Week 1 of Design your wardrobe 2020

Winona Ryder: my style inspiration for this round

So I’m going to keep a sort of diary here of this year’s process so you can see what it’s all about. Seamwork has a forum where we can discuss all the prompts too, but this way I’ll be able to look back next year and see what worked for me.

What’s in store?

Before you start you’re supposed to gather all your inspiration in one place, like Pinterest. During the course you will whittle this down and maybe add to it until you have a workable mood board. Week 1 is all about setting your goal and creating a mood board. In week 2 I will shop my stash, refine my palette and use my existing wardrobe. Then in week 3 it’s on to defining my criteria, planning my looks and making my plans.

Week 1: goal and mood board

The whole course is set up as a pyramid in which you first build a broad base of inspiration which you refine in the weeks after. So this week is all about going big. But to keep things focused you get daily questions, prompts and worksheets. The first question of the week revolved around what my goal was for this collection. There’s reading materials on how designers do this and how you can use the same process for your own collection. Setting the goal rests on why you want to do this. So why do I want to do this? To me it’s another way to engage in my hobby. It allows me to be creative, playful and explore things I might not try otherwise.

My goal for this round of Design Your Wardrobe is to create a tiny collection that will fit into my existing wardrobe and at the same time will allow me to explore another facet of my style.

Day 2: what’s your story?

The second question revolved all around the story of my collection. Reader, I’m not a fashionista. I like making clothes and I want to make clothes that are beautiful to me, but I don’t really have language for talking about fashion, nor the inclination to follow fashion. I’m always really happy when the type of clothes I like come round again. Before I learned to sew that meant that I could buy things I liked and now that I sew it means that there are more patterns available in styles that I like. I suspect it’s the same for many of you. Seamwork uses some examples like romantic minimalism and vibrant playfulness. Looking through the Pinterest board I created before hand I’m thinking ‘Winona Ryder goes to college’. Though honestly, I couldn’t actually find a lot of photos of Winona Ryder wearing the things I thought she was wearing! Still, I have a certain image in my head of her and so:

With every choice I will make I will ask myself: would Winona Ryder have worn this twenty years ago?

Day 3: thinking about your contexts

Day 3 was about editing my inspiration for my goal, story and context. The context I chose was work and play. I don’t really wear different clothes to work. I’m not showing up in my lounge wear at work, but I am pretty dressy at home. You won’t often find me in sweatpants. I choose comfort for my work clothes and so I can easily wear them at home too. Weather wise I’m designing for three seasons: fall, winter and spring. So in short: layers.

My contexts: work, play, fall, winter, spring.

Day 4: Build a mood board

The preference here is to create a physical moodboard and I was sorely tempted to try and make that happen, but I don’t own a printer and so printing is always a bit of a hassle and because of the heatwave I didn’t feel like drawing this week. This is where you go back to your first inspiration board and whittle it down to the things that fit your goal, contexts and story. You can use pattern flats that inspire you, style photos, and photos of fabrics like I did, but your inspiration can also come from trims, notions, buildings, colours etc. I kept my mood board very much to the point as I don’t want to design a large collection. I used fabrics that inspired me when I took a look through my stash, some photos from Pinterest of the kind of style I’m going for and some patterns I have had on my mind for a while. Day 5 was all about reflecting, talking about your mood board over on the Seamwork board with others and admiring the work of others.