The creative role of sources of inspiration in clothing design

COMMUNICATIONS The creative role of sources of inspiration in clothing design Fatma MeteDepartment of Textile,Faculty of Fine Arts,University of Dokuz Eylul,Izmir,TurkeyAbstractPurpose –To assess the creative role of sources of inspiration in visual clothing design.It aims to analyse simple,general accounts of observed design behaviour and early stages of the clothing design process,what is the nature of design inspiration,how sources of inspiration are gathered and how they affect the creativity and originality in clothing design.Design/methodology/approach –A progressive series of empirical studies looking at ready-to-wear clothing design has been undertaken;in situ observation,semi-structured interviews and constrained and semi-constrained design tasks.This empirical approach used ethnographic observational methods,which is effective in situations where conventional knowledge acquisition methods are insufficient,when broad understanding of an industry is needed,as in the fashion industry,not just a case study of a single individual or company.Findings –Identifies the major types of idea sources in clothing design and provides information about each source.Recognises that these sources of inspiration help designers to create design elements and principles of individual designs.In order to foster originality,sources of inspiration play a powerful role throughout the creative stage of design process,and also in the early stages of fashion research and strategic collection planning.Originality/value –This paper highlights the role of sources of inspiration and its effect in creativity and originality in the clothing design process.Offers practical help to clothing designers and design-led clothing companies.Keywords Fashion design,Clothing,Creative thinking,Design calculations,Design management Paper type Research paperIntroductionSources of inspiration and its personal interpretation,visually and technically,play an important role in the design process,in increasing creativity.Clothing design studies and the creative role of design inspiration,during the early informal and actual clothing design processes is open to scientific investigation like aesthetically driven designs in other domains.Studying creative fashion design as process and product is seen more problematic than other design-led industries,as the interaction between the design elements and principles,material properties,adaptation and modification of design inspiration areThe current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at/0955-6222.htmThis research was conducted at the Fashion Design Major,Department of Textile,Faculty of Fine Arts,Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir,Turkey and in four clothing retail and manufacturing companies.The author is grateful to the professional and student designers who acted as participants,and to his colleagues in Fashion Design Major,who assessed the qualities of the designs produced.IJCST18,4278International Journal of ClothingScience and TechnologyVol.18No.4,2006pp.278-293q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0955-6222DOI 10.1108/09556220610668509complex.Clothing design,as a variety of aesthetic and functional design processes, shares many characteristics of engineering design process.Research and observation are critically important in the fashion business.By researching and observing,designers gather background information for design, including studying current and future fashion trends and try to predict what the majority of their customers will want in the foreseeable future.In order to keep up with the changing world of fashion,fashion awareness should become second nature to every clothing designer.Appropriation,as a result of research and fashion awareness,is very important in the fashion industry.Designers must learn most of all to keep their eyes open,to develop their skills of observation,to absorb visual ideas,blend them and translate them into clothes that their customers will like.Exposure to beautiful things helps a designer distinguish genuine beauty and quality from fads and mediocrity(Frings, 2002).Design research defines the range of possibilities for designs within the scope of fashion and the intended target markets.It provides the sources of inspiration designs are based on,and enables designers to relate their designs to the context of fashion. The quality of designs depends not only on the designers’talents but also on the quality of their design research.Only extensive research enables designers to stay fresh and keep up to date with developments(Eckert,1997).This paper addresses the question of how originality and creativity can be improved through better support for the use of sources of inspiration.It gives an overview of the sources of inspiration in clothing design process and explains how they can be employed.The use of inspiration and its interpretation varies in different contexts,but some fundamental functions of sources of inspiration remain constant for fashion designers.The objective of this paper is to explain the vital importance of sources of inspiration in the clothing design process.Design and clothing as a visual and tactile sensory designIt is well known that design is two things:process and product,as verb and noun.As design problem solution process,it is researching,setting the source of inspiration, planning,organizing to meet a goal,carrying out according to a particular purpose and creating.As product it is the end result,an intended arrangement that is the outcome of that process or plan.Clothing is an example of applied design,even the most exciting,original idea must show awareness of its practical purpose and environment.We realise