What does my design process look like?

With a new collection on the way, I thought I would share a brief run through of my design process. There are 5 main elements; inspiration, fabrics, design, pattern and then samples/ production. 

I’ll start with inspiration and fabrics together, as I often interchange these 2 as the way I start out a process. I’ll either start with a mood board, choosing images and colours to a theme, or I’ll choose a couple of fabrics and design from them – building a theme around them. My newest collection was built the second way – I had a few fabrics chosen out and then I created a mood board and theme from them to flesh out the ideas and designs. 

Design and pattern come next. Sometimes I design and then create the pattern, and other times I sketch out the pattern, working out like a game of Tetris how the pieces might fit together to reduce waste. And sometimes it’s a combination, I have an idea I sketch and then develop the details of it based off a pattern. It’s quite a different approach to the traditional way of pattern making, which is the way I was trained in – but I’ve always enjoyed thinking out of the box. 

The next step is to create samples from the patterns, in the fabric I’ve selected. It’s rare I’ll do a test garment in a different fabric, I cut straight into the selected fabric and make it up. This way I’m working with the right weight of fabric, seeing pattern placement as well as maximising the width of the fabric by strategically placing the pattern pieces. If it doesn’t quite work out, then I go back a step, or check my fabric choices and see where it’s not quite working as planned. 

Once I confirm I’m happy with the design, the fabric choice and the pattern then I move to grading the pattern into all the sizes I’m going to produce it in, cut them out and then start sewing! I do my grading, cutting, and sewing in batches, so that I can get all the pieces ready together. 

And that pretty much sums up my process! If you’d like to be the first to know when the new collection drops be sure to jump onto our VIP mail list right away – because it’s happening real soon and I’d hate for you to miss out! 

*please note we are currently only shipping Australia wide, to New Zealand and the United Kingdom – other countries coming soon*