The Importance of Construction in Design

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all have had a great past week! As I turned in my first project (as mentioned in last week’s post), I began to think about how I have grown since my interest in fashion really began.

In the beginning, most of my interest was geared toward the design aspect of fashion. I hadn’t yet fully grasped the concept of producing what I drew, so I just spent hours on end sketching garments that I never thought would leave the pages.

When I began to sew, I started with the basics: stuffed animals, pillows, and mini-purses. I created countless variations of the same basic design before I even began to think about transferring my knowledge of how to sew pillows to the creation of my designs. I soon found myself (poorly) constructing blouses made from curtains and blankets, and wearing them proudly!

As years passed, and I have grown older, my skills have developed more.  I found myself sewing more and more successful pieces, more closely resembling my designs, but I still felt as though there was some sort of disconnect between my, then, abilities and what I thought I was capable of achieving.

In the summer going into my freshman year of high school, I took a two-week long precollege course at a prestigious fashion school, notorious for their incredible design graduates. I went into the program confident in both my construction and design skills, but soon realized that my ability to design far surpassed what I was actually able to make; I knew that I had to develop my construction skills more, but I felt hopeless in terms of how I would do it.

A friend that I met in the course suggested that I try precollege at FIT. She told me that she had found herself in a similar situation where she did not have the skills needed to grow in her design career, but after just one semester at FIT, she felt more confident than ever!

Since starting classes at FIT, I have noticed a HUGE improvement in my construction. FIT does an amazing job teaching the basics, while also helping each and every student find their own style and personal techniques! If I could only leave you with one piece of advice, it would be that in the design world, your ability to make what you design is just as important as the design itself!

I hope you have a great rest of the week and a fabulous start to spring!

~Kaela