When the rest of the world is moving into the winter, we are here in Australia getting ready for a sweltering season, that is sizzling in colours and bursting with summer prints.
www.natashagan.com.au
www.seafolly.com.au
www.seafolly.com.au
www.talulah.com.au
www.talulah.com.au
Day of the Dead Skulls
Leading on from last week’s post on Halloween (did you spook or get spooked?) Dia de Muertos is forming the base of our inspiration for creation this weekend. The Mexican Day of the Dead festival which celebrates the life of family and friends who have passed has become quite a fascination with popular western culture in the past few seasons and it’s easy to see why.
Brightly coloured tattooed skulls (known as sugar skulls) have adorned t-shirts and hoodies. Simple black and white imagery could be seen on scarves and tote bags on every second person and even models were done up in makeup resembling adorned skeletons for Lena Hoschek’s spring/summer 2013 catwalk show in Berlin. For a while there it could be found everywhere and it might be too early to tell if the trend has past or just lying low for the moment.
While we wait to see where this trend takes us, why not take a moment to reflect on life and death and then turn it into a creative celebration of the circle of life.
Day of the Dead symbols from a font on www.fontbros.com/
Images from Lena Hoschek’s spring/summer 2013 catwalk show in Berlin.
Spooky Scene by Poofy on Flickr
www.flickr.com/photos/enchanticals/galleries/72157627899470504#photo_2950228894
Next week is Halloween people. Time to get your print scare on.
Now Australia has only in recent years, embraced the whole October 31st party vibe, that is more traditionally seen as an American festival of all things spooky. And while there may be complaints from some about our country becoming too “Americanised” this is one occasion which should be taken on board whole heartedly, or less heartedly if you’re inclined to dress up as a heart eating monster this year. Simple because you get to dress up as anything you want to, scary or not and how often do we really allow ourselves this chance?
Trending this year are popular shows from the past couple of years, notably Game of Thrones’ Daenerys Targaryen, the Breaking Bad boys and somewhat more random, Duck Dynasty a ‘reality’ show about duck hunters.
Now you could jump on this band wagon, let Yahoo! do the work for you with their recent top ten’s lists (see below) or you could use that imaginative spirit that was born for an all hallows eve festivity and get crazy with your outfit!
With Halloween right around the corner, Yahoo has released the lists for the top 10 searched Halloween related items this season.
What better way to scare (or impress) the boo out of your friends than rocking up in an outfit that you not only made yourself, but had the fabric printed specifically for it as well! Think cobwebs and creepy crawlies with splashes of suspicious colour or eerie scenes of mist through an abandoned street. It is also no coincidence that Mexico’s Day of the Dead follows up Halloween on November 1, so there’s some great inspiration right there.
If this post seams a little excited, it’s because it is. Purely because there’s so much creativity that comes with dressing up for an event like this, it’s hard not to see the potential for Halloween to play muse and feed into your print designs. So turn the lights down low, light a few candles and let the shadows take you to the witching hour.
A designer edge for Halloween (L-R)
Dolce & Gabbana, Christopher Kane, Ashish (sweater), Mary Katrantzou (skirt)
We are kicking off this week with images from our scarf photo-shoot in which we tried to capture an amazing scarfs that were designed by fashion students from St George TAFE for our “Local Produce” woman’s scarf SS14 competition.
Here we go: model our Barbara Brayovic, photographer Maria Tanygina and you are be the judge.
All scarfs were printed and made at Digital Fabrics.
Earlier this year Digital Fabrics took forward a competition for the students at ST George TAFE to design a scarf inspired by the theme ‘local produce’ students had to research what this meant to them and interpret it into a 1 metre squared scarf design, they were also given 3 colours that they had to incorporate into their designs.
We received lots of submissions which we then had to choose winners from, here’s a peek at some of the designs the students came up with.
The winners will be announced at the MUSE, Ultimo TAFE on the 28th of OCT, the scarves will also be displayed to see at the MUSE on the 28-30th of October.
Hope to see you all there!
Isabelle Georges
Jacqueline Wong
Malani Biasetto
Phillip Lim Spring14 runway shot and a topographical map
This week we’re going up sky high to get a bird’s eye view of some great ideas to feed into the repeating pattern melting pot of textile design. And having seen a few on the runway shots from New York from the past week, there could be a trend in here somewhere. A change in perspective is never a bad thing, it can help to inform a full idea or understanding of the thing that you might be looking at and the result could be even more interesting than initially considered and has the potential to keep viewers on their toes. Mess with their minds and their idea of what they should be looking at.
