It’s all fun and games when you have to come up with a creative idea or two – try doing it on a regular basis, all day, every day. Come to think of it, any creative profession is an ordeal (writing included – students often choose to buy a term paper instead of writing it just because they lack inspiration) of chasing the muse and trying to make it stay for a longer time.
Fashion designers are hardly an exception. Their every day is devoted to being creative, finding new trends, and implementing the craziest ideas into life.
Where do they get their inspiration? Well, there are a few sources, including pretty uncommon ones.
The Streets
Fashion is often born out of bold improvisation or even the lack of means. It’s hard to say who it was first – the designer or the customer – who decided to combine things that had been never combined before. Jeans and lace, fur and crazy colors, heavy boots and summer dresses – all of those combinations appeared with time and through experiment.
Look at the modern fascination with rags and torn up clothes. Where do you think it came from? I bet, one of the fashion designers had a walk along a busy New York street and probably decided to use it in the next collection just because she lacked ideas and was desperate. The result, however, exceeded all possible expectations.
Traditional Clothes
There are places where traditional clothes are still in heavy use, like India. In such countries, using them in fashion collections is an obvious choice. In other countries, however, people have long since stopped wearing traditional items of clothes. In this case, finding something inspirational in traditional garments is not an obvious path to take. Besides, in more modern countries incorporating traditional elements into modern collections takes more effort and creativity.
Nature
It’s probably difficult to imagine someone coming up with a dress design by just looking at a sunset or a tree line, but nature is a great source of inspiration nonetheless. Particularly, it gives a wide choice of colors in combinations you could have never imagined. Fashion designers would be crazy not to use it – and so they are using it heavily.
Culture
Have you ever wondered why Japanese motifs are so popular in fashion collections? That’s because designers get inspired by the Japanese culture in general. It is rather interesting, you can’t argue that. The fashions, the patterns, the colors, the hair styles are so different from what we have here in the western world that the temptation is too great to walk by. The whole atmosphere is mesmerizing for a western person.
Architecture
I might be going to crazy places right now, but some architectural sights are so elegant that they could easily inspire a few items of clothes or at least a combination of colors. No, it’s not about haute couture collections that are designed for advertising purposes only. Architecture is a noble art and it sometimes offers elegant lines and airy silhouettes that are cut for catwalks.
The point is, sources of inspiration are usually all around you, and fashion designers know it well. Next time you see an impressive collection, try guessing what inspired the designer. I bet it will be something from the list above.
