My BA (Hons) Collections, INSPIRATION

At the beginning of my final year at university, back in September of 2018, my class and I were asked to think of something that meant a lot to us in which to focus on as inspiration for our final textile collection.

For the past three years or so, I have unfortunately been burdened from feeling anxious, stressed and overwhelmed. This took a toll on my sleep, mental heath and daily activities. From speaking with family and friends, I decided to use mindfulness techniques including breathing techniques, yoga, Hygge and mindful walks to help myself.

From this, I had recently discovered that mindfulness and wellbeing techniques were taking social media by storm and that it was beginning to emerge into more and more lives; particularly for baby boomers and millennials (including myself). I thought to myself that what we wear on a daily basis must intertwine with how we feel mentally. If you are at home wearing your pyjamas, you feel cosy and warm- sometimes you don't want to get out of those clothes. Whereas at a day at work, you could be wearing polyester, viscose chiffon which could be tight shirts/blouses, skirts or suits. I bet you can't wait to take them off as soon as you get home, right? Well it occurred to me that perhaps these could be underlying issues that incorporate into how our body and minds feel. In this project, I wanted to capture the business of the current world in all aspects; economically, environmentally, politically, and finally, the fact we all seem to be busy 24/7. Our bodies need a break!

Through extensive research into fibres and colours and how they affect our bodies physically and mentally, I learned that natural fibres, particularly merino wool and cashmere have a great positive affect on us. They are great for our skin. They assist on soothing eczema, they are so soft and lush which mentally soothe our minds. They are also biodegradable, breathable, renewable and of course, natural. The natural aspect of the fibres, having come from merino sheep and cashmere goats, connect us back with nature and to our ancestors. Our ancestors, particularly in Ireland, spun wool from their own sheep and hand knitted and weaved their own clothes. As for colours, I discovered that earthy, toned down and neutral colours agree with our minds and soothe us as they are closer to nature as well. This makes sense especially as we know that red is the most difficult colour for our eyes to process to look at. Also, you are probably not going to feel mentally relaxed by a bright orange or yellow!

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After deciding to proceed with this aspect of wellbeing and create a textiles collection for women's fashion, I began the researching process and investigation. Here, I focussed a lot on trend research as my collection is to be fit for A/W2020/2021.

I used the trend forecasting website WGSN as well as information learned from my internship with Scarlet Opus in July and August 2018 to curate relevant trend research for my collection. Funnily enough, after I had researched into fibres and colours for our wellbeing, WGSN later released trends explaining the same things for AW2021! This was really positive for me to see as I knew I was on the right track and felt reassured by to move forward in the project. As well as this, all the information on the trends guided towards loungewear and using these to wind down from the outside world which led me to deciding to design for loungewear and sleepwear. I had also learned from my mentor from Scarlet Opus that airlines are beginning to offer first class passengers cashmere loungewear for long-haul flights, which inspired me to try incorporate this into my collection too.

Page from development sketchbook; nature inspiration.