Observe, Break Down, Utilise
Written by Morgan Jones, April 2022
I recently learned from an instructive piece of content by Dave Tate of EliteFTS that the power lifter must first stabilise, then absorb, and finally produce, force.
Contemplating this on my way into central recently I thought to myself, how does this apply to fashion design?
It occurred to me it seems most relevant with regards to inspiration. This wonderful thing goes by many names: inspiration, reference material, brain food etc. but in all it's linguistic manifestations it is essentially the same.
In order for us to be inspired and apply that inspiration to our work we must:
1. Observe
2. Break Down
3. Utilise
Like Dave Tate's reasoning for weight training - you can't push before you're absorbed, you can't absorb until you've stabilised - so too with inspiration can you not utilise before you have broken down, broken down before you have observed.
Now we humans are funny in the sense that we can think quicker subconsciously than we can consciously. It is therefore almost impossible to observe something without breaking it down at some surface level. We may notice a stranger's coat - its colour, its silhouette... - but that is where it stops. This surface level inspiration is incredibly useful and will comprise of the wide base from which we draw when designing however it alone is not enough.
We must take time to carefully observe, to truly understand the makeup of something. It's silhouette, it's shapes, it's features, it's texture, it's colour etc.
Once we have observed carefully we can then break down. What is it about this I like? What don't I like? How would I do it differently? How does this relate to what I'm doing? Once we've asked ourselves these types of questions we can proceed to use the answers to enhance and inform our own work.
A lot of us may do this naturally, automatically observing, breaking down and utilising. However, conscious effort in such matters can prove to be useful. A deeper understanding is unlikely to hurt your practice (unless you're Ozzy Osbourne, but more on that another time).
I hope you find this useful at best and interesting at worst.
Good luck with your practice
Morgan Xx