Subconscious as a source of creativity

Marta Lamovsek is a London based Slovenian photographer & art director. She is going to showcase in her postgraduate study final exhibition at Central Saint Martins, a series of works, called Melting Rocks.  

Using the subconscious as a source of creativity, the series Rocks Are Melting was intrigued by a powerful dream. Inspired by Surrealism, the art movement in 20th century, Marta Lamovsek has looked at her dreams and fantasies to release obsessions and hidden desires.

Marta’s work depict irrational in an atmosphere of bizarre fantasy, creating scenarios where everything is suddenly possible.

“For me, surrealism is a no-boundaries creative process where I can explore the secrets of deepest truths of inner-self,” explains Marta Lamovsek. 

I’m looking forward to the see and share with you the rest of her inspiring works from the series, in order to discover elements that would trigger some fashion creativity. 

Origami + Fashion = A strong statement of creativity

What is creativity? According to Robert Harris, English novelist and former journalist, and BBC television reporter, “creativity is the ability to imagine or invent something new”. Only, he states that “creativity is not the ability to create out of nothing (only God can), but the ability to generate new ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. Some creative ideas are astonishing and brilliant, while others are just simple, good, practical ideas that no one seems to have thought of yet.” (Harris, 1998, Introduction to Creative Thinking)

I agree with him, that is why I strongly believe that being creative in an area includes importing concepts from totally different domains and making use of them like nobody did before. “Go beyond labels. Unfixate, remove prejudices, expectations and assumptions and discover how something can be reapplied”, urges Harris in an article wrote in 1998, called Introduction to Creative Thinking.

Let’s look at fashion and Origami now. Origami is the art of folding paper into shapes representing objects, right? What does it have to do with fashion? Apparently nothing, until you can imagine a paper folded dress. Wearing a paper dress might be a little bit unpractical everyone would say. Wearing day by day, yes. But dressing up models on the catwalk with folded paper dresses in order to make a statement is not unpractical anymore, but rather creative.

Design by Mauricio Velasquez Posada

Let’s go even further. Humans are very solution oriented. That is, one can always find a material that would look and behave like paper, but would be as wearable as fabrics. Then, the Origami inspired fashion could get off the catwalk to the street. There are no limits, but those imposed by our very own mind.

Here’s how Mauricio Velasquez Posada (photos) and Jum Nakao (video) used Origami as a source of creativity in fashion.

Would You Rock This?

A good friend of mine, fashion illustrator Jennifer Lilya shared with me a very interesting new website: Would You Rock This?

Would You Rock This wanted to create an easy and social environment for designers to showcase their creativity. They developed a powerful searchable database for users to analyze their customer. They want to provide you with a new way to see your potential customer by collecting relevant data.

WHO is WYRT?

Would You Rock This? (WYRT) came from many in depth conversations with people like you – students, designers (industry trained or self-taught), creative directors, and manufacturers in the fashion industry. Like you, they wanted to know how their ideas ranked, with input from each other and potential consumers.

Why They Rock This?

• 1. Family and friends want to protect you, they sometimes won’t give real, honest criticism you can use. Your aunt Barbara thinks everything you do is perfect. Even your best friend probably won’t be candid when your fashion dreams are on the line.
• 2. In the past there was no way to get a collective opinion on a design before going to market. And it’s expensive to buy the fabric and make samples, for a design that ultimately won’t work!
• 3. Trends featured in magazines are misleading. Did you know magazines sometimes guarantee coverage in trend articles as an incentive for companies to buy more ad space?

• How This Website Helps You?

  How can you…

• prepare designers for criticism
• empower designers in tough markets
• create a new way to interact with the customer

I started to upload some of my creations. Maybe you’re interested too in doing that with your art or even featuring it on your blog. It’s an interesting take on finding out if an outfit should go into production.

by Iulia Stanescu

The creativity song or how to increase your creativity

You have possibly read about ways or techniques to increase your creativity. I did it, too. But this one, I have experienced myself recently so I decided to share it with you.

You know that sounds, color, smells, tastes, images are able to recall certain memories or states at human beings. So, while working in my class during the fashion drawing for beginners short course at Central Saint Martins in London, they put us several times this song.

