Techniques and Importance of Pattern Drafting

Pattern Drafting is an important part of fashion designing and requires immense skills and practice. Pattern drafting is where pattern pieces are drawn on paper according to body measurement which becomes the foundation for designers to create garments. There are several techniques that professionals use, some of them are:

Tracing: This is one of the simplest technique that is used. In this technique a garment (similar to what a designer wishes to create) is placed flat on a paper and the pattern is traced. Some space is left to add seam of the garment. The tracing technique works best for garments with minimum shapes and is one of the best technique for beginners.

Creating a Sloper: This is a slightly complicated technique in pattern drafting. Slopers, also referred to as ‘block patterns’ or ‘fitting shells’, are extremely close-fitting garments with no ease movement. A sloper is the building block from which a designer can create any number of patterns. There are two ways to acquire a sloper: one is to find numerous free sloper patterns online or can be created from scratch. Creating a sloper from the scratch requires a good knowledge for math and geometry.

Software: Nowadays, professionals mostly use softwares to create pattern drafting. Some of the best softwares that professionals use are DesignSew, Pattern Master, Gerber Accumark, and more that are introduced in the industry every day.

These techniques for pattern drafting have been followed by professionals for quite a while now. But pattern drafting as a profession is still in its nascent stages. Even though some of the techniques have been used for decades. However, things are changing for the aspiring designers. Today pattern drafters are gaining importance in the world of fashion designing. There are various avenues that are opening up as observed by Amol Chettiar, Faculty of Whistling Woods - Neeta Lulla School of Fashion. He says, “Pattern drafters are the architects of fashion designing and tailors are the one that make the designers dream come true. Designers, today have realized this which has led to various career opportunities like a consultant pattern drafter, professional pattern grader, and garment technologist.” 

Watch this video to, learn what industry experts have to say about a career in pattern drafting.

5 Steps to Garment Construction

Garment construction is one of the key aspects of Fashion Designing. Here, the most important thing is the sequence that is used to construct or manufacture the garment. The fashion industry has identified a standard sequence for Garment Construction, which is as follows:

Sketch/Design: This is the first step in most designing aspect. However, in garment construction along with sketch, designers draw up ‘working drawings’. These are detailed sketches that lay out the measurement and pattern of the garment.

Production Pattern: Here the pattern maker creates the design on a standard ‘pattern making paper’. The tissue paper pattern is the most commonly used technique in the industry. In the later stage, the tissue paper pattern becomes a blue print for designers to create the garment.

Grading: The purpose of grading is to determine the perfect size of the garment. Pattern sizes are usually large, medium, and small, but when graded manually the graders have to alter the pattern at each and every point, starting from armhole to neckline. 

Market Making: In this step the fabric yardage is determined as per the style of the garment. Nowadays, there are computer softwares to determine the amount of fabric that is required to create a garment.

Sewing: This is the final step and common to all designing aspects. This step involves sewing the fabric together using different techniques and assembling different parts of the fabric to create the final garment. 

 

These five steps are just a precursor to this subject. Garment Construction requires great understanding and knowledge. The finesse can be acquired through a formal education in institutes like Whistling Woods International- Neeta Lulla School of Fashion. Here, an aspiring designer can explore different techniques in garment construction along with venturing in different avenues of fashion designing.

Historic Indian costumes and weaving techniques

Fashion draws inspiration from the past and historic costumes. Therefore, an aspiring designer needs to be well-aware about the subject of ‘Historic Costumes’. The study of fundamentals of historic Indian costumes gives resourceful insights to the students regarding fashion of a particular era. They can understand the fabric used in ancient times and the culture of the period. Understanding historic costume can trigger a student’s imagination to create something incredible. For example, the historical costumes of the Mughal period have inspired designers to reinvent sherwanis, churidars, and anarkalis.

              

But along with understanding historic costumes, understanding the weaving techniques that were used is also imperative. The basics of weaving are same today, as they were centuries ago. The two most important weaving techniques that an aspiring fashion and textile student should absolutely know about are the handloom and the power loom. Knitting follows the suit and holds high significance in historic costumes. Crochet, also adds to the list. Though not originally Indian, Crochet has evolved to be a significant technique in Indian fashion over generations.

Historic costumes and the weaving techniques are two of the most important topics for students of fashion and textile designing. The first draws inspirations through cultures of different eras and the latter gives an understanding of how fabrics were made. This knowledge is like raw material to an aspiring designer which provides an idea of the fabric, the draping capabilities, elasticity, and the prosperities of the fabric. As Jaishika Ratanpal, Faculty of Whistling Woods- Neeta Lulla School of Fashion says, “This is studying the evolution of fashion, how a garment evolves from a single drape to complete garments and without this knowledge a designer cannot design a new garment or fabric.”