that some art is pure,“art for art’s sake”but most creations in the daily world are for a practical purpose and use.Design as process is planning to meet a goal,and thus applies to everything intentionally created for a purpose.The steps and order of the process are essentially the same regardless of the end product.These steps are very similar to management as a planning process.Design as man made product and service falls into two major categories:sensory and behavioural.Sensory design is perceived through the senses,and is classified as visual,auditory,olfactory,tactile and gustatory.Behavioural design is planned action. Many products,however,include aspects of both,because design may be perceived through the senses and then interpreted behaviourally.A fashion show,for example, include both sensory and behavioural designs.Sources of inspiration in clothing design279Sensory design include those products experienced through the physical senses:sight,sound,taste,touch,smell.The main purpose of a sensory design product is the sensory experience itself.Many products are experienced/perceived through several senses at once.Sculptures are both seen and touched.Prepared dishes can be appetizing in flavour,attractive visually,and satisfying intouch.Clothing fabric is felt on the outside as well as on the inside against the skin and is also seen on the wearer.Occasionally it is also experienced as sound,as with the soft swoop of satin,the rustle of taffeta,the rubbing of curdory,crackling of leather,or the jangle of beads;or as smell,as in suede and leather goods or the fragrance of sandalwood beads.Many products involve several senses;but clothing as a sensory design product is most often and most importantly experienced as visual and tactile sensory design.Therefore,in clothing design,as a visuospatial design activity,sources of inspiration are perceived through one sense at once,thus visually,and are again interpreted through the same sense.This kind of “visuospatial thinking”has a salient role in the creative process of clothing designs.A different technique for creating new ideas in clothing design superimposes two transparencies on each other like a double exposure photograph and creates a new idea from the combination.Described as “homospatial process”it can also be applied using different senses (Davis,1996).“Homospatial thinking”consists of actively conceiving two or more discrete entities occupying the same space,a conception leading to the articulation of new identities.Homospatial thinking has a very important role in the creative process in the following wide variety of fields:literature,the visual arts,music,science,and mathematics.This cognitive factor,helps to clarify the nature of creative thinking as a highly adaptive and primarily nonregressive form of functioning (Rothenberg,1976).Another way of seeking inspiration in design might be called “cross-sensory”interpretation.In it,designs intended for one sense organ are interpreted through another:a flavour (olfactory and gustatory)inspires a poem (auditory);a satin fabric (tactile and visual)inspires a scent (olfactory);a song (auditory)inspires a picture (visual).This is a long used technique that has provided ideas for many artists.Walt Disney’s film “Fantasia”is a classic example of visualizing sound,so-called synesthesia.In it famous musical works are interpreted in line,colour,shape,light,and pattern in motion as music progress.Many words are used in both fashion design,music and art vocabularies,such as rhythm,balance,and harmony,or orchestral “colour”and “texture”.Musical compositions with titles like “Deep Purple”and “Rhapsody in Blue”suggest the close relationship between visual and auditory design (Davis,1996).Briefly,in fashion design,mainly a visual and/or tactile source inspires a garment.Inspiration for apparel often comes from appreciation of qualities of the world around us.Designers must be open to inspirational sources and the different ways of seeking inspiration wherever they may lie.Research methodology and findingsThe importance of source of inspiration and their role in creative clothing design has been little understood and,therefore,rarely received attention in this industry.Eckert and Stacey (1998,2000,2003)studied knitwear design case,which shares many characteristics of complex engineering projects and as an example of “practical design”in a fast moving and highly competitive manufacturing industry.Their work includedIJCST 18,4280a large ethnographic study of the knitwear industry,which produced a detailed design process model and an analysis of the causes of communication problems within design teams.Ma¨kirinne-Croft et al.(1996)tried to explain the fashion design process in terms of quantum mechanics and psychoanalysis and see design creativity as the ultimate mystery;their description of the design process is simplistic.The author has undertaken a progressive series of empirical studies,based on observation and interviews,looking at ready-to-wear(RTW)clothing design;in situ observation,semi-structured interviews and constrained and semi-constrained design tasks.This empiric approach combines ethnographic observational methods with the knowledge analysis techniques of artificial intelligence.It is effective in situations where conventional knowledge acquisition methods are insufficient,when broad understanding of an industry is needed as in the fashion industry,not just a case study of a single individual or company.In this research,the creative role of sources of inspiration in visual clothing design by novice and expert clothing designers was assessed through empirical research.As subjects,16talented clothing designers,11university-level fashion design students in Fashion Design Department at