Young Creative Minds: Future of Fashion Fashion is always shifting, it influences, it creates an impact, it can be manipulated and can be used to manipulate thoughts and actions
By Ananya Kumar •
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Past, present, future, these terms have significance only when used together or in context of one another. The past defines its present and the latter defines its future. For years, fashion has been influenced by traditions, cultures, stories, which has led to its evolution. Fashion is always changing with new designers, fresh ideas, advancing technology and social media platforms. There is a gradual shift that takes place and it will continue to do so. These changes can be taken as learning and mixed with creativity to design the future of fashion.
Fresh Approach
Millennials are taking over or rather have taken over. When it comes to fashion, they are "breaking rules' with their young and creative practices. We should replace "breaking rules' with "exploring'. The helpful example to understand this would be wearing a saree with a shirt as a blouse because, why not? Young minds are breaking all rules and making fashion all about comfort, correction, "personal comfort'. Designers must learn to offer that. The customers' choices affect the designers' choices and the latter has to work his/her way around that.
One must free themselves from the past, to create a better future, is applicable to the fashion industry as well. Creating something new will always be a challenge but it is not impossible. The important lesson is to always take inspiration from situations, stories, instances from the past and narrate that inspiration in your design in such a way that others can relate to your brand and understand your story at a much greater level. This approach fosters originality but, the word "inspiration' is often used in place of "copying' or "plagiarism.' According to me, taking inspiration is an interpretation of those situations, stories and instances and making a story of your own. Deriving a basis for your creativity is design. It is not just creating something beautiful to look at.
Design Process
Different designers have different methods when it comes to designing. Some travel, some read, some illustrate, just perceiving and exploring different mediums of creativity. A new design can be triggered by the littlest things like while having a sip of your morning coffee, listening to a song, reading a novel, watching a movie, literally anything! It is just how one executes it that matters at the end.
Becoming a designer is easy but staying one is difficult. A designer has to keep offering something "new' each time which marks the designer on the "good designer list'. Creating something new can be a task but, if well executed, it can serve as a basis for something substantial and worthy. This cycle continues to a point where a certain "fashion trend' becomes stagnant and one has to create something new again. A designer must keep learning, inspiring and exploring to get the best of design.
The future of fashion is in safe hands of designers who have their own rules, who are not bound by clichés, who have what it takes to make a change, because, why not?
How to Sustain(Ability)?
The next most valuable approach in the fashion industry is "Sustainability.' Sustainable fashion has gained a lot of ground in the fashion industry lately. Designers are working hard to make garments that are "sustainable'. But how many of us really know the true meaning of "sustainable'? It does not mean eco-friendly or low wastage or biodegradable, it is a combination of all of the above stated and much more. There are various ways to achieve sustainable design. Sustainable fashion is producing clothes in a manner which supports the environment today and tomorrow along with the working environment, usage of resources, consumption and longevity of the final product. A lot of designers are putting sustainability to use to an extent but awareness about the same is incomplete.
Fashion is always shifting. Fashion influences, it creates an impact. Fashion can be manipulated and can be used to manipulate thoughts and actions. Fashion is many things and it always keeps changing. Fashion follows no rules. Fashion can be offensive to some but defensive to others. It is a perception.
