Creating custom clothing isn’t as hard as you might think. All it takes is a few key skills and a desire to learn. You might already have most of the skills it takes.
Follow our step-by-step guide to find out.
What’s Your Goal?
How you approach designing clothing depends on what your end goal is. Do you want to design clothes just for yourself? Or do you want to create your fashion line?
Either way, there are key skills you need to learn. But designing for yourself is ultimately an easier path than designing clothes for other people.
Design Your Own Clothes
Making your designs to wear is a great way to have a wardrobe unique to you. Sometimes it’s hard to find clothes at retail stores that fit you just right or that suit your style.
Not only is it a rewarding process, but making your clothes is a cool skill to have. Most fashion designers start out designing for themselves before moving on to creating their clothing line.
Design Clothes For a Fashion Line
Do you see a place in the retail marketplace for your designs? That’s awesome. Making a fashion line requires a lot of motivation and creativity.
You may have started out designing clothes for yourself, but now you have to think about what will look good on other people too.
You also have to learn what’s trending and predict what people will want to wear by the time your designs come out. There’s a lot of research involved in making a fashion line. But if you’re passionate about fashion, then it will be a breeze.
Establish Your Unique Style
When you design your clothes, you want to create looks that no one can get anywhere else. Your style is like your voice in the fashion world. But how can you make clothes that look good and are unique?
Keep Up With Fashion Trends
If you’re interested in creating your own clothes then you’re probably already interested in trends. Pay attention to what’s out of style, what trends are emerging, and who is determining trends.
The more you keep up with current trends, the easier it will be for you to predict future fashion trends. That way, your fashion line will be the first to supply.
Predict What’s Next In Fashion
Styles come and go throughout the decades. Typically, our styles today are influenced by previous fashions. For example, this decade we’ve seen a resurgence of ’90s and 70’s fashion.
By keeping up with pop culture and even the economy, you‘ll start recognizing how that correlates with how people dress. When you see the cause for certain fashion trends, you can predict what’s coming next.
Get Inspiration From History and Film
Certain patterns, cuts, and fabrics come back in style every few years. For example, with the current 70s trend, we’re seeing a surge of floral patterns and neutral browns.
To act on trends when you see them coming, you must have studied fashion from the past.
Also, people are very influenced by the media they take in. That can be movies, tv, and even books. People can even be influenced by science fiction and fantasy.
You can also use these media forms to gain inspiration for your unique fashion style. Chances are if you like it other people will like it too.
Learn About Fabrics and Textures
Most people have an eye for colors that work together. But without hands-on experience, it’s difficult to get a feel for fabrics and textures. The best way to understand fabrics is to study them in person.
Some things to consider with fabrics:
- How difficult is it to work with?
- How does it fall on a person’s figure?
- How expensive is the fabric?
- How durable is the fabric?
- What textures work well together?
- What textures clash?
If you’re just starting, a good thing to do might be to head to your local fabric store and get some samples of each texture you want to work with. That way, you can get a feel for it.
Learn How to Use CAD for Fashion Design
Today, every fashion designer uses computer-aided design (CAD) software. This allows you to take your designs and transfer them into a format that manufacturing machines can understand.
When you’re designing in CAD software, you have the choice between 2D and 3D patterns. Pattern cutters use 2D to determine their fabric cuts and how to put everything together.
However, there are benefits to using 3D. For example, 3D patterns may assist pattern cutters to see the design more fully. We’ll discuss more about how 3D designing is beneficial in the next section.
Fashion designers should learn how to take their designs and transfer them to CAD fashion design software. Using design software streamlines the manufacturing of garments throughout the supply chain.
Use Design Software
There’s a lot that goes into fashion design. Once you get the basics of design down, you’re ready to start sending your designs to manufacturers to get samples. Design software allows you to demonstrate your ideas virtually in 3D and transfer it to a machine.
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