Farm land in Queensland, Australia and tiered rice paddies in China
Snow caped mountains and valleys and an aerial view of a coral reef
Some great examples of where to find inspiration are from the aerial shots of colourful rice paddies in China or snowy mountains anywhere, views of coral reefs and topographical maps of countries. A similar approach can be taken by getting beneath the surface, going under water or inspecting the microscopic images of all types of matter.
But for now, be a bird even if just metaphorically, and take in what they might see soaring the skies.
Aerial shot of horses in a paddock create some interesting shadow play
www.natgeocreative.com
From inspiration to the garment (clockwise from left)
Emanuel Ungaro, Sara Phillips, Due, Grey Malin
The Spring 2014 RTW Fashion shows have commenced with New York first to start showing the talented designers latest collections. One trend so far that has been featured in almost all the collections is Floral’s, in the words of Miranda Preisley “florals for sprint..? Ground Breaking!” And yet Floral’s for Spring just seems so right; We are currently in the 6th day of spring in the southern hemisphere, and Sydney is well and truly showing off what lays ahead for the months to come. The weather is absolutely perfect for floral everything!
Now we won’t get to purchase our favourite pieces from NYFW shows until next year, but with some quick designs and our speedy turn-around you could start making your own floral spring inspired garments in no time!
BCBG MAC AZRIA Spring 2014 RTW
VFILES Spring 2014 RTW
VFILES Spring 2014 RTW
Tocca Spring 2014 RTW
Tanya Taylor Spring 2014 RTW
Tanya Taylor Spring 2014 RTW
Richard Chai Love Spring 2014 RTW
Honor Spring 2014 RTW
Honor Spring 2014 RTW
Honor Spring 2014 RTW
Creatures of the wind Spring 2014 RTW
Images from style.com
Carrying on from our last blog post, we are still looking at the impact of texture in prints.
Today we are inspired by the Swedish label ACNE Studios. When you think ACNE Studios, you think classic shapes, beautiful fabrics and luxurious leathers. Designer Jonny Johansson for ACNE studios latest collection up for sale on the ACNE website features a few printed garments that have been cleverly executed.
These prints are soft and subtle but create depth and texture to each piece.
Acne Studios
Acne Studios
Acne Studios
Acne Studios
Acne Studios
Acne Studios
Images from ACNE Studios
Different types of surface textures from a range of objects and places of inspiration
If the digital printing form on textiles where it’s possible to render fine detail and subtleties in colour, adding texture to your design can enhance your print, lifting it beyond the end product into a realm of its own.
There are many ways to add depth and interest into your designs and playing with textures is just one of them, but considering that we come into constant visual contact with surface variations, we have endless avenues for inspiration. The bricks of a house, the bark of a tree, the frothiness of our morning coffee, the reflections out the bus window, shadows, ripples, concrete, clouds, grass…its everywhere and it all can feed through into a great design.
Different types of surface textures from a range of objects and places of inspiration
And there are just as many ways to translate a rough or smooth or in between feature. Whether you start out organically rendering the area by hand, take photographs to rework it, use features in design programs or a combination of any of these things to overlay and manipulate, its undeniable that at some point as a creative being you’ve considered the importance of texture in your current piece of work.
This is not about using it all the time and everywhere, just an observance piece how texture plays a fairly large role in the designing of fabric prints and has just as much impact as colour, scale, movement or positive and negative space.
So be aware and be inspired and take another look at the surface area of your smoked salmon wrap, what’s happening with texture there?
Great sources of texture images and inspiration can be found at the following website, some of which were used as sources for the included images:
Its always around in some capacity, from season to season there’ll be a stripe or two, a polka dot and even a check. But recently it seems the good ol’ geo is getting a little bolder, a little more out there and even when in the standard black and white, there’s an impact being made and a statement being said.
Even simple geo prints are being teamed with more intricate florals or with a pop of colour which adds intrigue and appeal. Although wearing an all over bold stripe might be daunting for some, finding smaller pieces to go with colour blocking or quite simply a pair of jeans and flats is an easy way to dip a toe into this trend pool.
Steal the show in this impact making number by Oscar de la Renta
In any case take another look at straight or curvy lines and all sizes of spots that surround you every day at let that feed a little creativity when it comes to the simple geo. Take the trend and run with it, between, over or around the lines and see where it can take you. It could lead you right to Digital Fabrics with a great new print to wow all your friends with being so on trend and all!
Geo collage
(L-R) Peter Pilotto, Preen, Erdem
Christian Dior and Aquilano.Rimondi
For more on the geo collage styling, see the following links: