll know that that's a de Novos fic woman. So, for me, that's a slim slouchy silhouette. It's a shoulder that's a little dropped, a silhouette that's very rectangular, very linear, but from five feet away, you need to give her something interesting to look at. Maybe a beautiful button and unexpected fabrication in the lapel. So, again, this is the phase of inspiration where this is going to be really important for you to figure out what's your macro idea? What's your silhouette? Also, what's your micro? What are your details? You don't have to know how you're going to use them, but it's really important at this phase to figure out maybe what those things are. It's important as a designer to take the inspiration that you're gathering and go beyond it. First Spring Summer 14, we had some Turkish influence, some Frida Kahlo, and I could have chosen to send models on the runway with unibrows and a floral ring in their hair, but it would almost be too expected. You want to tell the story and if you just retell what's already been told, someone else can do that. As designers as creative people, it's important for us to instill our own point view and our own perspective on possibly a story that's been told before, but in a new exciting way. So, when you're designing, when you're really figuring out what your messages for the season, push yourself. I really encourage you to push yourself and go above and beyond, a little translation of your inspiration. 4. Constructing the Mood Board: Welcome to Lesson 2, Constructing the Mood Board. At this point, you hopefully have so much inspiration, it's bursting out of you. Now, it's time to put it somewhere. For me, I'm a very tactile person, it's important for me to take all of the digital and move it to something physical. So, like an actual Mood Board, print up the images in hopefully, high quality. I honestly just recommend at this point throw it up there. It's going to be a little bit of a muddled mess but it's important to just see everything. Again, going back to micro and macro, see everything as a whole and start to think what are those key images that are going to be your bullet points, your exclamation points while telling your story. For me for Spring Summer 14, I loved the idea of we dress chic tomboys, and who is the biggest chic tomboy of all is Frida Kahlo, there's also Patti Smith which I'll go back to. But for me, it was this image was a great one that I kept going to which was a painting of Frida Kahlo done up in a daft punk tee, smoking a cigarette, just looking like a bad ass. I loved the energy and the inspiration. It wasn't about copying the T-shirt she was wearing or even looking at the print that was in the photo. It was the attitude, it was that X factor that this photo was giving me and that became a central point for the new collection. There was another beautiful photo of Whirling Dervish which I was lucky enough to see a ceremony when I was in Istanbul. There was something so beautiful about the shape that the skirts made when they twirled and that was another key thing. I really love the idea of like these ghost images which is here, which is a beautiful image and to me it evoked movement. I think that that's really important as a designer is to not think flat, to not think two dimensionally, to always remember that we're humans, we're three dimensional. For me, movement is a verb that we always will have as part of our dialogue as we build the collection. I think - Dort have a text? I think- Yes. Cool. Don't limit yourself to just images when you're building your inspiration board. Obviously, they're great and they can tell a story but don't underestimate the power of a well-placed word. For me, I like to think, I choose three to five verbs every season not nouns, verbs that my collection will focus on. Again, as a creative person I don't want to tell you what works for me is going to work for you. I know that my woman is active. She lives her life everyday to the fullest. She doesn't like anything too precious. So, verbs that speak to that are very important. So, I think it's important for you to think about those things, what she's going to feel like when she walks into a room? How she is in a social setting? What does she feel when she's alone by herself? Those are things that are really going to help you build your customer and not just have a bunch of really pretty pictures. It's important to go above and beyond just images or text and to start to put on your inspiration board fabrics, interesting trends. I've even brought in vases or found objects before that are starting or jumping off point for the design process, and there's no right or wrong way you can build an inspiration board that's three dimensional. You can build an inspiration board that's too dimensional. You can build an inspiration board that's digital. It really is what works best for you. Like I said, from having gone through this a few years is, I prefer to gather digitally than display physically. Only reason is, I get very distracted with all of the stuff that can happen online whether it's work, emails, and all that shit or fun, Facebook, and all those other things. For me, when I'm focused on inspiration, I really like to stay focused on just what's right in front of me so, printing it up, putting it on a board that you can walk by again and again day after day and be thinking about it when you least expect it. If you prefer to work digitally platforms besides just a folder on your desktop, ones that have worked well in the past Pinterest, I like to keep the boards private though while you're developing. Mood share, Images spark play around and see what works best for you. But again, there's a lot of benefits to having things digitally which is basically, access and easy to edit. At this phase of building your board, it's also important for you to define a color palette. For me, I like to choose about three core colors that the collection will really strongly represent and then maybe three or four supporting