Throughout the fashion culture class, I have learnt many new things and made numerous discoveries. One of the main areas that really influenced my life and knowledge in the field of fashion design is the practice of making and producing knowledge as I pursued various research topics. I was able to encounter different scholars and designers as I went through their views on fashion. I made explorations and analysis using the questions presented by these scholars and researchers concerning creativity and innovation in the field of fashion. In my first menswear Sawarovski project, I was able to learn many things. This essay is a reflection of my learning experience from different designers on my first Sawarovski project.
One of the things learned from my experience in the Sawarovski project, is that one can use their strong emotion to a theme to link with the function of a design. Developing a theme that can be easily linked with its functional design is not something easy especially when an individual is inexperienced in the designing of a particular fashion. In my design project, I had a strong feeling that people need to be made aware of the fact that culture is a very important aspect of the society; I felt that it was not right to change one of the main societal norms that has been around for a long time now. Changing the way Hong Kong children learn by introducing the use of simplified Chinese characters is not right. This will be a slow step towards wiping away of the Cantonese culture. Therefore, this reason propelled me towards the development of my design project through the theme of character assassination. My intention was the development of small fashion collection that would be an expression of the need for protection of traditional Chinese characters. Since I was not sure of the steps I was following in the development of my design project and lacked enough motivation to progress, I decided to consult our school professor from whom I learnt many things.
I learnt from Lucia Cuba that it is possible to be successful in fashion design by following the critical approach where one uses garments as performativity and political devices. I understood that one could use different forms of draping and design to give greater visibility to their case. I realized that I was on the right track and the fact that I had a strong emotional connection with my theme was an added advantage, as I would input more efforts in development of a design that clearly brings out visibility to my topic. My encounter with Lucia Cuba taught me that fashion design is a free field where one can apply any theme to develop a unique design that matches their own wants but is still attractive to people. I learnt that combining one’s feelings with their creativity led to the creation of a unique design that would create a mark in the local and possibly international fashion design industry. I learnt from my Lucia that in the development of various designs, one should focus on their own gut feelings, as the market is wide. There may be individuals at the start of the project who cannot see the uniqueness of the design project in the initial stages but once the project moves from the theoretical to the practical part, they will start noticing the unique properties of the particular design and are more likely to buy the idea of the practical design. It is necessary that a fashion designer employs different multimedia in the expression of their collection. I learnt from Lucia Cuba that having a collection show for one’s designs is not sufficient. A fashion designer needs to provide speech that expresses the idea behind their design. For instance, the idea behind my Sawarovski project was a protest against the proposal of introducing simplified Chinese characters. Many people would find it difficult to understand the expression of this idea in a fashion design. However, I learnt that using multimedia material such as speech and videos; I would be able to express the idea so that people found it easier resonating with my design. Sponsoring celebrities to express my design would also be helpful in reaching a large audience.
In the development of my design project, I learnt numerous things that will be very beneficial in my future design projects considering that this was my first attempt in designing menswear. I learnt that the proportion of surfaces used is very important in the actual message that the design will be sending out to the masses. For instance, I intended to show that introducing simplified Chinese characters to schoolchildren would lead to damage of the existing Cantonese culture. Therefore, I had to develop two-dimensional surfaces that are a presentation of the partial and impeding damage to language and culture that was likely to happen if the proposal went through. The use of the two-dimensional surface helps in the development of a clear picture of the likely situation after the
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