Author’s Note A good fashion design curriculum encourages students to come up with informed, creative solutions to the problem of dressing people for their lives. In my years of teaching, I have found that the greatest obstacle to this goal is not the acquiring of technical proficiency or adequate intellectual information—with the availability of information today, the average eight-year-old is likely more sophisticated and fashion-savvy than ever—but with accepting the need to design for real people.
The perception on the part of many students (and sometimes instructors) is that reality—real customers with real needs, real fabrics that must be constructed into real garments—is the enemy of creativity. Real experience, it is feared, means drudgery, compromise, and mediocrity. The result is that most curricula tend toward the theoretical, with practical application addressed only to the extent it is considered unavoidable. Students’ designs often seem to resemble ideas more than clothing.
It took me years as a working designer to accept the importance of identifying a real living customer and recognizing what he or she will and won’t wear. Far from being anti-creative, this
realization was for me the beginning of true creativity. For what is creativity if it isn’t to take something existing in one’s head and give it relevance in the real world?
The central purpose of this book, then, isn’t to impart technical proficiency (although we hopefully will do some of that) or to challenge students creatively (though I hope to do that too), but to give readers some ways to connect the two. I hope to provide students with small reminders, touchstones, and catalysts to help them solve real problems creatively, and creative problems realistically.
I hope that students and designers will keep this little book handy while researching, designing, swatching, and illustrating. I hope the history lessons help readers understand that innovation happens in context and through reaction to what came before; that the lessons in organization motivate the development of a holistic design process; that the lessons in illustration demonstrate the importance of communication; and that the business lessons lend a sense of the designer’s role in the larger world.
Alfredo Cabrera
Copyright © 2021 by Alfredo Cabrera with Matthew Frederick. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