Watch Jaishikha Ratanpal speak on evolution of historic costumes and why it is essential.

Six Basic Steps of Draping

Draping is the art of creating a garment by arranging the fabric around a dress. This is usually done by using the fabric’s natural fall. For the uninitiated, draping involves techniques like pleating and gathering to create a dramatic effect. However, to master this art one needs to understand the basics. To help you go through this process, here are six basic steps for draping to get you started:

Prepping: 

The first step is to have accurate measurements of the garment. Next, ensure to mark the centre line of the dress by using a tape. This helps to keep the draping even across the dress.

Sketch: 

Preparing a sketch of your garment always helps in designing. But, in this form it gives you a clear idea about how you need to go about the drape. Here, your sketch will help you understand how to best manipulate the fabric in order to get the dramatic effect.  

Muslin: 

This fabric is flexible in its thickness and volume. Thus, giving you a chance to experiment and play around as you desire.

Pinning: 

Pinning is a process in which you pull the folds of the fabric together to create the draping design. Pinning will give you a good idea of how the garment will look after completion.

Basting the Fabric: 

Once you are finished with draping and pinning, the next step is to baste the fabric. Here, you can either sew the fabric to the foundation piece or you can sew the fabric itself to complete the draping process.

Trimming: 

The last step is common across designing techniques. Trim off any excess fabrics that may remain after you are finished with draping. The raw edges of your draping should always be hidden neatly in the seams.

  

Each of the above steps are designed to help make the process of draping easier and develop your draping skills. Another thing that can help you refine your draping skills is a fashion school like Whistling Woods International- Neeta Lulla School of Fashion. Here you can explore various aspects of draping and many other crucial techniques used in fashion designing.

The Rise of Fashion Bloggers

Fashion bloggers have become an influential force in the fashion industry. From small indie designer to the elite of fashion industry, these bloggers cover ever significant occurrence in the fashion world.

Starting in the early 2000, bloggers shook up the fashion business by changing the way fashion was viewed. Masses of people started following social media around this time and blogs became one of the major mediums of communication. Fashion bloggers started presenting a platform for the consumers to interact and connect. Also, buying habits of almost 31% of people were influenced by fashion bloggers as they held power to shape the public perception of a brand. Realising this, big fashion brands started incorporating fashion bloggers in their marketing initiatives. Even fashion magazines like Vogue, EELLE, GQ, and others started tying with well-known fashion bloggers.

                  

               Kristina Bazan

Leandra Medine

Today, fashion bloggers are seen as A-listers at some of the key shows. For instance, Louis Vuitton invited Fashion Blogger Kristina Bazan for its Gstaad opening. Also, Marc Jacobs Intl, for their Marc Jacobs runway show collaborated with prominent blogger Leandra Medine. Even, Dolce & Gabbana promoted their limited-edition Light Blue fragrance through this blogger network. In India, too, this trend is catching, where famous fashion bloggers like Miss Malini, Rhea Gupte, and Ruhi Sheikh have become a regular at fashion weeks.

    

Miss Malani

        

   Rhea Gupte

 

Ruhi Sheikh

Similarly, hundreds of bloggers today make and break fashion trends. Some of the most prominent ones are Wendy Nguyen’s ‘Wendy’s Lookbook’, Leandra Medine’s ‘Man Repeller’, Christene Braberich’s ‘Refinery29’, and Jennine Jacob’s ‘Independent Fashion Bloggers’. 

             

           Wendy Nguyen

Jennine Jacob

Inspiring Fashion Trends from the 1980s movies

In our last blog, we highlighted some iconic fashion trends influenced by the movies in the 50s. This week we move ahead in time and explore the trends from the 80s. The era of stirrup pants and other such iconic trends were immortalised by some of the greatest movies, such as:

American Gigolo: 

Fashion in films usually focuses on women’s apparels, but American Gigolo defined men’s fashion in the 80s. The stylish power suits designed by Giorgio Armani and worn by Richard Gere started a generation of men adopting silk, linen, and Italian cotton suiting. The Armani wardrobe remains a touchstone for well-dressed men till date.

Flashdacnce: 

Starring Jennifer Beals, Flashdance, inspired fans to wear leg warmers and leotards as a fashion accessory.  The movie also pioneered the trend of oversized sweat shirts with one shoulder on display. In fact, the inspiration for this trend is still visible in the reappearance of leggings and asymmetrical detailed outfits. 