colors that can support the core colors. Going back to my 55 rule, what I'd like to do is also think about all the girls coming out at the end of the runway when they're all walking and you see the entire collection in its entirety. I like to imagine squinting my eyes and thinking what are those core colors that come out? What are those blurry ones that stand out? Think again, that's what works for me, I'm sure sounds crazy to you but it's works for me, and that will help you again define and edit which at this phase of the design process is an important part. For Spring Summer 14, I wanted to have a lot of color, almost like a vibrant clash. As you can see behind me, color is very important part of Frida and assemble. So, we focused on beautiful blood oranges, fuchsias, and combining those, supporting those with blues and greens. Think about when you're building your core colors what are colors may be opposite on the color wheel or supporting that will actually make those even more vibrant. That's an important thing at this phase for you to really figure out what is again, your core colors and what's your supporting colors while still being true to your customers. Because my woman still wants black and white, but what else does she need? What else do you want to give her? Like a musician who writes a song or a filmmaker who creates a movie. It's important for your collection, your inspiration board to tell a story, to be filled with highs and lows and the exciting fireworks, but also as equally important the supporting pieces. Diana Vreeland, she's a famous editor and if you don't know who she is, do your research. She had a famous quote this is, "Give the eyes something to travel to. " What that means is that the inspiration board should have a story, an unspoken story. If you have to explain your inspiration board, it's not really doing the job of inspiring. So, think about these images as a way of you having a voice to tell your story without ever saying a word. One of the hardest things I've realized for designers at many levels is editing. In our studio, we call it slashing and burning because it's a painful painful process to say goodbye to something that you may have loved. But it's an important part of the design process. When you're building your inspiration board and you're starting to figure out again what the message is for the season, be ruthless, and be strategic, and eliminate the muddle, maybe the images and or whatnot that are muddling the key message and figure out what you want to say. To me, it's important to curate not just collect. You're not a fine artist you're a fashion designer. So, what is your message? Make it clear, make it concise because it'll make the collections and the designs much more defined. Hopefully, at this phase you're teeming with ideas and you've started to build your own inspiration board. So, feel free to upload, share, photograph if you're doing a physical board and let's start the dialogue. Let's figure out what's working, what's not but at this point be decisive. 5. Defining Your Consumer - Part 1: Welcome back. At this point, you should have a beautiful mood board constructed that will hopefully inspire your new collection. At this stage, we're now going to focus on defining the customer. Really trying to figure out who you're dressing, what does she need from you, answering some questions that are possibly a little difficult to answer, but ultimately when you do, it'll help your designs land in the right space. When you're first starting to create your customer profile, it's important to ask and answer questions such as demographics. What can she afford? Who else is she buying? What is she buying from maybe a competitor that she's not getting from you? The reality is, as young designers or as creative people, we want to think that a woman is out there that buys the Daniel Vosovic look head to toe at full price the entire collection, when the reality is no one shops like that anymore. You need to give your customer a reason to covet the things that you design for. So, by defining those needs and really figuring out, again, what she needs from you, why does she need that, and what she can afford, it'll help you in this development phase to make sure that all these months and months of work and thousands of dollars land at the right place. From a technical standpoint, as a creative person, it's really, really, really crucial at this phase. Also, growing your business not just of developing a collection, but for you to really know who your customer is. That can sometimes be a very difficult thing because we have our perceived customer. In the fashion industry, it's kind of a joke that we all designed for women who own art galleries or our fashion editors. The reality is they don't need our clothes, they have enough clothes, but to go beyond your perceived customer and also acknowledge who your actual customer is. She may be a different age bracket than you envision, she may not live in the same place that you envision, and that's fine. But it's important to differentiate and define the difference between your actual customer and she's the one paying full price, she's the one who's going to be there when you open your e-comm, she's the one that's going to be there when you launch a new collection and also your perceived customer, so that you can inspire people and continue to build your creativity. As a building tool for not just a collection but for your company, it's important for you to put these answers into physical documents. So, build a word document and answering the questions about four or five competitors of yours. Why are they competitors? What are their price points? Which stores that they carried in that you're not carried in? Those questions will hopefully lead to answers which will help define your development moving forward. That information will also be very helpful when you start to build your brand book. What does that look like? That's in a whole another lesson, so don't be