Dash and Miller are trend lead, so I thought this would be a good starting point for colour and pattern. I found WGSN quite a hard website to navigate as there is so much to look at, but the menswear colour edit for Spring/Summer 2015 stood out as a strong colour palette, so this has become the basis for my weft colours.
I have created mood boards containing the trend colours to look at proportion and scale. This has helped to see how other people have combined these colours in other ways than just fabrics.
I think this was a good way for me to quickly collect ideas and have instant outcomes whilst realising and understanding how important trends are in the fashion industry.
In order to gain the shiny lightweight fabrics of Tom Ford's Spring/Summer collections, the obvious yarn choice was silk. I went to Uppingham Yarns to look at coloured silk, but the price was astounding. They had a variety of viscose yarns at a tenth of the price of silk and the colours were a perfect match, but when designing for high end, quality is key and I learnt this through my Dashing Tweeds placement. I used the dye lab to dye plain silk for my weft and I was happy with the results, proving I made the right decision not buying viscose.
Looking at the work of Johannes Itten has helped me refine my colours and think about displaying colour simply, using basic shapes.
I wasn't sure at first how I was going to combine so many bright colours in proportions so it wasn't overpowering or too garish, but Itten uses brights toned down with darks and neutrals which I think helps accentuate the brights even more.
Fig. 1 - Pinterest. (n.d) Johannes Itten. [Online] [Accessed on 16th February 2014] <http://www.pinterest.com/pin/521221356844817463/>