How do good fabrics come from? How to integrate market demand, fashion trends and key technologies between warp and weft, and how to realize the double balance of "technology" and "art" and realize its high added value? There is no doubt that only excellent fabric designers can give it all. An excellent fabric designer, in addition to technical expertise and creativity, also needs to have the level and ability to accurately grasp popular colors, artistic styles, patterns and color matching, market research, brand planning, product promotion and quickly respond to downstream product demand.
Fashion designers usually know the meaning of fabrics better than consumers. Good fabrics can inspire fashion designers, and only high-quality fabrics can better show the concept of fashion design to consumers. So the expectations of upstream fabric designers are self-evident, and what are these expectations? At the "20 13 China International Fabric Design Competition" held not long ago, the reporter of Textile and Apparel Weekly interviewed Xie, director of the product division of the National Textile Product Development Center, and several professional designers with high popularity and recognition in China, trying to analyze the current situation of domestic textile fabric designers and explore ways to improve them through the vision of professional judges.
Director of Product Division of National Textile Product Development Center Xie: Fabric designers should pay attention to the use of color and harmonious collocation.
China's textile enterprises are still weak in fabric development and design, and most of them imitate foreign samples, lacking a certain sense of innovation and independent brands. The present situation of fabric design in China is divided into enterprises. Generally speaking, foreign trade fabric companies will pay more attention to design, and their R&D and investment in fabrics will be higher, because foreign customers have higher requirements in this respect. However, the domestic fabric enterprises that only do processing and production are not well developed and pay insufficient attention to fabric design. It is not enough for fabric design to stay only in the development of materials.
In addition to fabric designers, our domestic fabric designers are very different from those abroad. Generally speaking, foreign fabric designers are all from art design background, close to museums, art galleries and other fashionable things. Domestic fabric designers are generally engaged in technical background, and are better at technical problems such as color fastness and stability of fabrics.
Here, I want to give some advice to fabric designers. Fabric designers must pay attention to the use and harmonious collocation of fabric colors. This is very important, because for the downstream users and end consumers of fabrics, the first thing that catches your eye must be color.
Sophie, editor-in-chief of Stylesight: Fabric designers should consider the end application of products.
In Europe, fabric designers do more than just design. Next, he will communicate with the clothing group to understand the feelings and needs of the terminal application; In fact, he wants to cooperate with the unit and tell the designer of the unit how to feel and how the unit should cooperate from a technical level. Moreover, when European fabric designers design a fabric, what they consider most is what the fabric looks like on the upper body and its market situation, so they will try many times, such as the collocation of latitude and longitude lines, to achieve their most satisfactory results.
However, in China, the situation is different. When designing, fabric designers are often a work at a time, regardless of market application and ignoring the terminal needs of consumers. This is what China fabric designers lack most now.
As for the reasons, I think there are many. In Italy, France and other countries that are at the forefront of fashion, every designer has been influenced by art since childhood. Teachers and parents will take their children to see various exhibitions and performances, including travel, which is what the "fashion classroom" of society can give children. After becoming professional designers, these people will go to new york, London, Milan and other cities every year to watch catwalks and participate in exhibitions, enriching their understanding of art.
Xie Qing, Director of Purchasing Center of Yishun Group Co., Ltd.: A good fabric should be able to cope with all kinds of changes.
Judging from this year's China International Fabric Design Competition, China's fabric design has made great progress compared with previous years, and the gap with the world's top fabrics is gradually narrowing. But in fabric design, domestic designers really need to improve. For example, the design of denim fabrics needs more breakthroughs, enhancing the sense of fashion, and paying attention to the combination of fabrics and washing methods.
In my opinion, although China's fabric design has made great progress, compared with foreign countries, China's fabric designers have shortcomings in many aspects. Domestic fabric designers usually start late and only know some business related to their jobs, while foreign fabric designers can use a fabric on dozens of clothes, such as ZARA and Uniqlo. These are all good examples. Fabric designers in China should learn more, see more, know more, constantly absorb nutrition from the outside world, and help themselves innovate in fabric design.
Zhao Huizhou, general manager and chief designer of EACHWAY fashion group: Fabric designers need to broaden their international horizons.
In this year's China International Fabric Design Competition, fabric designers from China produced high-level design works with richer colors, smoother and more accurate hand feel, which represented the fabric design level of China to some extent.
At the same time, it must be admitted that domestic fabric designers also have some problems in design. For example, in the design of a fabric, the composition of the terminal application is not reflected, which will make the downstream confused. What can this cloth be used for? In addition, although some fabrics are bright in color, they are still very weak in terms of trend, and there is no color design that combines social and seasonal environment. The design of foreign fabrics is very bold and creative in color.
In my opinion, the reason for these problems lies in the gap between domestic and foreign fabric designers in thinking and vision, which is also the shortcoming and weakness of domestic fabric designers.
Rui Liu, R&D Manager of Beijing Li Ning Sporting Goods Co., Ltd.: Fabric design needs to be combined with customer needs
As a researcher engaged in the development of sports fabrics, I have my own feelings about sports fabrics. Nowadays, when consumers buy sportswear, what they value is its visual impact and functional design. Decorative patterns are varied, rich in patterns and naturally attractive; Moisture absorption and quick drying, soft and comfortable, then it will also attract people.
