Business, Design & Style
Developing Your Product - Part 1
Lesson time 16:42 min
Learn how to find inspiration for your designs. Art, nature, and color can all play a part in how your brand differentiates itself in the marketplace.
Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars
Topics include: Inspiration • Mood Boards • Colors and Prints
Teaches Building a Fashion Brand
In 17 video lessons, Diane von Furstenberg will teach you how to build and market your fashion brand.
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Where did I always look for inspiration? It was either women-- nothing has inspired me more than women. The best thing is you go out, and you see these little girls wearing this with that. That's an inspiration. Art is always. For me, Matisse with whom I share the same birthday, the pilot of Matisse. Nature, because in nature, you have all the beautiful colors, the textures. What is more beautiful than the texture of a bark? What is more beautiful than the design of a leaf? What is more beautiful than all these things-- the flower, the colors, the color combination? You can never go wrong. When I first came to America in the '70s, it was a wonderful time to be young, because we thought we invented freedom because living in New York City was very cheap. So there were a lot of artists. There were a lot of creative people. There was a lot of experimental things. I was young somewhere between pills and AIDS, so sex was very free. There was a lot of nudity on Broadway. There was a lot of rock and roll. There was hallucinogens. I mean, there was there was a lot of freedom. But also because I was young, so to some degree, when you are young, you are inspired by what you live. Inspiration is everything. It's about looking, smelling, hearing. It's about life. It could start with a drawing, it could start with a picture, it could start with the mood. Whatever it is, it's called a mood board. So you could put on that board anything that will focus and that will explain the vision that you have. And then the next thing that comes out is the color palette. And then from the color palette, then you do the prints, and then you do the styles, and that's how the collection goes. So some people do great mood boards, and some people do less great mood boards. It's important because it's a teamwork, so that is the board that everybody looks at. The knit designer will go into it, and everybody. So it has the one vision and the one narrative. And the mood board is probably one of the first things that they teach you at fashion school. I never went to fashion school, so I never learned that. But it becomes so obvious that everything has to be funneled into one source of inspiration. And then, of course, with the storytelling later, when you deal with how you talk about it, how you tell your sales people, how you sell it, how you communicate it, it is more and more important. So the more your mood board is evocative, the more you can incubate it, the stronger, it will be. Most designers love to work on black or on white. Most designers don't necessarily love color so much. And by the way, black is always your best seller-- everything on black. But the color is very, very important. And when you work with color, it is very important to make the balance of color. So if you have a print, then you will us...
About the Instructor
In her 20s, Diane Von Furstenberg convinced a textile factory owner in Italy to let her produce her first designs. With those samples, she flew to New York City to build one of the world’s most iconic and enduring fashion brands. In her first online fashion design class, Diane teaches you how to build a brand. You’ll learn how to create a visual identity, build loyalty, stay true to your vision, and launch your product.
Featured MasterClass Instructor
Diane von Furstenberg
In 17 video lessons, Diane von Furstenberg will teach you how to build and market your fashion brand.
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