Sketches: Concept to Illustration, Ideas on Paper
What came first: the outfit or the fashion sketch? As long as clothing has existed so has the fashion illustration.
You’ve no doubt sketched out some of your ideas on a pad of paper, but it’s important to keep in mind the different types of fashion sketches out there. You have fashion illustrations and flat sketches, which serve a different purpose than a spec sheet, but each has their place in your design process.
While draping garments on a dress form is a popular way to work out your fashion concept, if your desire is to have your product mass-produced, nothing matches a sketch of your design. The goal of a fashion sketch is to accurately show your design idea so that when you turn it over to the patternmaker they create the exact concept you had in your head. The most important step after the IDEA phase is to translate your design to paper. Putting your idea on paper requires that you observe, question, and decide how you want your garment to drape and therefore which fabrics to choose. By having to actively conceive of your idea in order to present it in sketch form, the decision-making process – like which color palette to use – becomes clearer. After this you are able to move on to the more technical aspects of the sketching phase. Whether it’s a fashion illustration or a spec sheet, each of these will help your patternmaker interpret your idea.
The fashion illustration is not simply a sketch, but it is also an art form. Before photography, illustration was the only way for fashion magazines, like Vogue, to communicate style concepts to their readers. Photographer Cecil Beaton and artist Andy Warhol both began their careers as fashion illustrators. At this stage of the design process, the fashion sketch is more about the image than the garment itself. These drawings are not concerned with realism; body style and silhouettes are often exaggerated to make a fashion point. Every designer’s illustrations are different; their drawing style is often an extension of their design personality. You no doubt have an idea of what color combinations and fabrics work for your design aesthetic, but rendering them accurately plays an important part in how these garments will translate to a product. The best way to realistically draw different fabrics, silhouettes, and fits is to observe these things in the real world. Once you master how these elements appear in 3-D, translating them to 2-D becomes second nature. Fashion illustrations are not concerned with perfection; they are the raw physical representations of your design idea.
After the fashion illustration comes the flat sketch, which is a line drawing of the garment you have just illustrated. This drawing should relate directly to the product that will be created, it must accurately show the silhouette and style details of the garment. Things like collars, cuffs, and trims must be drawn to scale so the actual garment can be constructed in fabric. This sketch will serve as a guide to draft the pattern that will be used to mass-produce your product. An error in this sketch will set you back to the drawing board (pun intended). In recent years, CAD or Computer Aided Design has helped bridge the gap between the creative and design process, especially with overseas factories. This computer program will help you document the most accurate representation of your design. It has greatly reduced errors in the manufacturing process, which will save you not only time but money.
There is one more step before your design can go from idea to reality and its name is the spec sheet. The spec sheetis a form that usually contains the flat sketch of your design with the costs of the fabrics and trimming that will be used. The spec sheet speaks the manufacturer’s language, which is all about specification. Whoever will be producing your product needs all the details about measurements, size range, and fabric allotment. While not romantic this is a necessary step in the design process.
The fashion sketch is an intermediary stage between idea and product. It is the visual representation of your vision that not only informs the manufacturer, but can serve as a piece of art.
Next Article
Increase Profits with Industry Specific Technology
Looking to restructure your manufacturing processes and maximize profit? Designers seeking a system to improve productivity should consider Lectra, the world leader in integrated technology solutions and specializing in software specific to the fashion in
Learn more