Desperately Seeking Susan: 

This film starring the ultra-fashionable pop star, Madonna, introduced the girly-punk that ruled the decade. The movie not only popularised, but showed new ways of wearing mesh tanks, bustier as a top underneath the blazers, chunky jewellery and heavy makeup.  

Pretty in Pink: 

The movie is about a young girl with talent for sewing, unique sense of style and passion for vintage. As the story suggests, the movie created huge fashion trends -- from ladies gym inform to linen suits. Undoubtedly, the movie made a huge wave of fashion trend among the younger generation.

Slaves of New York: 

This movie features a green faux fur coat, which was an instant hit in the fashion circuit. Stephen Sprouse, an American fashion designer, designed the clothes for Slaves of New York. The green coat, the eccentric hats and the overall avant-garde style of the designer created fashion trends, which were remembered in the fashion circuit for a long time.

There were other movies like ‘Wall Street’, ‘Liquid Sky’, ‘Heathers’, and ‘The Breakfast Club’ that created some iconic fashion trends in the 1980s.  

Five Memorable Fashion Trends Inspired by Movies

Movies have played a very important role in setting fashion trends for generations. Here some unforgettable fashion trends that have inspired designers till date:

The Seven Year Itch: 

This movie, which ruled the trends of 1950s, showcased the whimsical fashion sense of Marilyn Monroe. Her iconic dresses, especially the white halter that that was blown up over a street vent, has now become a legendary symbol of sensuality.

Funny Face: 

Audrey Hepburn set a trend through her movie ‘Funny Face’. In the movie, Audrey plays the girl-next-door who goes on to becoming a fashion model. In Funny Face, she introduced the all-black look with her black turtleneck, black cigarette pants, and black pair of flats. And, this trend was followed for generations.

Cat on the Hot Tin Roof: 

In this 1958 movie, Elizabeth Taylor created quite a sensation with her white cocktail dress. Still popular in the fashion circuit, this white chiffon keen-length halter neck dress is considered as an embodiment of elegance.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s: 

The ‘Little Black Dress’, which was designed by Coco Channel in the 1920s, gained popularity when Audrey Hepburn wore it in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ in the 1960s. The dress created such a huge trend that even till date the ‘Little Black Dress’ or ‘LBD’ is a staple in most wardrobes.

Annie Hall:

The 1977 ‘Annie Hall’ created yet another popular trend, when Diane Keaton wore all men’s suit with style. This fearless experimentation in fashion quickly caught on, and women all over the world were seen following this trend.

The Rise of E-commerce in Fashion

World’s biggest national and international fashion brands are venturing into e-commerce. In 2014, about 40 million consumers shopped online in India. This number is anticipated to go up to 65 million in 2015.

A decade ago no one anticipated that e-commerce would rise to such an extent. Today, e-commerce has not only evolved, but has also opened up many doors -- from creating new ways of shopping to providing an established platform for young designers to showcase their talent.

Flipkart

 The other trend that is seen recently, is the rise in e-commerce mobile apps. In fact, it is reported that leading portals like Myntra and Flipkart will eventually become mobile app-only stores.

Myntra

This trend of mobile apps in e-commerce is just the beginning. Both Myntra and Flipkart have witnessed that customers have started to prefer mobile apps than shopping through laptops and computers. In fact, this trend is said to be followed by over 70% of the customers in India in the coming years.

Fashion Inspirations from Wendell Rodricks and Anjana Sharma

The students of Whistling Woods- Neeta Lulla School of Fashion are mentored by acclaimed designers and professional from the fashion industry. Furthermore, our ‘Masterclasses’ expose the aspiring designers to the ever dynamic world of fashion. Our latest Masterclass held on 17^th April, 2015 was all about drawing inspirations from the works of leading Designer Wendell Rodricks and, Anjana Sharma, COO and Fashion Director of Stylista.

 

At the Masterclass, Wendell and Anjana discussed various aspects of fashion design with the students. Wendell started off by sharing his journey and experiences as a designer. He also spoke about how he draws inspiration from the the colours, serenity and beauty of  nature, sea, flowers and trees, which he demonstrated through a beautiful presentation and showed how he translates his inspiration into breathtaking designs.

Wendell was also inspired by his birthplace, Goa and its natural beauty. It inspired him to create some brilliant designs, which he shared and presented with stories of Goa and how it translate into his designs.

He believes that creativity and practicality should be given equal importance in the field of fashion. He also encouraged the aspirants, not to limit themselves to just one aspect of fashion, but to enjoy and explore as much as they can. Along with exploring, designers need to be well-aware about the different fabrics and textiles while creating new designs and his one golden advice to the students was that, “a designer should never be afraid of scissors.”

Anjana Sharma, on the other hand, shared great insights on fashion and market trends. Her discussion helped the students to better understand why the balance between commercial knowledge and creative brilliance is of importance, in the fashion industry.

This insightful Masterclass culminated with the two honorary guests conducting a one-on-one mentoring session with the graduating batch, where they shared their design ideas for their ‘Graduation Day’ collection. 

Overall, the Masterclass and post-Masterclass session gave our students some great insight regarding the aesthetics of fashion designing alongwith inspiring the aspirants to put their soul into their art.

Fabrics in fashion- Basics of Handloom and Jacquard

Fabrics used in fashion and textile design are broadly of two major categories. Hand woven fabrics that are manually woven in looms or popularly called Handloom fabrics. The other kinds, woven in power loom or technically called Jacquards. The major difference between Handloom and Jacquard is that handloom fabrics are woven with clear warps and wefts, whereas, Jacquard fabrics are complex to weave as they are woven with repetitive patterns. 

There are 3 major Handloom fabrics which are widely used in textile design:

Cotton: The most common, widely used fabric with usage ranging from apparels to home décor. The fabric is skin friendly and has infinite scope in fashion designing.

Silk: This is one of the strongest natural fabric that is hand woven. Silk is known for its luster and elegance. Because of its exclusivity, and subtlety, yet rich in feel, silk is widely used for exclusive fashion.

Jute: A highly durable, strong fabric, Jute traditionally was used for making bags. But with evolution in fashion, Jute, as a fabric has joined the mainstream fashion as designers are experimenting with jute.

Jacquard woven fabrics are:

Damask- This is a reversible kind of fabric that comes mostly in floral, geometrical, scrolls foliage, and ornamental motifs. The Damask fabric has a subtle sheen that becomes noticeable in light.

Brocade- Brocade is a favorite with designers because of the multicolored silk threads used to weave the fabric. They are richly decorative fabrics and suitable for heavy apparel and outerwear. There is an addition of a supplementary weft that gives the illusion of ‘embossing’ on the cloth.

Dobby- Dobby is a patterned fabric and characterized by unique geometric patterns and extra texture on the cloth. It is often considered a tad fancy and comes is all patterns, colors, weights, and textures.

Checks & Stripes- Checks and stripes are created with alternating warps and wefts in contrast color threads. Woven in any natural fabric with blends like polyester, twill Stripes range from tiny pinstripes to 6-inch stripes while checks can be of any sizes.

Knowing about the different kinds of fabrics is very important for fashion aspirants. This helps in understanding which fabric is best suited for what kinds of designs. Whistling Woods-Neeta Lulla School of Fashion ensures that aspirants are aware about such finer details of designing.  

Rediscovering the Fashion of Cliched Crinoline

Fashion heavily draws inspiration from the bygone eras and for the students of Whistling Woods- NeetaLulla School of Fashion, historic fashion holds high significance.

Fashion students, Amrita Banarjee, Yashmita Bane, and Nivedidha Koliyot have taken a chapter from the Victorian era to create something marvelous. They chose to create a modern adaptation of the Crinoline skirt dating back to the Victorian times. This choice stemmed out of the intriguing history of the skirt.

    

Crinoline originated in the early 1800s and was originally a stiff fabric made from the weft of horse-hair and warp of cotton or linen thread. But by 1850s it became to be the stiffened petticoat or the rigid skirt-shaped structure of steel designed to support the shape of the skirt of a woman’s dress. As the silhouettes of the skirts grew wider and heavier, the styles of the petticoat kept changing to support the skirt.

Initially called the hoop skirt, open cage or frame style, Crinolines were bulky and uncomfortable. But later, they were made light and it reduced the amount of petticoat to one or two. These petticoats prevented the steel bands from showing like ridges in the skirt. It also provided freedom from massive amount of petticoats and the cost of maintaining so many. 

Fashion publications popularized this new fashion of the time and Crinoline was an overnight success it was widely accepted by the middle class Victorian society and slowly adopted by the affluent.

Within a decade, the Crinoline skirt underwent a change when the dome-shape skirt gave way to a flattened front and side, leaving volume only at the back. And then as time passed, the style of the crinoline kept varying till there was no need anymore.

Now the Crinoline skirts exist to be an important element of fashion. The students of Whistling Woods- Neeta Lulla School of Fashion explored Boho Chic, Bohemian, Gothic, and eight other looks using the crinolines. While one created a modern chic, summery look by layering it with a floral printed skirt and one shoulder top, another student, Nivedidha, created a gothic chic look, with a bandana, a skirt with quirky prints and a black top! In all, it was a great experience exploring the bygone Victorian fashion element and incorporating the same in contemporary looks!