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Fashion design is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. Fashion design is influenced by cultural and social latitudes, and has varied over time and place. Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories. Some work alone or as part of a team. They attempt to satisfy consumer desire for aesthetically designed clothing; and, because of the time required to bring a garment onto the market, must at times anticipate changing consumer tastes.

Fashion designers attempt to design clothes which are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. They must consider who is likely to wear a garment and the situations in which it will be worn. They have a wide range and combinations of materials to work with and a wide range of colors, patterns and styles to choose from. Though most clothing worn for everyday wear falls within a narrow range of conventional styles, unusual garments are usually sought for special occasions, such as evening wear or party dresses.

Some clothes are made specifically for an individual, as in the case of haute couture or bespoke tailoring. Today, most clothing is designed for the mass market, especially casual and every-day wear.

Designing a garment

Fashion designers work in different ways. Some sketch their ideas on paper, while others drape fabric on a dress form. When a designer is completely satisfied with the fit of the toile (or muslin), he or she will consult a professional pattern maker who then makes the finished, working version of the pattern out of card or via a computerized system. The pattern maker's job is very precise and painstaking. The fit of the finished garment depends on their accuracy. Finally, a sample garment is made up and tested on a model to make sure it is an operational outfit. Myriam Chalek, owner and founder of Creative Business House explains that most of the time fashion designers only have a fashion concept; the technicality and construction is not thought through during the visual conception and sketching process. Hence, the fashion designer needs to meet with a pattern maker and sample maker to figure out if the sketch on paper can be brought to life according its vision.

Bibliography

Breward, Christopher, The culture of fashion: a new history of fashionable dress, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-7190-4125-9
Hollander, Anne, Seeing through clothes, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-520-08231-1
Hollander, Anne, Sex and suits: the evolution of modern dress, New York: Knopf, 1994, ISBN 978-0-679-43096-4
Hollander, Anne, Feeding the eye: essays, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999, ISBN 978-0-374-28201-1
Hollander, Anne, Fabric of vision: dress and drapery in painting, London: National Gallery, 2002, ISBN 978-0-300-09419-0
Kawamura, Yuniya, Fashion-ology: an introduction to Fashion Studies, Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005, ISBN 1-85973-814-1
Lipovetsky, Gilles (translated by Catherine Porter), The empire of fashion: dressing modern democracy, Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-691-10262-7
McDermott, Kathleen, Style for all: why fashion, invented by kings, now belongs to all of us (An illustrated history), 2010, ISBN 978-0-557-51917-0 — Many hand-drawn color illustrations, extensive annotated bibliography and reading guide
Perrot, Philippe (translated by Richard Bienvenu), Fashioning the bourgeoisie: a history of clothing in the nineteenth century, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-691-00081-7
Steele, Valerie, Paris fashion: a cultural history, (2. ed., rev. and updated), Oxford: Berg, 1998, ISBN 978-1-85973-973-0
Steele, Valerie, Fifty years of fashion: new look to now, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-300-08738-3
Steele, Valerie, Encyclopedia of clothing and fashion, Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_design