After one week, I randomly heard the same song in a different scenery, but I suddenly felt a crazy will to start drawing. I felt a boost of creativity and a will to create.
The same can happen with any kind of set: smell, decor, color.

If you don’t have such a set that could boost your creativity due to previous experience, you can simply create one. If you want it to be a song, train your mind. While working listen for the same song several times. After a while listen again to the same song.

See what happens. Then enjoy your creativity boost!

By Catalina Rusu

Fashion show with ballerinas

I was talking about creativity in a previous post and how it applies in fashion. Just bring into fashion concepts, colors, sounds, patterns from outside the fashion.

This is what the Russian designer Tatyana Parfenova did in her latest Spring Summer 2010 fashion collection show in Moscow this week. Besides the fact that she brought a little bit of ballet in fashion, she also made a statement about the deep connection between the Russian contemporary culture and this form of dance.

“She is not the first to replace models with ballerinas - we’ve seen similar approach from the French born NYC based Malan Breton at his last NY fashion week show. Malan mixed the ballerinas with models, creating a surprising effect, while Parfionova chose to stage the entire show as a runway ballet performance.” (Yuli Ziv on Myitthings.com)

By Catalina Rusu

Intercultural migrations: Helvetica

A very interesting and challenging way of designing new things in one industry is to bring on the creation “table” a trend, a paradigm, a philosophy from another industry.
Take for example the Helvetica typeface and try to transform it into a fashion piece. I don’t know if someone has already done this specific experiment, nor if they got valuable results, but even if so, impossible is nothing and every action we take is in a certain way unique.

So, here’s the game I’m proposing to you. Take a look at this video, then take a pen and a paper, or open a digital working space and brainstorm. See if a typeface can somehow be recognized in a dress or a pair of gloves, see how a typeface can inspire you.

“Helvetica was a real step from the 19th century typeface. We were impressed by that because it was more neutral, and neutralism was a word that we loved. It should be neutral. It shouldn’t have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface.”

— Wim Crouwel in the documentary Helvetica

Enjoy your crazy creativity!

By Catalina Rusu

Design clothes, spread the word and make some money!

Many of us enjoy fashion, but the true declaration of love towards this way of self-expression is to design some of our own clothes.

I found tremendous Trendy-Workshop, a website co-founded by Tristan de Montebello, that allows its users to create their own clothes, buy them afterwords and also make money by sharing them with others on the web.

Unlike other customization platforms, like Spreadshirt for example, Trendy-Workshop allows you to design the whole product and not only the printing.

Users, men or women, can choose any little fashion detail they want on their piece and have it turned into reality. These are delivered to them within three weeks.

And about making money…Depending on how many people buy your designs on Trendy-Workshop, your are paid a commission. One can even reach the status of a Junior Creator.

Design made on Trendy-Workshop.

Clothes designed on Trendy-Workshop are produced in China and have prices starting at 89 euro for a cashmere sweater.

Have fun, be creative, turn your talent into money!

By Iulia Stanescu

We believe your passion is worth a free day!

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only; fashion is something in the air. It’s the wind that blows in the new fashion; you feel it coming, you smell it … in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” This is how Coco Chanel describes the sensation of creating fashion with passion.

Illustration by Iulia Stanescu

For some people being passionate means doing something exciting, for others it means to wear something special. Being passionate can also mean to create an inspirational fashion concept. The are infinite ways to define passion.

No matter what is the name of our passion, we believe we deserve a special day to celebrate it. So, what about having a National Day of Passion in Romania? A day in which all passionate people would gather and party in the name of the things they love most.In our case, one of them would be fashion, right?

The Federation “Follow your passion” has thought of this already and made the first step to legalize The Passion Day in Romania. They proposed it for the third Friday of September. This initiative aims to build a groundswell of awareness about passion and encourage people to start practicing more intensely their own.

So, if you care about your passion and you’re interested in supporting this manifestation, sign the online petition here.

I would love to hear how you would celebrate the Passion Day!

By Iulia Stanescu

Creativity translated into bags

I received this video from a friend and I simply couldn’t wait to share it with you. This is what one can call creativity translated into bags. Different styles, different materials, different fabrication techniques and always wonderful results…

I’ll say no more and let you enjoy the many things creativity can bring to life.

By Catalina Rusu