Under the traditional style, China's sports fabric design presents more and more diverse changes, which is beneficial to brand companies like Li Ning. Consumers are more willing to pay for the design, which not only meets the consumer demand, but also brings more profits to the enterprise.
However, the gap with foreign countries is also real. Domestic fabric design field is not subdivided enough, and homogenization is serious. There is a lack of direction and orientation in development and design, and the developed fabric products are often out of touch with the downstream terminal applications. But abroad, the situation is just the opposite. Fabric designers consciously try to design for end customers, belonging to a group of people who have goals and ideas.
Jin Tian, director of Havens Consulting Design: Imagination is always the creative source of fabric designers.
Seven years ago, I came to China, a hot spot for textiles, and have been paying close attention to every move of China's textile industry. As a member of the textile and clothing field, I have my own ideas and opinions on fabric design in my years of work.
In China, the works of fabric designers in recent years are very interesting and creative. But some fabric designers only design fabrics, not clothes. In other words, we can't see the ready-made clothes from these fabrics. In China, fabric designers and fashion designers are obviously two groups working independently, and there is still a certain lack of communication between upstream and downstream.
Fortunately, however, fabric designers in China have realized these problems. Many fabric designers will ask me, "How should this fabric be designed?" "What should be paid attention to in fabric design and application?" And so on. This is a good start.
I want to tell fabric designers in China that designers need imagination and creativity. On this basis, they can keep their inspiration and vitality by constantly participating in various studies and trainings.
Wu, General Manager and Design Director of Shanghai Biding Clothing Co., Ltd.: Design is expression.
If you want to ask me what design is, I will tell you that design is an expression, and it is the same for fabric designers. Finding inspiration and needs from life and applying these experiences and feelings to fabrics to become designs is an innovation in itself.
I saw many good works in this year's China International Fabric Design Competition. From the initial inspiration to the final presentation, designers have made great progress with their own thinking and design.
If I want to be better and more brilliant, I also want to tell some of my feelings to domestic fabric designers, communicate more, collide more and express more. Because of the relationship between education and life, foreign designers have been ahead of domestic fabric designers. If they want to catch up, they need to pay more attention to life, experience life and get inspiration for their own creation.
Textile fabric designer training is just the right time.
The China International Fabric Design Competition can be said to provide a good stage for China fabric designers, and the 14 competition can be said to witness the continuous progress of China fabric designers. At the same time, we also see from the competition that the domestic fabric development and design ability is still relatively weak, and the independent innovation design ability of fabric designers needs to be further improved, which also sends a message to the industry and outside: the scarcity of fabric design talent resources has become a reality. Facing the reality, in order to meet the urgent demand of excellent fabric designers in domestic textile fabric and clothing industry, professional vocational education and training of textile fabric designers is imminent.
It is understood that the professional qualification of textile fabric designers is a new profession approved and promulgated by the former People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in April 2007, that is, to train talents who can design the color, pattern, organization, texture, function and style of textile fabrics according to the changes in consumer market demand and fashion trends. Professional level is divided into senior textile fabric designer, textile fabric designer, assistant textile fabric designer and textile fabric designer. Professional direction is divided into woven fabric design, knitted fabric design and pattern design. Through this new occupation, it will further promote the training of professionals in the field of textile fabric design and improve the cognition and attention of textile enterprises to professionals.
Xie said that the vocational training of fabric designers and the construction of professional designers are of great significance to enhance the competitiveness of the industry. As the promoter of this work, the National Textile Product Development Center has been holding various related training, exchange and selection activities to help China fabric designers improve their product design capabilities and broaden their professional knowledge and international horizons, such as "Professional Qualification Training for Textile Fabric Designers", "Examiner Training for Textile Fabric Designers", "Top Ten Textile Fabric Designers and Training Units in China" and "Golden Shuttle Award", and organizing fabric designers to go to Europe, South Korea and other countries for selection. "The industry needs to develop, and fabric designers need to make progress. We hope that these professional training activities can strengthen their awareness of fashion and innovation. Fabric designers need to cooperate with fashion designers, and we are also working hard for this one-on-one docking. "
"The National Textile Product Development Center is indeed constantly promoting the cultivation of fabric designers. Personally, I feel very good and very supportive. In particular, the training activities of base enterprises bring designers and enterprises with the same values together, giving designers many opportunities to expand their business and broaden their horizons. " Zhao Huizhou said.
Wu also said that the training for designers is a process of self-learning and self-improvement, which is of great significance. He himself often participates in various trainings at home and abroad. "The training I attended was not only for the textile industry, but also for religion, art and fashion. In my opinion, these are no longer simple trainings, but an exchange, a collision of ideas and an inspired generate. I think that successful training is to achieve this effect. "
Sophie and Jintian, two foreign designers, also expressed the importance of fabric designer training. Both of them said that whether in Europe or Japan, the training of fabric designers was carried out earlier and was very successful. "For example, in Japan, both the setting of dyeing temperature and the thinking of dyeing methods are obtained by designers in the process of training and exchange." Jintian said. Sophie added that for designers, going out for a walk, running, exhibitions, musicals, stage plays and even traveling are the best training, because society is a lively classroom.