Textile Design - Essay Example

Indigo heads the international textile design and creation exhibition. There are two fashion exhibits per year. They offer exhibitors and visitors inspiration to prepare collections and conduct business.

This year’s Spring/Summer show was during February in Paris at the same time as Première Vision, Expofil, ModAmont and Le Cuir a Paris, Zoom by Fatex -- all under the Premiere Vision Pluriel. The events extend welcome to over 8000 trade visitors from the entire fashion industry from garment makers to distributors to retailers to luxury shops to weavers to finishers to printers to stylists. All sorts of designs, embroideries and appliqués, knits, fabrics, vintage, transfer paper, and archives are offered. Spring-summer fashion collections for women reflect some trends in the textile industry. Some industry leaders traditionally motivate trends industry-wide. We review trends set by Dries van Noten, Top Shop Unique, Alexander Wang, and Rodarte.

Dries Van Noten has become a sort of spokesperson for women's daily wear. Van Noten's simple pragmatic solutions for urban elegance are exemplary. Silk pieces and breezy duster coats shifts underscored with regular pants and shorts augmented with high heels, jewelry, and sunglasses mark some of the more trend-setting looks of the collection. It has moved beyond the layered, multi-printed groove of the norm. His patterns have turned to graphic grids, stripes, and checkerboards, and his color to black, white, and a section of orange. Van Noten has assumed the ethnic effects into accessories. Eclectic but simple is the key here.

TopShop team as headed by Karen Bonser is marketing to commercial outcomes. Non-serious, there were superficial love-heart prints, jumpsuits, parachute-silk batwing tops, and new wave tailoring. TopShop's high-street brand stopped pretending to be what it is not and came off as genuinely youthful. Again we see the trend of simplicity reborn in the eclectic.

Alexander Wang gained with his new shoe collection and a line of T-shirts called T by Alexander Wang. He aimed for a sexy, devil-may-care sort of muse. Mesh patterns reminiscent of beads of sweat on a draped jersey with the infusion of brighter, body-conscious looks, Wang's familiar was still very here. Tough and pierced with fringed black leather platform sandals, there was an athletic edge to it all. Even in the cropped muscle tees and sweatpants, we see the essence of this work. Silk cargo pants, a sleek anorak, and fringed sweatshirts will be winners. His style has successfully diverged from this year’s norm.

Rodarte’s dyed Grecian gowns of fall returned for spring. They are encrusted with crystals in a palette of violet, orange, white, and blue. Familiar knits composed of many materials represent some of the fashions for the spring and summer of 2009. They are worn with circular lace-pleated skirts. Again we see the eclectic combined with the simple.

Awareness of the context of textiles is indispensable to predicting trends in fashion. As colors, fabrics, and techniques change, it is important for the fashion professional to take note of the more forward-looking designers’ attempts at new fashion. In this way, we can combine our observations with design principles and business to compete more appropriately in these tough economic times.