Behind the Seams Part 1: Starting from (Pencil) Scratch
This article is part of a series on how I got Holdette, my workwear line for women entering the workforce, off the ground, and how you too can launch your own clothing line without having a background in apparel design. Entering college studying and eventually graduating with a degree in Computer Science, I never expected to start a clothing line, but I’ve found it’s often the places we never expect to find ourselves that are the most exciting. This article is not intended for people who already know how to design clothes, but instead for people starting from absolute scratch. I didn’t know anything about this process, and while I’m still learning myself, I’m sharing the lessons I wish someone could have told me when I was just starting out.
Step 1:
First and foremost, you need to know what you want to design. This may seem obvious, but the second you put pencil to paper there are a million different directions you can go. Make sure you at least know the kind of clothing you want to create before you start the process.
Step 2:
Once you know what you want to design, find inspiration online — my go-to is Pinterest which allows you to search styles, materials, and overall aesthetics, and compile them into a mood board. At this point, I printed the ones out I wanted and taped them into a sketchbook. This allowed me to then sketch my own designs alongside the inspiration photos I had liked.
Believe me, you don’t need to be an artist to complete this step. At this point, my sketches were free-handed and not to scale, but I needed to get my ideas on paper, and drawing everything out allowed me to add in my own notes in the margins.
Step 3:
With some preliminary research and designs on paper, I was introduced to a fashion professor at Rhode Island School of Design who recommended I pick up Flats: Technical Drawing for Fashion A Complete Guide. This book taught me about flats, the technical word for clothing drawings which essentially means what your piece of clothing will look like when it’s laid flat on the ground.
I started by tracing these pieces to get a sense of proportion and then discovered croquis which is basically stencils for drawing clothing. You can do a quick search for croquis free downloadable templates and find options such as these.
Step 4:
I printed out the croquis, traced over them with a thin sharpie, and then put a sheet of paper over the sheet with the croquis so I could see it and I would draw the pieces I wanted to design on top of them. Sometimes I would also trace the head, arms, and feet over if I wanted a more full sense of what the pieces would look like being worn and not just on the rack.
Step 5:
Once I had these drawings I made notes about where I thought buttons, zippers, and tags would go and what colors and materials I thought might work for this based on researching what else was out there. Most brands list the materials of the pieces they are selling so that’s a good place to understand what materials would work for the kinds of pieces you are creating.
I hope you found this helpful and if you design something utilizing this article tag @Holdette and me!
Next time I’ll chat about patterns and muslin samples so stay tuned!
