The two types of designers we encounter – Fashion Followers vs Fashion Creators & the in betweens

Category | June 05, 2021

There are usually 2 types of Fashion Designers those who play in – between. They can be categorised as

• Fashion Trend/Forecast Followers
• Fashion Creators
• The ones who play In – Between

So when one is buying a from a fashion designer, you can be aware of what one is buying depending on one’s own interest. The ones who follow certain fashion designers, they can also be aware of whom they are following and how they do it.

Fashion Trend/Forecast Followers

Where can I start?

95% to 98% Brands and more than 50% of designer labels are fashion trend/forecast followers. It promises you a certain marketability of the product. I have already written about this in detail in my older blog – The Fashion Design Process – Concept to Design. These designers follow the local/global trends and produce their products heavily inspired by understanding the upcoming trends.

Usually, Fashion trends follows an evolutionary cycle. Like, if cartoon prints are the vogue of the season, an upscale of pop culture might be the next big thing, and so on, and; once people are tired of products that look busy/cluttered, slowly the shift happens towards more simplifying the products in the next season.

These designs are part of my Spring Summer 2017 runway Collection. I had predicted a bit of translucency would be the next big trend which would probably carry on for another 2-3 years with variations in terms of prints or surfaces. Nowadays we can see the play in transparency/translucency in a big way from many brands.

Trends also have a life cycle – initially products are designed with latest trends in mind and are first done by major high-fashion labels which are usually worn by the higher echelons of society, who are also the initial promoters of the trend like celebrities, socialites, etc. Slowly variations of the hit trends trickles down to Pret Brands, at this point, catering to the high paying masses. At the third level, the trend trickles down to the masses in cheaper variations and has the highest acceptability. And finally, the slow death of the trend as it trickles down lastly, in cheaper variations towards the discount racks and discount shops.

So, from the captions from the above Image gallery, we can see this trend in it’s third level. Mass acceptance! This is the area that most businesses/brands cater to. Whereas, the first level are products done by Couture/Haute-Couture Labels. The second level by Pret – High-Fashion houses. The last level is when it comes down shops which cater to steal deals and don’t have a brand identity of their own – Thrift Shops!

Fashion Creators

Now, these league of designers are those who love to play with fire. Sometimes, they can also be termed artists – they exist to create and they wish to tread the unseen path!

These designers love to create new inventions in terms of details like the style of a pocket or collar that has never been seen or exists, or a surface being an experiment altogether or even in terms of the silhouette. It can just be a small detail or probably the whole ensemble itself!

They love to display their artistic/thoughtful creations and hope that the style gets absorbed by the fashionable world.

Here are some of my original collections from the present season which, for me is an artistic expression. I love to play with Pattern and interesting surfaces!

The Ones who Play In-Between

Now I don’t know how to categorise this set of designers! But largely, its like the gene theory, the kid gets the more dominant gene depending on the mother/father and ends up behaving like that. The designer wishes to play safe and make marketable products; and yet! wants to allow his/her design principles to be evident(please note, not dominant), or the other kind, who wishes to experiment in his/her strengths and yet still have a trendy marketable product, but his/her own signature style/design principles is more dominant in the product. Its almost a game of balances, whether the balance shifts towards being a fashion follower or whether the balance shifts towards being an inventor or creator. But largely, many High-Fashion/Pret/Couture houses follow this principle.