Dokuz Eylul University andfive professional designers participated in the experiment carried out in this research.Thefirst group of subjects included advanced fashion design students,seven talented students selected from the third and fourth year of undergraduate studies,and also four students of postgraduate studies,who also works as a free lance or part time assistant designers in the clothing industry.The second group was composed offive professional designers with a minimum of5years of experience in clothing industry.Subjects were assigned two types of design problem in order to assess early stages of the clothing design process and the creative role of sources of inspiration in clothing design process.In thefirst design problem,without given any source of inspiration designers were asked to design a small womenswear RTW collection,which consists of dresses.This experiment was performed to examine to see if designers use any specific sources of inspiration consciously in their designs and if they use whether they can identify it,thus which kind of sources of inspiration they use consciously in their visual design of dresses.With this aim,each of designers were asked,without any constraints,to produce three womenswear clothing designs in dress forms for RTW industry for a specific fashion season.At this stage,designers at work in industry and the fashion design department were observed and interviewed,with particular attention to designers’source-gathering activities if there is any,and the simple general accounts of design behaviour and early stages of the clothing design process.In the second design problem,designers were given two sources of inspiration separately;images of a type offlower,as an example of sources of inspiration from nature,and another image of a historical garment,as an example of sources of inspiration from products-here previous garments.Again designers were asked to design two separate small womenswear RTW lines,using these sources of inspiration. This experiment was performed to examine the role of sources of inspiration in visual clothing design.Each of designers were asked to produce three clothing designs, namely women’s dresses,per source.Designers at work in industry and the fashion design department were observed and interviewed,with particular attention to the interpretation of design inspiration,adaptation activities,the simple general accounts of design behaviour of designers.Sources of inspiration in clothing design281Empirical data on early design processes,search for source of information and application of the inspiration to the design problems were obtained from these two phases of empirical study.The overall qualities of the designs produced,variety of aspects including creativity and the approaches applied were independently judged by three fashion design lecturers,including the author herself and one expert fashion designer from clothing industry.As predicted,from the empirical data,aspects ofcreativity in design related to the role of sources of information and the concept of originality have been identified.At the end of the first design problem,designers were asked about their conscious sources of inspiration and their personal interpretation of it,visually and technically.When asked about their conscious sources of inspiration,75per cent of the designers,12out of 16,reported several sources of inspiration.Four designers did not identify any conscious source of inspiration.Three major areas of inspiration sources were spontaneously mentioned;universe of products,universe of art and universe of nature.In the universe of products,designers mainly inspired by the previous fashion designs and fabrics.Secondly,they inspired by other products such as architectures,furnitures,telecommunications,food,etc.In the universe of arts,they mainly inspired by fibre art exhibitions,music,movies,paintings,drawings,graphic arts,sculpture and cartoons.In the universe of nature,they inspired by animals,felines,insects,vegetables,plants,flowers,minerals,stones and natural phenomenas.In the first experiment,mainly novice designers used a specific theme as a source of inspiration in their designs.In this phase,most of the experienced designers mainly did not use any specific source of inspiration in their designs,but used popular design elements and details of the current fashion context,with the constraint by “what would sell most”.It was not easy to identify a specific source in their collection.The reason for this can be expressed as they used to design for the mainstream manufacturing companies which they do not impose (push)the products to the market,but rather to extract (pull)them.It was identified that these designers’approach is market oriented,rather than design oriented approach.At the end of the second design process,it is observed that designers extracted strong visual and tactile elements from the sources of inspiration supplied to them.Hence,in this design problem,thus in the case of given source of inspiration,designers performed better in terms of the overall qualities of the designs produced and the creativity level.They applied several adaptation methods to personally interpret them in visual and tactile elements of new designs.Experienced designers mainly were able to specify their materials for their designs in order to achieve the forms and lines in their designs.All these results indicate that using a source of inspiration increase the overall qualities of the designs produced and the originality and creativity.When a source of inspiration used effectively in a design problem,it also maintains collection unity.Otherwise,the pieces in the line were not seem related with each other.After selecting the source of inspiration,extensive research is