Design Inspiration: Where to Get Ideas for Mixed Media Clothing

Design Inspiration: Where to Get Ideas for Mixed Media Clothing

Lately fashion has been highlighting what I call mixed-media designs. Parallel to mixed media art, mixed-media fashions involve more than one textile/sewing technique. It has been my experience that most creative fiber people practice more than one form of textile art. So, if you sew, knit, stitch, crochet or dabble in a plethora of related textile arts, you are the perfect candidate for creating unique and one-of-a-kind clothing. Just do it!

Where does one begin?

I like to be inspired by the world around me. My resources are varied and when time permits, I like to clip, sketch, and pin the ideas that present themselves.


Pinterest




Pinterest is a great friend for this. It is easy to set up interest boards so you can curate your inspirations. I have numerous, and yes, I have several related to mixed-media fashions. Go check them out? Start your own interest board, and pin, pin, pin.

Combining Fabrications
https://www.pinterest.com/thinkdoodlemake/combining-fabrications/

Pieced Garments
https://www.pinterest.com/thinkdoodlemake/pieced-garments/

Details
https://www.pinterest.com/thinkdoodlemake/details/

Embellishments
https://www.pinterest.com/thinkdoodlemake/embellishments/

Lagen Look Styles
https://www.pinterest.com/thinkdoodlemake/lagenlook-styles/

Upcycled Sweatshirts and T’s
https://www.pinterest.com/thinkdoodlemake/upcycled-sweatshirts-and-ts/

And here are a few boards from other people related to Mixed Media:

https://www.pinterest.com/jemorrissey/clothing-in-mixed-media-styles/

https://www.pinterest.com/AlabamaChanin/

https://www.pinterest.com/annawalden/a-right-now/

https://www.pinterest.com/marjoleinstof/

Key words to use when searching Pinterest would be:

Altered Couture, Mixed Media Fashion, Refashioning, Mixed Media Dress Clothing, Fiber Art Clothing, etc.

Pinterest Tip:
Did you know that you can print the images from a Pinterest board? I have done that with a few of my boards for quick reference.


Flickr

Flickr is a hosting site for photographic images and videos. Here you can search by theme amongst the thousands and thousands of images. Try “mixed media fashion”. You might also want to read up on the Creative Commons license page if you want to use images on your blog, or otherwise.
https://www.flickr.com

Follow Fashion Lines

There are several companies and fashion designers that share an interest in mixed media or embellished clothing. Here are a few suggestions:

Sundance 



This is Robert Redford’s collection of fashion, interior and home items. Although it varies from time to time, you can find a lot of clothing that features a hand-crafted feel, and often these involve more than one textile art.
https://www.sundancecatalog.com

Anthropologie



This well-known store has always carried garments that have that hand-crafted look. You will find a lot of embellishment, mixed techniques and related both in the store and online.
https://www.anthropologie.com

Santa Fe Dry Goods

This is a store in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although I can’t afford practically all of their clothing, I never miss going into the store when I visit, as it is so inspirational. They carry many designers/lines from around the world, many of whom you may not know. I love the silhouette and garment ideas in general, but often, you will find designers who use mixed media in their work, or who focus on a specific textile art. Their website is great, and I would recommend getting on their mail list. Check out Sacai, Uma Wang, Péro, or Gilda Midani. I also like how you can view their clothing. They provide multiple views, zooming, and they not only list the details of the garment, but the tell you how tall the model is, so you can have an idea of proportion. Be careful of the Sales page; you may indeed find something you want!
https://santafedrygoods.com/







Google Search  – Mixed Media Clothing or Mixed Media Fashion

A simple Google search will bear lots of interesting results. Below are a few links that came up.

https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/2017/02/17/fashion-mma-earn-your-belt-by-mastering-mixed-media-prints/

https://www.behance.net/gallery/53438773/DOLLZ-Fashion-Mixed-Media-Project

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/sterling-rubys-mixed-media

Are you inspired yet? It’s time to brush up on your various textile arts, and plan a garment yourself that uses multiple mixed skills. Not only is it a lot of fun, but it is a guarantee that you will not see yourself walking down the street. A further bonus is that often you can use up small bits of fabric, here and there, or leftover yarns. 

I use Garment Designer software to aid in my projects. I can quickly make a pattern to use in various ways; combining knits with sewn, splicing pieces, etc.

https://www.cochenille.com/garment-designer/


So, onwards, and enjoy!

Creative with Garment Designer: Engineered Pattern Design

One of the great pleasures of working with Garment Designer is discovering new ways to push the boundaries in design. For me, combining a second love (Photography) with pattern design, allows even more creativity to flow, and well, it doesn’t get much better than that. The best way to mix Garment Designer with Photography is to utilize a design technique which involves ‘engineered design'. You choose a silhouette that suits the imagery, create a full-scale pattern in Garment Designer, then save it as a PDF. Then, you take the pattern into Photoshop. There, you lay the photographic imagery into the garment, controlling its placement. The last step of this process is to print the full-scale photography pattern. I originally started with sublimation printing, utilizing Kid Neptune, a local company here in San Diego. Now I am printing my patterns using Spoonflower (www.spoonflower.com).

Let’s walk through the steps.


The Concept:
Desert Escape
 – which was the theme for our Fashion Show at San Diego Mesa College.

Choose your Photograph
Or at least narrow it down.Since the theme of this project was Seize the Sunset, I needed to find imagery that spoke to that. In looking through my photographs, I decided to use one of my shots of the sunset here on the beach in the San Diego area. Note the person on the bicycle!

Sunset on Cardiff Beach, San Diego area

Develop the Pattern in Garment Designer
It helps if you know which photograph you are wanting to use, because sometimes the photo directs you to a silhouette.In choosing a garment silhouette, I knew I needed to keep it relatively simple so that the imagery would be the focus. It is important to pay attention to the amount of ‘real-estate; you have in relation to the imagery you want to lay into the pattern.I chose to create a simple A-line dress with an empire seam. In Garment Designer  software (www.cochenille.com) I used the Top Plus Bottom option to develop the pattern. Then I saved my full scale pattern to a PDF file, using a document size of 38.5 x 58.5 (which was the maximum size of the sublimation press.

Empire style dress in Garment Designer

Prep your Photography

For my main garment, I turned the sunset vertically. In addition, I build a stripe pattern by splicing a strip of the sunset; I wanted to use this for the empire bodice.

Sunset image turned vertically

Stripe pattern built by splicing the sunset in Photoshop

Combine the Photo with the Pattern
Next, I loaded my PDF pattern pieces into Photoshop and combined the pattern pieces into one large document (set to the size of the press). Using Selections and Cut and Paste, I then moved my photography into the garment. I could pan my imagery around inside the garment to determine where to place it.

Working in Photoshop

Final layout

Print, Print, Print
The last step was to send the imagery to the Sublimation company. They printed it using special sublimation paper and ink, and then they pressed it onto my polyester fabric.


Sew..
What is really cool here is that you can see the entire pattern in the fabric and simply cut out the shape of it... completely engineered.

Repeat....
Since I was having so much fun, I did a second garment.
You can see both here on the runway of our Golden Scissors Fashion Show.

Raglan design in Garment Designer

Layout in Photoshop

On the runway with Garment Designer!!