A look inside my portfolio...

Absence apologies once again! I have been busy trying to compile all of the Women's Autumn/Winter 2016 catwalks into print trends so that I can do a trend report blog post....they are currently organised into piles on my bedroom floor but hopefully will be finished by the end of the week. There are some pretty exciting trends coming up that I want to post about so watch out for those :)

Also I'd like to take just a few moments to thank whoever it is that has been viewing my blog. For some strange reason my page views have shot up by 350%(ish) which is pretty amazing, hopefully it isn't my mum and nanna hitting refresh repeatedly so whoever you are...thank you- it is a very welcome motivation boost!

 As well as the AW16 trend research, I have been have been taking some time out to work on my portfolio and now that it's been updated I thought I would share some excerpts with you. I always think it's pretty interesting to see how different designers in various specialisms lay out their portfolios and found it really useful to see this when deciding how to do mine.

When doing my portfolio I also noticed a huge absence of childrenswear. I have never had a full time childrenswear role and so don't have any graphics that target this market. In response to this portfolio gap I set myself a small project to work on some trends and prints suitable for childrenswear for Spring/Summer 2017, I've included my presentation boards and a little summary of each trend below.

The first trend I wanted to work towards was a Marine theme. In both my Spring/Summer 2016 catwalk boards(http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2015/11/print-trends-springsummer-2016.html) and my Spring/Summer 2017 Premiere Vision trend prediction boards (http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2016/02/premiere-vision-springsummer-2017.html), aquatic imagery was a strong theme, this is something I didn't want to ignore. Nautical is always a popular spring trend and so I wanted to merge the two together in a new, fresh way. I decided the prints for this theme should have an illustrative aesthetic, given the rise in the popularity of adult colouring books I think illustrative, half coloured imagery will become more prevalent in print design for S/S17.

I decided that a blue, white and yellow colour palette would be fitting for this trend and, based on my recent catwalk research, I think this colour scheme will become increasingly popular next Spring/Summer. S/S16 saw a wave of blue and orange/scarlet colour combinations and blue and yellow, to me, seems to be the logical update from this.

 Here are the all over repeat prints I created for this trend:

 And these are the prints mocked up onto some childrens illustrations:

For high summer 2017 I decided to do two different trends to give the customer two style options- one tropical and bright, and one more casual and muted. 

Dark Latino pop is my interpretation of a tropical trend which I think would work well for childrenswear S/S17, I am actually really excited by this trend and really loved creating the moodboard. There were quite a few different ideas that led me to this theme, firstly I wanted it to be a move on from the 80's Memphis aesthetic that gained popularity recently. I also wanted the bright pop art inspired colours/imagery to be against a dark base as, when the economy and political global atmosphere appear negative, consumers gravitate towards darker colours (http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2014/09/08/recession-fashion/2/#5b8145621287). Despite the movement towards darker shades, I felt it was important to use bright rainbow colours in the imagery because of  the attention currently being drawn to homosexuality and transgenderism. Although this doesn't overtly affect print design for childrenswear we are being encouraged to see the rainbow flag emblematic of transgenderism and homosexuality as a symbol of positivity and acceptance...this,in turn, is sure to have an effect on the colour palettes of our clothing choices.

 I also wanted the imagery used in the prints to revolve around cacti/succulents, fruit and Mexican/Latin American inspired graffiti. Recently we have seen an increase of cacti and terrariums in concept stores and interior decoration and it is also beginning to leak onto the catwalks with designers supporting a wild west theme in their collections. The media has also been drawing a lot of attention to Central and South America with the Olympic games taking place in Brazil, Trump constantly complaining about Mexico, the South American zika virus and Venezuela's economic meltdown to mention just a few. All of these things have an effect on fashion and print design. 

As I thought so much about what would go into this trend I found coming up with a title extremely difficult....ideally it would be called 'Latin American-neon-trans-rave-in-Mexico-at night'....but I felt that was a little too long... so I settled for Dark Latino pop.

 Here are the two AOP(all-over print) options for this trend...

 and some placement print ideas...

The final high Summer 2016 trend I worked on was an African/Aboriginal tribal trend. A tribal aesthetic is a Summer staple and, although I love African inspired geometric designs and Native American navajo shapes, seeing the same thing every year can be a little tiresome. So I have decided to combine African tribal with Aboriginal culture to offer a new tribal update. 

With so many people visiting Australia, I swear my facebook feed is constantly being spammed with images of Oz, it is inevitable that imagery from traditional Aboriginal culture will begin to seep into printed fashion. Also, dotwork and pointilism has been becoming increasingly popular in tattooing and, although this doesn't directly affect childrenswear, catwalk designers will draw inspiration from this and it will be translated into the childrenswear market. Another trend that I wanted to feed into this theme is the African Fauna Premiere Vision S/S17 trend prediction for hand painted watercolour safari conversationals. I felt that the earthy colour palette of this trend would give a casual,wearable alternative to the bright colours of the dark Latino pop trend.

Here are the prints I designed for this trend...

So hopefully you enjoyed having a little peak into my portfolio. It would be great to see yours too, if you have an online one please leave a comment with a link in :) x

P.S The print trend report will be here soon I promise!