also needed to gather detailed information about this specific source,in order to explore the new ways of looking at old things.Designers should be aware of everything in order for the design is appropriate,be more creative.Sources of inspiration in clothing designWhere does the fashion designer get ideas and inspiration for new styles?The answer is everywhere and everything.Anything visual and tactile,in fact sensual,IJCST 18,4282can be a source of inspiration for a garment.Through television,the designer experiences all the wonders of the entertainment world.Infilms,the designer is exposed to the influences of all the arts,and lifestyles throughout the world. Because consumers are exposed to movies through international distribution,films prime their audiences to accept new fashions inspired by the costumes.Museum exhibits,art shows,world happenings,expositions,theatres,music,dance and world travel are all sources of design inspiration to fashion designers.The fashions of the past are also a rich source of design inspiration.While always alert to the new and exciting,fashion designers never lose sight of the past,they use old things in new ways(Stone,2001).As stated the inspiration for a garment within a collection or for an entire collection can come from an infinite variety of sources.Sources of inspiration are often linked to the social“spirit of the times”also called the“zeitgeist”.Understanding the state of current fashion and searching for ideas and sources of inspiration involves looking at art objects and books,going on trips to places like Paris and Milan,visiting museums, watching people on streets and going on country walks.Designers are most creative when they are directly exposed to the sources of ideas.On the other hand,it has been observed in the fashion industry that there are two fundamental approaches in the creative clothing design processes:(1)material,thus fabric,inspired clothing design process;and(2)conceptual clothing design process,such as several themes originated from theuniverse of arts,nature or products.These design processes will be argued elsewhere in separate papers in details.It is known that the high-fashion“name”designers typically develop a concept,also called theme,for their collection in order to be more creative and original.The major types of idea sources in design-led industries are previous products, artifacts,natural objects and phenomena.In case of clothing design,garments,fabrics and trims as previous products,play an important role in sources of inspiration. Although,there is a broad recognition that much of the design proceeds by modification of previous ideas,in case of fabric inspired clothing design,designers search for new forms and styles with newly developed or invented materials.In this case a style often takes as its starting point the technical possibilities of materials.For example,the development of elasthen fabrics,such as Lycra,inspired designers to figure-hugging silhouettes.Garments and other productsClothing designers draw ideas from current and previous garments,such as couture or RTW designer garments,historic and ethnic garments,streetwear,etc.They attend catwalk shows,visit shops to absorb fashion trends,watch celebrities,identify the strong features of a new season,and study how the garments of market leaders and competitors are styled.Designers also study the photographs of garments from fashion magazines and trend publications to gain an overview of fashion.A photograph does not show technical details,but it communicates the mood of a design and the image of the target wear(Figure1).Sources of inspiration in clothing design283Historic and ethnic costumesDesigners’job is to find,just sort of feel the zeitgeist and to take an idea or a mood and turn it into something tangible,which often was something that had a history and a past.Designers often turn to the past (recent or historical)or to folk costumes for ideas and themes.Costume falls into two categories:historic costume,the fashion of a certain historical period;and folk or ethnic costume,traditional national or regional dress.Museum costume collections,historic films and books are excellent sources of costume references.Designers usually are sensitive to the combinations of design elements and principles in each historical period of costume.High-fashion/couture designers’theme is often based on a historic or an ethnic inspiration.Fashion silhouettes or garment details popular during historic periods provide a source of design inspiration.For example,the empire silhouette recurs periodically throughout fashion history.Another example,the ruff collar or a sleeve detail from the renaissance period may inspire a collection.As an example of historic customs as a design inspiration,John Galliano’s spring/summer 2005Dior couture collection can be given.He set the theme as “the age of empire”inspired by the images from the time of Napoleon,the emperor’s coat ofarms,the image of a sensual woman such as Jose´phine de Beauharnais.In this collection he also interpreted this theme for wearable Napoleonic coats and Josephine gowns for RTW (Figure 2).Designers may be inspired by the clothing and accessory styles of other cultures.They find the same inspirational blend of colours,motifs,lines,shapes,and spaces in folk costumes.The global environment has increased interest in products from the far reaches of the world.Designers seek inspiration from “exotic”cultures whose clothing styles and fabrics are distinctly unique.Wearing clothing inspired from other culturesFigure 1.Previous fashion designs(garments)as a source ofinspirationIJCST 18,4284may provide a sense of adventure and vicarious enjoyment of that culture.Some designers travel to other locales to seek inspiration for