Job:02-30034 Title:RP-Fashion Design Ref and Spec Book
#175 Dtp:225 Page:75
Book
ge:74
072-075_30034.indd 75 2/27/13 2:59 PM
(Text)
Mood Boards and Library 75
e
-
d
s
The pages of printed books hold a world of information and beauty. A design library should
cover everything from fashion history to designer biographies to explorations of color and tex-
tiles. With an exquisite selection of coffee-table books the designer can experience the next
best thing to being in the room with the subject. Exhibition catalogues are especially useful,
since in many cases garments or accessories from museum archives might be on display for
only a limited period.
Many designers collect complete editions of important fashion magazines such as Vogue and
Harper’s Bazaar and have them bound. Some newer publications also merit collectable status.
Visionaire, launched in 1991, is a good example. The publication is a multiformat album of fash-
ion and art produced in numbered limited editions, elevating its value and its desirability. Un-
like traditional fashion magazines, this type of periodical becomes a more concentrated time
capsule of an aesthetic.
Film is also a powerful design resource, and designers might assemble a collection of DVDs
that stimulate their creativity. The movie industry has created glamorous and romanticized
versions of almost every time period, real or imagined. To take one example, both the 1938
W. S. Van Dyke version and the 2006 Sofia Coppola version of Marie Antoinette pay tribute
to an important period in fashion history; however, costume designers Adrian and Milena
Canonero (who won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design) each took artistic license in
interpreting the period for the audiences of their day.
Documentary films and instructional videos provide a wealth of content to pull from. Documen-
taries in a designer’s repository will range from historical to biographical to artistic; they are a
great way for new designers to familiarize themselves with their industry and with the lives and
careers of a roster of contemporary designers. How-to videos become important when design-
ers want to familiarize themselves with new techniques.
Nothing creates a mood faster or more efficiently than music, and it is one resource that
should not be left out of work environments during the design process, not to mention presen-
tations. A design library should contain whatever genres inspire the designer, whether classi-
cal, jazz, rock, salsa, country, pop, dance, electronic, R&B, hip-hop, alternative, sound tracks,
or world music. For instance, a designer might decide to indulge in musicals while engaged
in the creative process because of the familiarity of the melodies and the ease of the lyrics,
not to mention the often playful or theatrical nature of the music. Surprisingly, a collection
designed in this environment might end up making it down the catwalk to the heavy thump of
techno music. Designers will sometimes ask a DJ to remix something from one genre they’ve
been listening to into another to serve the expectations built around a runway presentation.
06
Job:02-30034 Title:RP-Fashion Design Ref and Spec Book
#175 Dtp:225 Page:75
Book
ge:74
072-075_30034.indd 75 2/27/13 2:58 PM