THE MAGIC OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS IN A FASHION COLLECTION

Have you ever wondered how a fashion production is carried out? What have you answered? Normally, as fashion consumers, we are used to going to the stores and seeing the products perfectly placed on the displays; Or to click on the brand's website or app and look at the online catalog. Well, this result that the end consumers appreciate, is the success of a long production process. In this article you will discover how magic happens in the development of fashion collections. I invite you to enter this fascinating adventure.

Fashion is the repetition of the use of any product, service, style or idea during a certain period of time, in a specific context. Fashion is cyclical, and everything comes back with reinventions and interpretations. In past decades, new things were constantly being created from scratch, and there was an aesthetic marked by periods (20's, 40's, 50's ...). However, since the 2000s everything has advanced very fast, trends can hardly be assimilated because they converge with each other and, due to the pressure of novelty, new things are constantly being created with only some added value of what already existed. In fashion there is no past, but reinterpretations of it, new visions of what has already been done and recoveries of what is valuable to us. Even so, the main events, calendars, contests and meeting points of the industry, are being transformed to respond in the best possible way to the constant and changing needs of customers, markets and circumstances.

For this reason, and after the changes that are taking place in this new decade due to the current crisis we are experiencing, the fashion industry is readjusting its parameters . So, what used to be solved with immediacy and required constant innovation, will now change to work more slowly. Gone is fast fashion and the calendar of 5 collections a year for luxury brands (ready-to-wear spring / summer, ready-to-wear autumn / winter, cruise, prefall and Haute Couture). These months in which we have been stopped have served to think about slowing down the pace. As Chloé's creative director, Natacha Ramsay-Levy, stated: “The rush to create a collection exhausts creativity. Designers don't have time to think ”. Clearly this statement indicates the need to put creativity at the center and not so much business.

Another key point of change that is emerging is the location of productions . During this crisis caused by COVID-19, many brands have seen the production of their collections stopped, a situation that has generated many losses within the sector. This is mainly due to the relocation of productions. Producing collections and prototypes so far from the headquarters of each brand hinders the possibility of working in situations like the present one. For this reason, the fashion industry is betting on relocation . Produce in nearest workshops and produce in a more sustainable way, thinking both of the workers who manufacture the garments and of the origin of the fabrics of the same. Betting on Made in ... productions (your place of origin), responsible productions, enables the creation of products in fewer quantities but of higher quality, with more immediacy and lower transport costs. Europe has many excellent quality production points that should not be wasted.

This crisis we are experiencing is also restructuring fashion shows and editorial and catalog shootings .

Returning to the question at the beginning of the article and before I begin to detail the phases of creating a collection, I would like to clarify that the development of a collection takes a long time . The fashion industry works nine months in advance. A very long process to comply with the calendaring of the stations and the industry's own calendar. For example, for a Spring / Summer (S / S) collection that can be put on sale at the beginning of March, work has begun since June of the previous year. Therefore, when the end customer is consuming the seasonal products, the designers are already almost finishing with the fall / winter (F / W) collections and almost thinking about the following summer. Stifling right? As a designer I recognize that it is somewhat chaotic to work with so much time but at the same time it is exciting. Let's start to reel off each of the phases.

The standard procedure for creating a fashion collection is divided into three phases :

• Initiation Phase : time for meetings, analysis, research and conclusions about what the collection will be. This phase always begins with a briefing . A briefing is a document that collects the most relevant information about the company, its starting point. A good briefing should collect information on sales from the previous season, the target to which the collection is directed, an analysis of the competition, the functionality of the collection, the added value that it will have and an extensive analysis of trends . All this information will help you set clear goals. Afterwards, the tasks will be scheduled in a schedule to know where in each phase they are at each moment and the tasks that must be carried out. After all this, from my point of view, the most beautiful phase arrives, the moment when the magic arises. It begins by taking inspirations , aesthetic references (taken in part from trends) and begins to investigate them to find the concept and meaning that will be given to the collection. For this magical process, a good tool is the creation of moodboards . They are inspiration panels in which, graphically (through photos, textures, colors, fabric samples, ideas ...) the concept of the collection is collected and will serve as a guide to specify the designs. This initial phase is quite a long process, but it will lay the foundation for a good collection.

• Once this initial phase is finished, the creative phase begins : moment in which the ideas are specified. Always taking the briefing and moodboards as a reference, the first sketches of the products begin to be designed , which later will be the final designs. However, not all sketches end up as designs. In parallel to the designs, the color charts of the collection and the chart of fabrics and textures that will define it begin to be chosen . Once the designs are finalized, the corresponding illustrations are made and a collection plan is created . This planning must inform in a single point of view what the collection is about, its concept. To do this, the designs are divided into families and series . For example, if the collection deals with sunlight throughout the day, the series could be divided into: dawn, noon, dusk and dusk; And families could be divided according to the fabrics used. At this point, the collection will be assembled, ready to develop the technical sheets for each design and have the prototypes produced.

• The last phase is known as the development phase . In this phase, the first prototypes are made , on which the appropriate technical modifications will be made. For example: corrections in armholes, lengths, widths ... And once the prototypes are made, the patterns for the collection begin to be produced and made . Usually you start by manufacturing designs in a standard size. These designs in standard size will help us to create outfits and photograph the catalogs . They will also be the designs that will be shown on the catwalks and showrooms for later sale on request; or those that will be left to magazines for publishing and advertising . Subsequently, the larger-scale production will be carried out, which are the products that we will see in stores at the beginning of each season .

As you can see, it takes a lot of time because it is a lot of work. To see a garment or accessory in an exhibitor, shop window or mannequin, a long process has been necessary and many professionals have interfered: from designers, to suppliers, pattern makers, clothing, photographers, models, specialists in marketing, sales, communication ... That is why that the fashion industry has so many agents within the same creative process .

To conclude this post, I think it is important to make a brief reflection on this creative process and the current crisis that we are going through. While many processes that go into creating a collection are adapting, perhaps calendars and times should too. We cannot avoid the handicap of the seasons (although it is true that due to climate change, they are becoming less accentuated and the climate changes more unstable) but perhaps the times of some processes can be reduced. Maybe we should rethink changing these very long cycles to shorter, slower, more circular and sustainable cycles. Some stages, such as the production of prototypes and collections, could see their times reduced if, for example, they bet on relocating production to closer locations. It would save a lot of time and accelerate the following processes in the cycle such as shootings or magazine editorials. In my opinion, I think that in the long run, this long creation cycle will be shortened. Before the crisis caused by COVID-19, people were already beginning to think about it and after these months of hiatus it is evidence that has been accentuated and to which the fashion industry will end up adapting.

If you want to read the article in Spanish, you can do so in the number 3/2020 of the magazine FLIS (R) Moda y Derecho al Día https://www.fashionlawinstitute.es/product-page/flis-moda-y-derecho-al-d%C3%ADa-3-2020

Also, if you want to know more about how a fashion collection is developed and what are the legal aspects that surround it, I invite you to see this digital meeting on copyright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMPz-g6i3rw&t=349s