Time to Grow

For my Digital Design Module, part of our first project is to research into themes and trends, a target market and a garment type and style, and to create a seasonal colour palette. A collection will then be developed and produced from this research in a second project. As a first step, I decided on my season, which is Spring/Summer 2010, and that I wanted to design this collection for Menswear. I then started to look into predicted colourways available to be on the trend site WGSN. This website is really useful and covers all parts of the predicted trends. So I wanted to use this for my own research in developing my own theme. I approached the project in a similar way to my Design Development modules I've had so far here at university.

I then chose a trend and researched further into it. At first i based this on colour, as I'd be developing my own colour palette from this and this trend had a wide range of colours.

The more I looked into this trend the more inspired I became. I began seeing more of a meaning and more of a mood and started thinking of my own trend I could develop from this. I began to look around me and realised we were given this project at the most perfect time, the turning of Autumn. The colours and idea of the seasons evolving was a perfect theme for my own collection.

Here are some of the predicted shapes for this trend.

Here are some predicted patterns for this trend.
I decided to name my theme "Growth". This was linked to the season I'd chosen to design for, as Spring is when the leaves start to grow on the trees, when animals give birth to their offspring and the days begin to get longer and warmer. This was also based on evolution and how things change and develop over time. My colour palette reflects some of the early colours predicted as well as some seen in Autumn. I tried to draw colours from pictures used as inspiration for my theme.
Below is one of my favourite pages. I felt there was limited time on this project and I needed to research into my target audience. I began to think who to aim the collection towards and decided young males who were interested in fashion and socialising. I realised I had the perfect friend for this part who could be used to define my target audience. I developed a page, with his permission, and I literally just wrote about him. I wrote about his likes, dislikes, where he shopped, what he did in his spare time and even his favourite type of music. This page allowed me to get a really good understanding of who I would aim my collection towards.
I then decided to refine my collection to trousers. There had been many different trouser shapes predicted for this season and i could see some natural forms that had inspired these shapes.
The collection is currently being produced using the colour palette I developed for the theme Growth and the predicted shapes patterns used within the researched trend.

Images are of my own work.