Back to Basics with Textiles in Fashion Design
October 24, 2011
•IADT Las Vegas, IADT General, Fashion Design
• 0 Comments
Fashion is art. And with art, as the saying goes, you either have it or you don’t.
Right?
Whether you’re designing the next killer little black dress or an entire punk-glamour-inspired line to walk the runways of New York Fashion Week, it’s true that creativity and vision are two must-have skills. But it’s also true that these abilities are not completely inborn, as many might think.
A solid education in art basics can help develop that emergent talent you didn’t even know you had, and a quality fashion design school will focus on these conceptualization and illustration essentials.
Often, this means starting with learning textile design elements for pattern drafting. Textile design is the process of creating patterns for various fabrics. It also involves understanding material fibers, the most basic properties in fashion. Textile designers need to know what it takes to make an attractive textile pattern and how that pattern will effectively fuse with dyes and threads.
Some of the elements of art and textile design include the following:
- Line
- Shape
- Color
- Value
- Texture
- Form
- Space
These are physical elements; you can see them in the pattern as you design it. They are used to follow different design principles. For example, to emphasize contrast, you could use lighter object values against a darker background value in your pattern. Or for a unified look, repeat shapes or colors throughout.
There are a number of ways to combine these elements to create eye-catching designs. Knowing the elements, along with fashion design principles, will help you understand which combinations work and which don’t. Your sense of creativity evolves as you experiment with textile patterns and develop the technical skills needed to create them.
Working with textiles presents a number of career opportunities in the world of fashion design. Textile professionals typically use computer software to produce embroidered or print designs for a number of products, including clothing, curtains, floor coverings, linens, cushions and more. To start your own journey in the fashion or textile industry, enroll in a fashion design degree program at a credible school.
This article is presented by IADT-Las Vegas. Contact us today if you’re interested in developing marketable knowledge and career-relevant skills with an industry-current degree program from IADT-Las Vegas.