worried about it. But basically, by answering the questions, it'll help you stay focused and keep your designs focused so that you don't design a bunch of beautiful things that your customer doesn't want or need. You'll be hearing a lot the term point of view, personal point of view, POV. It's a part of every artist's, every designer's personal dialogue. What do you bring to the world? What is it that people recognize when they see a garment hanging on the rack? They say, "Oh, that Daniel Vosovic piece looks so," what? It's a tricky thing because it can come from you. Point of view is obviously your personal point of view, what your thumbprint is, and the world should be on every garment, on every collection, on every piece of advertising that you do should be your own point of view. Even though the inspiration can change, what you stand for should not. We all know what the big mega brands stand for. Gucci, obviously represents more of sexiness, there's a hint of 70's appeal, it's very lux. Young brands struggle about figuring out where they fit into a marketplace. For me, the Daniel Vosovic woman, she's a tomboy. We dress women for every day making them feel special, not just for special occasion. So, that isn't necessarily defining us as a category, it's defining our point of view. So, if we make a sweatshirt, it will hopefully fall within those parameters, as well as an evening gown, as well as a t-shirt. Again, point of view is something that we'll become more honed and defined as you work through every collection, but it's something you should acknowledge at this phase for sure. As a designer, it's important to see what's going on around you, and granted I will be the first to tell you to not look at other designer's work when you're in the development phase. On the flip side, it's also important for you to know what's happening. The world moves too fast, we're very media hungry. So, should Miley Cyrus where something, for example, and get a lot of buzz? Be aware of what that is because as a small label, we're all competing for the same eyes and it's a catch-22 for sure because you want to be aware of what's happening, but also mark out your own place in the industry. As a small label, you'll soon realize that there's a catch-22 with putting your stuff out in the marketplace. It's important for you to be aware of things like pop culture, and trends, and celebrity, but it's also imperative that you offer your own point of view of those things. 6. Defining Your Customer - Part 2: For spring summer 14, we wanted to offer our take on a very, very, it's kind of a joke from Devil Wears Prada, from a theme that won't die for spring which is florals. How does a brand that represents Sheikh tomboy offer our version of florals? So, for us, we decided to do these beautiful pixelated florals that photograph each flower individually composited digitally, so that it felt very cluttered, very claustrophobic. Then we laid in grid work which is actually mosaic work from Turkish mosques, laid that into the colored floral and it gave it a bit more depth, a bit more structure, then we printed it on shave neoprene. So, what that ultimately means is a woman who maybe wants color, wants to tap into the trend. She has that answer but we've given it to her in a sporty utilitarian cool fabrication. It's a little unexpected. We then did it again in the black and white which I love because from far away going back to the 55 rule, if you're paying attention and doing your lessons, is that it looks at camo which again the idea of camo references tough women, strong soldiers so to speak. So I also like that you could do something as delicate as florals. I like that by doing it in the full-blown saturated color, as well as the black and white gives two interpretations, two distinctive interpretations of a trend. So when we were figuring out what the prints were for spring summer 14. Again, collection inspired partly by Frida and by Istanbul. We knew that we wanted it to be colorful because Frida was all about florals and color. Very saturated colors, so our main floral is very much that. A lot of the colors are pulled from a lot of her work and the idea of florals are pulled from her work. It was too literal though to just leave it at that. So one of our other prints, we call the grid print, was inspired by the inside of Turkish mosques, the tile work beautiful mosaics and I knew that just by laying mosaics down, it would be literal especially for my woman. So we cleaned it up, we wash it all down and brought it down to just a beautiful graphic place. So for a fan of Daniel Vosovis that knows the backstory of me traveling to Turkey and having this great adventure shall know, but for the average consumer who wants a beautiful black and white graphic tee, this is for her. So by offering offering these ideas from your original inspiration in a variety of ways, different fabrications, different color stories, you're sort of continuing to offer what it is your message for the season but you're giving your customer options because no one likes to be forced into something. As you're starting to develop into fabrics and your own prints, it's important to continue to look back on the inspiration board and say, "I'm really varying in a different direction and why is that?" Should you maybe change the inspiration board or change your direction of fabrics? That's an important process that you're going to have throughout the entire development of the collection from beginning to end. I think it's also important when you have when you start to get your swatches of fabrics, put them up right next to your images, and you'll start to see if it's continuing the dialogue, if it's continuing the same dialogue for the same collection because an important part is it's a beautiful fabric, but does it belong in this collection? At this phase, you should have a great idea as to what your inspiration is for the season. An idea for fabrications, prints, possibly color story, and also a clear idea as