The March challenge - inspiring fashioning designs beyond what we know

The March 2011 challenge chosen by Patrizia of Triz Designs challenges our members to chose a fashion style from any period of fashion and design a piece to fit that chosen style/period. She gave a beginning link to help out: http://www.fashion-era.com/fashion_eras.htm

If you are needing some more inspiration, wanting to think outside the box a little or just plain interested in fashion in different places and times here are some other resources you might enjoy.

The Fashion Encyclopedia - http://angelasancartier.net/all-articles. An amazing A-Z of fashion language and trends to expand your focus. Just browse a letter and be amazed. In ”H” you can read about trends in Hawaiian shirts, helmets, Halloween wear and Headdresses just for starters. I’d love to see more colour images to go alongside the text but a fascinating resource for exploring fashion trends from a different angle.

History of Western Fashion Design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_fashion. If you want to delve a little more into a specific Fashion era imagine any era in Western fashion from 1100 onwards and then check out what Wikipedia’s History of Western Fashion Design can tell you.

Fashion from 1860 – 1960 http://www.1860-1960.com/cloth.html. Quite a few images as this is a site that sells vintage fashions including what it calls ‘ ethnic’ fashions. A great place to see the colour and textiles used in different eras in different places. It inspired me to search Google images for specific types of fashion images for different countries and decades. For instance, I searched for 1930s Chinese wedding fashion - what a wonderful array of images for inspiration.

As you plunder and pause over the amazing world of fashion expand your thinking by considering the unconventional fashion eras (e.g. communist party fashion in the USSR or Suffgratte fashions - see the Suffgratte brooch in the image with this post), fashion eras in different parts of the globe (India, Ancient Thailand or Kenya). Ask questions about what were the trends for men and women did people of different status have different fashions, did people have special fashion for special occasions or times of the year, how was colour used, what accessories were popular? You can then use this to design a piece that challenges us all to think beyond our own fashion worlds. For instance, what would it be like to have a piece designed for a Royal male for his wedding in Thailand? Or, for the Indian Bride in the photo above?

Looking forward to seeing how much we can design beyond what we know.

.(Suffragette brooch)