If you’re wanting to take the first step into a fashion designer career, or even if you’re wanting to launch your very own fashion brand, one of the first things you’ll need is a concept.
But.. What is a fashion concept, and how do you create a fashion concept?
Put simply, a fashion concept is a collection of ideas that will influence the type of garments you will be promoting as a freelance fashion designer or fashion house.
Remember that fashion is defined as referring to a manner of dress, behaviour, or way of life which is relevant to the society or subculture at any given time.
So keeping this in mind, your ideas could be combined of many different elements: They could be thematic, so in line with something happening in society, or they could be stylistic, so influenced by a particular season or time period, like classical lace in the 1920s.
Whatever they are, it’s important to collect them and then ensure that the elements that resonate with you or your brand are then implemented into your designs.
Here’s a quick step by step as to how to create your fashion concept.
How to Create a Fashion Concept
Get some design inspiration
Design inspiration comes from the world around us. It could be a love for a style or shape of clothing that we have, or we could be influenced by nostalgic influences of particular time periods, like the rib-buckling Victorian corsets.
What’s important is that you identify your design inspiration, and then collect images of it. That could be from anywhere: Fashion magazines, catwalks, or even social media platforms like Pinterest.
Once you have your design inspiration, there are 4 mini steps that you can follow to really narrow down the intricacies of your design:
Look closely at the shape of the design and any other tiny shapes that appear inside it (like geometric lines) and see what can be created from it. The design doesn’t have to be crazy at this point, it could just be an outline of your silhouette. Let your imagination go wild and don’t think about an audience wearing it or even catwalk snapping it up at this point. Just enjoy finding the lines and individualities that make up the design. Turn it upside down, inside out, sideways, backwards and every which way! Just find your shape and your style.
Now take a closer look at the textures layered within the design. Can those be applied to your fabric? Are there multiple layered fabrics, or are there prints or even fine stitching techniques? Identify those, write them down and then brainstorm off of those ideas if the textures are unattainable at this point (like the expensive antimatter, for example). Then create texture samples once you can.
Next, you can play with colour. In fashion, colour means something. Black could mean enigma and mystery, yellow could mean caution or friendliness, white freshness or hope, etc etc so colour matters. Identify what colour you love in the design and why - what feelings does it invoke in you? Why do you want to replicate or use those? Are there any other combinations that you can try? Is there room to create a palette?
Look at the lines. Lines take up a great deal in design because they’re so important. In fashion, how lines are presented can often alter the shape, fit or style of a particular garment, like pinstripe or vertical. Are there any interesting patterns or arrangements in the lines you can see?
Finally, the pattern. Using the lines and shapes that you resonate with in your fashion inspiration, can you begin to construct patterns that can be transformed into prints or transferred to embroidery?
2. Find Style Inspiration
Now you’ve seen how a particular design can influence and appeal to you, it’s time to do some more collecting of images, colours and themes. You can collect style inspiration samples from anywhere, magazines, the internet, or even your favourite designers.
Once you have those, identify once again all the elements that you like the most in the style. It could be the fine detail in the neckline, or a pocket design that appeals to you the most.
Next, begin to play with ideas about how you can do it differently. Would you add a pocket on the back? Would you extend lace stitching down the sleeves? What more can you do to the style to give it that next level?
Finally think about how to apply those elements into your own ideas. Can you take that inspiration and thread it into a t-shirt, for example? How? Which elements? Will it be the lines, colours or shapes?
3. Decide on your sector
Once you have your design and style inspiration at your fingertips, and you’ve identified exactly what it is you love about the design and which elements of the style you want to replicate, your next stage is to start thinking outside your doodles.
It’s great to have an idea of a product, but to buy your product and kickstart your fashion house you’re going to need customers. And to work out which customers are going to buy from you, you’re going to have to identify which ones you’d most like by picking a sector.
Sector choices could be anything: You could focus exclusively on womenswear, or menswear. You could produce a whole host of unisex pieces because you want your fashion to be genderless, like Gucci. Or perhaps you want to work exclusively on a children’s range.
Once you’ve identified who, you need to think about what. If you will be in womenswear, what are you producing? Formalwear? Just dresses? Evening wear, like skirts or ball gowns? Will your collection be ready to wear or will it be high fashion only? Will it be expensive, or affordable?
Once you have narrowed down these factors your planning will truly be underway and the more formal aspects of your concept can now begin to be put into place.
Remember that your concept must be unique to you. Even though you may be being influenced by your favourite fashion designer, it needs to be your take on it. Your brand identity should encompass your values.
Read more about fashion brand identity and how to develop your own here.
Your concept should also showcase your USP (unique selling point) because this will differentiate you from the competition. Your USP could be anything, hand stitching, hand drawn prints, organic and sustainable materials. Just make sure that your brand is shouting that from the rooftops!
4. Decide on your target audience
Now you’ve decided on your sector, niche and USP, it’s time to define your target audience. Target audiences can be identified by asking yourself one question: Who are you designing for?
Make your answer as specific as possible. If it’s a high flyer with a corporate job who loves expensive suits and fine materials - that’s your target audience, so own it! But only by getting into the nitty gritty of your target audience will you be able to produce a product that sells.
At this stage in your concept it’s also worth identifying whether you have a brand message, and whether you have left enough room for brand growth. If you will be making fine lace dresses for example, what can your brand do differently after two, three, five years to vary its designs and offerings?
Look into your competition here to see where they got started from and how they have evolved. Take note of their target audience and identify how they have grown to match that target audience. If a brand outgrows its target audience or tries to change it mid-establishment, it often means a slow decline as the focus gets lost and the audience turn away.
Finally, remember to stop and think to yourself: Will people wear my designs? Why? You yourself are a consumer, you know your style and preferences so if you don’t think that you would wear a product, it’s a bad sign. Think about why you buy garments or what attracts you to certain designer collections and then embody those ways of thinking into your own concepts and ideas.
A fashion concept is inherently personal to the designer who conceptualises and gathers the ideas. Don’t be afraid to combine as many different influences and ideas as you see necessary: These will provide a great foundation in which you can begin to build your very own brand off of.
At James Hillman we can help with all elements of conceptualisation, design and production. We’ve even helped a leading luxury brand design their product from the ground up, so we know what it takes to start from the bottom and scale to the heights! Get in touch with us today and tell us how we can help you and your fashion brand.