to who you're dressing, where's this collection going. So it's an exciting phase especially for what's coming up which is actually designing the collection, but at this phase, you should have a fantastic solid base to build upon. 7. Translating Ideas into Design: Congratulations next class. At this point, you should have a fantastic inspiration board, very inspiring. You should know who your customer is or at least an idea as to where the collection is going to go. Now, it's about translating those ideas into actual designs. For me, what works really well is we have crochies that we pre-print. We've designed them once, pre-print them, get the idea out there. It's really not about designing or sketching something beautiful, it's about getting the idea out. Taking the idea from what you have seen in your own life or on the inspiration board, and putting into a garment. Also referencing print ideas, colors, fabrications, those are all things that will go into helping you build out this collection so it feels very in depth. For us, one of the fun prints from spring summer '14 was our Frida references. What I realized was a lot of people also love Frida the way we love Frida. So, we decided to do a beautiful silk print of her face. We had started in a variety of places. One of them turned out to be a bit more aggressive than where we wanted to go, which is fine. No bad ideas in brainstorming. But this is the one we ended up with and we made it a bit more lux by printing on the silk stretch charmeouse. I also love the idea that, it's obviously you take the most iconic part of the inspiration. For me, it was her eyebrows and the florals, and on the body looks like a chest tattoo which I know can sound gross but I love the idea of our woman who's a bit tough, and a bit cool having this a little bit more abstract shape. For the person, the fan who knows who Frida Kahlo is, it's a great reference point. In the development process of a collection, it's important for you to also reference or at least from what works for me is that 55 rule. I start with a silhouette. So, one of my key silhouettes from spring summer '14 was inspired by the whirling dervishes and the shape that they're boxy jackets, and these beautiful soft A-line skirts made. So, for me that led me here to this beautiful skort. This started out as a fashion piece, meaning editorial, it might not be picked up by a lot of stores, but it was a great translation because you have Frida here in the print, you have Turkey in the silhouette, you have chic tomboy, by the fact that it's done in neoprene fabric, and it has a shawl underneath. So, she can sit in the subway, she can move in it, she can leave it on her floor and it's going to pick it up and it's not going to be wrinkled. So, right in one garment we were able to hit inspirations, color story, customer and then when it hits, it's great because this has been one of our biggest editorial pieces as well as one of our biggest sellers. So, that's the sweet spot that you want to hit is, the ability to have a message, have a key theme, inspire people, but also make it sellable and get it off the rack because as a fashion designer your job is not done when you present the collection. Your job's done when you see a happy customer walking down the street that paid full price for your garment and then wants to buy more from you, that will make you a lot happier. Piece of advice from me to you. When you are developing your collection, you're actually sketching getting those ideas out there, it's very important for you to stop at the first idea you have. You're going to be so excited. I've done it. I've done the most amazing piece that's going to make my career. You know what? You need more than that. Again, what we do is we print it up, just get the idea out there and you know what? Do a long sleeve version, do a V-neck version, make it into a dress, and your development will start to become more streamlined and you have choices. Then when you have 10, 15, 20, 30 of your best sketches, then cut them out. Cut them out, highlight them, try some color. What we then do is put them on the inspiration board, right back with the inspirations you can start to see the collection as a whole, where it began and where it's going. Be open, be very open and flexible too. Maybe I'm not feeling jackets as much as I thought or I really should be designing more dresses. This is the time in development where it's very important for you to not fall completely in love with everything. You still have to be flexible, stay focused on where you're going, but be malleable. So, congratulations, you're almost done. As we leave, I wanted to leave you with one last piece of advice that I was given years ago before I started my own company, and it's a little bit of a reality check. I want to encourage you, I want to inspire you, but I also want you to acknowledge that at the end of the day, we don't need more clothes. The world does not need more clothes. We have more than enough clothes. What they need are storytellers. What they need are people who inspire them to feel a certain way. When I make a jacket and I see a woman try it on and she stands up a bit taller and she might be inspired to go for that job interview, or ask for that raise, or she's wearing a great new dress that I designed and she goes and asks the guy out. Those are all little stories in my head that are based in reality, is that people need clothes that make them feel. So, when you're developing this collection, be aware that yes things like fit, color and quality and fabrications are all important things but realize how much power you have at your fingertips, that colors and fabrics and cut that you choose can inspire someone to live their life in a certain way. So, remember that, always go back to that feeling because at the end of the day we don't need more clothes, we need storytellers. Good luck. I'm super excited to see what you guys come up with. Until next time. 8. More Design Classes on Skillshare: way.