a new line.Designers use of various national and ethnic groups and cultures as inspirations for their collections,such as Asia,Russia,the Austrian Hapsburgs,Africa,China,Spain,Persia,Gypsies,etc.inspirations.Apart from the current and previous garments,fashion designers are also influenced from other man made products,such as architecture,furnishing,electronics,food,etc.Inspired by architecture,Francisco Costa on his spring/summer 2006Calvin Klein collection explained:It is about shape and it is about volume.The collection is very light,feminine and intricate.Architecture is still very important for us;there are layers of cotton,sometimes with circlesapplique´d on,sometimes squares.Very Bauhaus (,2005).ArtifactsThe initial moment,the first idea for a collection is a very individual thing among fashion designers.Literature,movies,painting,sculpture,television,architecture,music and theatre can serve as inspiration for a fashion designer.Coco Channel,for example,was inspired Bauhaus and Picasso;Elsa Schiaparelli worshipped Francis Picabia,Jean Cocteau,and Salvador Dali.Yves Saint Laurent,strongly influenced by his friend Andy Warhol,created a pop art collection in 1966.Designers flock to large cities to soak up the creativity centered there.They are influenced by what other designers and artists are creating.Excitement about a new idea acts as a catalyst for more creativity.There is a growing desire for individuality in design and a desire for personality whether by accessorizing minimalism or mismatching lace,tweed,denim and print.Print was important to Schiaparelli’s surrealism and she collaborated with Salvador Dalı´on a number of projects.Figure 2.Historic costumes(garments)as a source ofinspirationSources ofinspiration inclothing design 285One of their most famous pieces was a dress printed with a lobster,in reference to Dali’s sculpture Lobster Telephone.Dali’s art translated well into prints that were witty yet elegant and Schiaparelli’s interpretations of his surrealism,either hand-painted or freely embroidered,were strange yet pretty (Figure 3).Art exhibitions and movies often have an impact on design collections.Although the costume designers of contemporary films are influenced by current fashion,it alsoworks the other way around.Clothing designers are also inspired by both new and old movies.Sometimes it is just a mood that captures their imagination,but most often it is the clothes.Olivier Theyskens on Rochas on his ss06Rochas RTW collection,said,“I was very interested by the life of Monet,impressionism,cloudy-daylight colours,emotions and feelings.It is more ‘arty’and I love the arty approach.”Music and the exposure that video gives celebrities have made a significant impact on young people.Teens look to see what rock stars are wearing,therefore junior designers emulate these entertainers so that their clothes will be popular with their customers.For his spring/summer 2006RTW collection,Alessandro Dell’Acqua explained,“Marilyn Monroe was the inspiration,but a very modern,very contemporary interpretation.”Natural objects and phenomenaDesigners take motifs,colour combinations and cultural connotations from nature in the same way as from man-made objects.Natural beauty also means that we are going to want more realistic renderings of some natural things.Sometimes the theme might be reflected in the colours of natural objects or phenomena,this is also called colour inspiration.For example,the colouration seen on a sunset view or flower bed might be an inspiration for a clothing line (Figure 4).Figure 3.Artifacts as a source ofinspiration –SalvadorDali’s Lobster Telephoneas a source of inspirationfor Elsa Schiaparelli’slobster printdressIJCST 18,4286Donatella Versace explained on her ss06Versace collection,“The inspiration was palm springs.The colours are very desertlike and there is a lightness to the fabrics as well.”Materials (fabrics)While some designers research a specific time period or ethnic culture for inspiration,most designers of RTW mass market rely primarily on studying new fabric and texture trends.Visual and tactile characteristics of materials,an intriguing fabric texture or interesting print might serve as the design foundation for a collection.Several fabrics in prints,plaids,and solid colours and in smooth as well as textured surfaces might be combined to create an interesting collection.During this design stage of creation,some designers work with specific fabric ideas gathered at textile fairs or directly from textile manufacturers as they begin to sketch garment design ideas.Less frequently,designers might develop a design sketch,then seek the perfect fabric for it (Burns and Bryant,1997).Fabrics themselves often inspire garment designs as shown in Figure 5ss05Versace RTW collection.The softness and drapability of a jersey might inspire gathers in a dress.Christian Dior wrote,“Many a dress of mine is born of the fabric alone.”In his spring/summer 2006Fendi collection,Karl Lagerfeld,for example,reflected on his selection of design inspiration as material and technique,“Sometimes it is leather,sometimes it is pique,sometimes it is plastic,but it is all done with laser.You know,you could not do that before.”Another example for the use of fabric inspiration can begiven from latest spring/summer 2006RTW collections:Phoebe Philo on Chloe´explained:I love all the couture fabrics.You know,boucle´s and gazards.It is wonderful to work with them.They are really lush and expensive and rich.But they are not versatile,you have to kind of respect them.You cannot do things that you can do with other fabrics,so it was an interesting process (,2005)(Figure 5).Figure 4.Flowers (nature)as asource of inspiration inIssey MiyakecollectionSources ofinspiration inclothing design 287。