Customer Reviews

The Fashion Designer's Directory of Shape and Style: Over 500 Mix-and-Match Elements for Creative Clothing Design

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book about a year ago and refer to it often when I'm trying to come up with a new design or if I feel like altering something I already have. The book is split up into sections (collars, sleeves, closures, etc) and shows both color photos and drawings of each clothing component.

This book will not teach you how to construct or alter patterns for the pieces you see! It is merely a reference book of many shapes and styles for the clothes we wear everyday. This book would've been top notch if it included menswear shapes, but alas, it's only for the ladies.

While Project Runway has been an inspiration to many, the world of fashion design does require talent. The Fashion Designer's Directory of Shape and Style is a great book for a person seeking to really begin to understand design and fashion.

If you're a person who loves to experiment with changing clothing patterns or making your own, this book will get you thinking and playing with fabric and new designs. You could design a whole new look for yourself!

If you want to be a designer, work in the field of retail, understand your consumer's wide range style views. This is a great book to have for research and resources at your finger tips.

This book misses the mark for the aspiring designer or home sewer who would like to try her hand at fashion design.

For starters, important sections such as "Design Development" are only two-pages long. The "Understanding Proportions" section (also just two-pages long) includes the drawing of a woman's figure with reference points for her bustline, waistline, hipline, etc. But that's all you get; there are no pointers on creating garments to fit average measurements. For example, what inseam measurement do designers typically use, and how does it vary among tall women and petite women? You won't find the answer in this book.

The reader also is informed that she can use one other drawing of a female figure in the book to trace garments from the directory and create a "prototype fashion collection." Samples are provided for this "technique," but they won't put you or any fashion houses on edge.

I teach fashion design and construction to high school students and actually ordered this book as a resource for my students. After it arrived and I really got to peruse it, I strongly recommended each of them to purchase the book. It is a steal! The silhouettes, sleeve types, skirt types, etc. are all crucial elements for designers to mix and match--just like the title implies! It includes the muse, your inspiration boards, presenting a collection, etc. I strongly recommend it.

This is fabulous if you want ideas - sleeve, closures, collars....in pieces or the whole, it causes you to think a lot of different ways to get to what you want to do. This doesn't pretend to teach you how to sew or techniques, but just an idea book. For that it's the best.

I love to sew and create clothing for my family that fit our busy outdoor lifestyle. This book is a great guide for mixing and matching patterns to come up with the design you want.

This is one of those books that is not necessary for your sewing library, but it diffently comes in play as you go to modify an existing pattern or are trying to name some style of fashion you are interested in. I use it soley for that. When I modify my TNT (tried and true) patterns to achive a new look I like to see some ideas and this book provide that for me. It also has a fashion history in the front if I am interested in a 'period' fashion detail. Is it a 'must' have for the home sewer? - No probably not. However, it is a great home sewing library addition for ideas, inspirations and review of fashion details.

I ordered this book after reading nearly all the reviews and thinking that not only would this book be a directory of different fashion shapes but that it would also show you, with diagrams, how to make patterns of those shapes. This is not the case. This book is solely a mix-and-match guide; it will not show you how to then take those elements you selected and make patterns of them, so if that is what you are looking for, this is not the book for you. With that said, it's still quite a useful book and for that reason I'll keep it, but I am a little disappointed that it didn't show the pattern shapes of the elements it lists.

I was somehow disappointed in the contents of the book, i bought the book based on the preview i saw, but the book is basically meant for flats, it just shows a bunch of flats throughout the entire book with very little writing.