Monday, September 13, 2010

Thursday, January 14, 2010

History of fashion design


The first designer who was not merely a dressmaker was Charles Frederick Worth (1826–1895). Before the former draper set up his maison couture fashion house in Paris, clothing design and creation was handled by largely anonymous people, and high fashion descended from style worn at royal courts. Worth's success was such that he was able to dictate to his customers what they should wear, instead of following their lead as earlier dressmakers had done. The term couturier was in fact first created in order to describe him.

It was during this period that many design houses began to hire artists to sketch or paint designs for garments. The images alone could be presented to clients much more cheaply than by producing an actual sample garment in the workroom. If the client liked the design, they ordered it and the resulting garment made money for the house. Thus, the tradition of designers sketching out garment designs instead of presenting completed garments on models to customers began as an economy.