From Conception To Fashion Retail Floor
Posted: Friday, July 31, 2009
by Patrick
Patrick McMurray
Developing a fashionable style takes a quantum of research in life and constant observation of ever changing environments, as the evolution of style and the progress of fashion continue its cycles. To the end it is a culmination of the past and present that takes fashion forward.
A designer will draw heavily on archival material, be aware of their surroundings and keep a close eye on the changing weather patterns, with an ear to the ground. It's an all consuming profession for the passionate.
All of your observations and gatherings, scrap books, ideas, researching and theorising finally culminate an idea to fruition, just like the river to the ocean.
At some point the idea has to be captured and documented otherwise it goes off into infinite space. Knowledge is limiting, but imagination encompasses the universe, the two trains of thought have to harmonise for the realisation of great ideas. Technical, visionaries.
An obvious example is the retail setting, from fashion to floor polish, any object that catches your attention is the product of some ones ideas. A gathering of right place right time theorem in every case.
Tracing ideas history: The Trench Coat is a classic example of unintentional fashion. When a young man by the name of Thomas Burberry Noticed local shepherds and farmers wearing linen smocks, which were cool in summer and warm in the winter, he attempted to apply the same principles to other clothing.
In 1879 he developed a fabric which was weatherproofed in the yarn before weaving, using a secret process and then proofed again in the piece. The new material was untearable and weatherproof. He called the cloth gabardine' and registered the word as a trademark. So when you go looking for a trench coat, it has changed little in basic style for well over one hundred years. Its origins have been well documented by historians, it's the truth.
During the Trench War in Europe , the mackintosh became the choice of British officers and appropriately labelled it The Trench Coat. It remains true to original form apart from some colour additions. A testament of style is constant.
As hundreds of millions of neck wear are sold every year, the predominant style, stripes, its origins are not commonly known, but none the less fascinating and also well documented and can easily associated with an Oxford University rowing club win.
Conversely fashion owes as much to imagination as to scientific intervention, this sense has been formed a perfect relationship that few fashion writers or historians have elaborated. A shinning example is The English Madder Silk Tie. Its continuing success over a hundred years owes more to science and sound economics, the latter has sustained its growth thanks to a couple of unknowing English Chemists who took the colouring agent in madder root called alizarin and chemically extracted and then synthesized it in 1869 by. Although the dyeing process requires a variety of painstaking steps, synthesized alizarin brought the price within the reach of commercial producers, good economics.
There is more than meets the eye in fashion seldom do we consider its accidental creation and scientific intervention; we just want to look good.
Old styles are continually modernised but still bare very close resemblance to their originals.
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