Designer's Involvement in Clothing Production

According to Fashion-ology: A Introduction to Fashion Studies by Yuniya Kawamura not all notable fashion designers sketch or create their own designs. In fact, some designers do not even have any sort of formal training in fashion. According to Kawamura “when one studies to what extent the designer is involved in the actual manufacturing and designing process of a garment, the degree of involvement varies from designer to designer, from company to company”(63). I find this to be unusual because I would think that designers would have at least some knowledge of the multiple dimensions in fashion design.

Kawamura mentions that Paul Poiret had hired a fashion illustrator to sketch his designs. According to a website I found on Paul Poiret, he was known as the “King of Fashion” and he made a name for himself by liberating women of skin-pinching corsets. To me it seems bewildering that a legendary designer like Paul Poiret can construct garments without seeing a physical representation of the design beforehand. I have a background in design myself and I was instructed to always sketch out my ideas physically and never jump into projects without brainstorming. But then again, different designers have their own way of fabricating fashionable designs and their creativity should not be questioned.

As for the Compact Challenge not much has changed since my last post. I haven’t really been anywhere today so there was not an opportunity for me to spend money on things that I don’t need. But I am hoping that the challenge will become easier for me as the days go by because as I mentioned in my last post I almost “slipped up”.

Marcella Lee
Blog #2

[Inside source: Kawamura, Yuniya. Fashion-ology An Introduction to Fashion Studies. New York: Berg, 2005.]

[Outside source: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={0DC3D00F-4611-4F91-8DC2-CC3C1A5C48D5}]