Principles of Fashion Design
The primary purpose of wearing clothes is for protection, e.g. to keep warm, modesty.
Nowadays, people wear different clothes for different occasions and identities. They
also choose clothes by following their aesthetic sense and the fashion trend.
According to Oxford English Dictionary (2009), one of the definition of “Fashion” is
“popular styles of clothes, hair etc. at a particular time and place”. Essentially, it
means a style that is up-to-date, it influences what people wear and how they look.
Changes that take place in the fashion industry is followed by people everywhere on
all levels of society. Fashion carries prominent social significance and impact on
human behaviour.
According to Sue Jenkyn Jones, a professional consultant of the fashion industry in
United Kingdom, the word “design” refers to an invention of something with a
purpose. Design is very much a part of the daily live. Designs are made with different
goals such as designs for a special person / function / occasion market. A good
design should be functional and carries certain aesthetic values.
Apart from analysing the current fashion trend, fashion designers have to understand
the fashion design principles for creating aesthetic values. The design should also
meet the needs of the target group / occasion and be able to express the individuality
and creativity of the designer. Cultural and social changes affect the fashion trend
and how people perceive aesthetic values and related design principles. What is
considered to be beautiful one year may not be considered the same way a few
years later.
Aesthetic Values
Beauty is a quality that gives pleasure to the sense. It creates a positive emotional
reaction in the viewer. Most psychologists believe beauty and aesthetic are essential
to human life.
The principles of aesthetic constitute an important part of the Aesthetic Values
required in fashion design, which are also the determinants of the effect of any
designs. Aesthetic value and aesthetic judgment both play important roles in the
success of any designs. These two aspects help to judge any designs objectively.
They are usually determinants that help evaluate the viability of any design work.
Designers may not be consciously aware of these principles while they are working
on their designs but when something is wrong with a design, they are able to work on
the problems to make the design perfect and harmonious by taking into account the
principles of proportion, balance, rhythm, radiation, gradation, emphasis, contrast,
harmony, unity, repetition and scale.
Principles of Aesthetic
When developing a collection, designers need to think about for whom they are
designing, what type of garment they are developing and for what particular
season(s). To do so, the principles of fashion design must be properly applied and
executed in terms of Proportion, Balance, Rhythm, Radiation, Gradation, Emphasis,
Contrast, Harmony, Unity, Repetition and Scale.
Aesthetics is commonly perceived as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional
values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. The encyclopedia
identifies the principles of aesthetics as follows:-
“Objects are aesthetically valuable if they possess a special
aesthetic property or exhibit a special aesthetic form, they have the
capacity to produce pleasure in those who experience or appreciate
them and they have the capacity to help bring about social or
political change. The research also stated the aesthetics of fashion
design is ‘fashion designers use a variety of techniques to allow
people to express the truth about their unconscious minds by way of
their clothing. To create wearable personality designers use fabric,
cut, color, scale, references to the past, texture, color harmony,
distressing, transparency, insignia, accessories, beading and
embroidery. It is also used to find the average size of things, to make
a product suitable for a high number of customers.”
Greek philosophers initially feel that aesthetically appealing objects are beautiful in
and of themselves. Plato feels that beautiful objects incorporate proportion, harmony,
and unity among their parts. Similarly, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle found that the
universal elements of beauty are order, symmetry, and definiteness.
Some visual aesthetic effects include gradation, repetition, radiation,
symmetry/asymmetry, balance, linear dynamic, contrast, perspective, emphasis,
scale, movement, rhythm, unity and proportion.