Hello, everyone, welcome back to class number three of how to design your fashion collection and launch your own fashion brand. So let's get to work. The next step is to start designing your collection. There are two methods two ways of going about doing this. You can start by sketching first and then choosing your fabric or choosing the fabric first. Most designers and most companies will start with fabric first and here's the reason why.

Let's talk about fabrics for a second. The textile industry works way ahead of anybody else. They know what fabrics and colors you will be wearing two years from now. So most companies will and most designers will start with fabric and I suggest you do the same shop for fabric first and let them fabric inspire you to create your designs, use fabric as a source of inspiration. Okay? Let the fabric tell you what it wants to do and then start sketching ideas.

Fabric is a very, very important element in designing. So it's very important to get to know fabrics really, really well. fabrics can be broken down into two categories. There are woven fabrics and knit fabrics and they behave differently. A knit fabric for example, like a T shirt, if you look at a T shirt and you stretch it sideways, you'll see that it stretches whereas woven fabrics will not stretch. When you look at fabrics you notice that there are solid colors.

There are prints your florals they're a string stripes, there are plants, there's polka dots, etc. So Even when it comes to solid, even solid colors, there are so many shades of any one color. Think of it this way think of lipstick for example, there are so many shades of red so many shades of pink. Also with fabric, there is the weight of the fabric meaning some fabrics are very lightweight and some are heavy weight, when you hold a piece of fabric and you look how it drapes how it falls that is known in the industry as the hand of the fabric yes hand like like your hand. So, if you hear people in this industry talking about the hand or the fabric, they refer to how it drapes how it falls. Therefore, some fabrics are more appropriate for certain garments for certain designs.

With fabric there is texture meaning this surface, is it smooth, is it rough, the best way I can describe to you texture is, for example, we all know what velvet feels like right? And we know what satin feels like. So you see the difference. So learning about fabric is extremely important. Fabric is a source of inspiration, let the fabric tell you what it wants to do. And then holding the fabric, you can get ideas and be inspired to create your designs.

So your homework for next class is to go into fabric store and spend time, I mean hours if you can in there, get familiar with fabrics, get to know fabrics, and maybe even buy some fabrics that you think you might use to design your collection if you plan on actually following this course and have a real collection at the end of this course. Then take this that very seriously and choose the right fabric of fabrics. It's really, really important. So we talked about fabrics as a source of inspiration. Next class we'll discuss sketching as a source of creating your Okay, so let's get to work. Next class.