Apparel Designing

Description of the course:

The Apparel Designing course is designed to give a comprehensive overview of developing various trendy apparel styles through designing, applying knowledge of fabric, coordinating colour and texture, and monitoring quality and fit.  It is a fascinating and challenging course that helps in bringing out the students’ creative ability, sensitivity, style and originality and translate them into visual representation. It promotes trendy ideas that promises glamour, fame and success in the field of fashion.  The students will be introduced to key notions in apparel designing process, colours and mood board presentation, fabric selection, fundamental garment construction and Computer Aided Designing. This course provides opportunity to look at the work of famous designers and understand the culture and design concepts of each designer with unique trendy collections.  

The modules of this course provide understanding of the following aspects:

• The basics of designing – elements of art and principles of design
• The process of designing apparels
• The principles of clothing construction- pattern making using flat pattern techniques and draping
• Types of garment silhouettes 
• Basic fashion Drawing techniques- drawing human figure in different angles, rendering figure with different silhouettes and styles 
• Computer Aided Apparel Designing- different software modules
• Apparel accessories
• Fashion trends, consumer demand and fashion markets
• Apparel designers of India and their styles and design work
• Fabric types, preparation and handling different fabrics for clothing construction
• Fundamentals of sewing – appropriate sewing techniques of different components of garments
• Clothing selection for children- infants and toddlers 
• Costumes of men and women of different states of India including accessories
• Tribal costumes of different states of India
• The traditional woven textiles of India
• The traditional dyed and printed textiles of India

The course motivates the students to foster personal inspiration to design apparels with basic silhouettes and coordinate outfits with colour and swatch selection. It also provides a brief analysis of how trends influence a contemporary collection.

Apparel designing course is of 11 weeks duration with 4 credits and possess 43 modules with practical video, text, practical illustrations, other learning material, exciting and thought-provoking assignments and self-assessment. The weekly schedules in sequence are provided to make it easy for the student to acquire the knowledge. Students are inspired to put the knowledge into practice from the previous weeks and prepare a presentation of their work as a basic collection portfolio in the form of assignments.

The most exciting topics such as apparel designing process, draping techniques, fashion trends and fashion changes, fashion drawing and fashion Illustrations, famous apparel designers of India and their achievements, Computer Aided design (CAD) software for apparel surely inspire the students to the field of fashion.  

At the end of this course, the students will have necessary tools required to communicate their ideas, develop portfolio to pursue their further studies in fashion field or choose career in this field of fashion.   

Rationale for developing this Course:

Looking best by wearing fashion apparels is something people look for,   even though, they have their own unique preferences in their selection. The  apparel markets are flooded with innumerable number of styles in different price ranges that are oriented towards fashion. The selection of becoming apparel to each individual is highly challenging task. Knowledge of the fabric and workmanship help to make a wise decision in buying apparels. Those who are in the field of tailoring may need exposure to designing, colour and fabric selection, quality finishing of seams and necklines and creative ideas of developing styles, predicted fashion trends etc. Further, there is dearth for trained personnel in apparel industries.  

Therefore, the course on Apparel Designing is developed to provide exposure to consumers, tailors, hobbyists, personnel in apparel industries, students to pursue further studies in the field of fashion apparels.   

Objectives and learning outcomes of the course 

• To understand and develop the skills of designing apparels
• To appraise the apparel designs
• Develop a systematic, critical approach to problem solving at all levels of the design process.
• To equip the students with the skills of draping and drafting
• To acquire skills of garment construction
• To learn and enhance the skills of drawing, rendering and illustrating different styles of garments
• To acquaint the students with the basic factors influencing fashion
• To foster an understanding of the designers in India and to leverage design ideas from their work
• To familiarise the students with the role of a designer
• To equip the students with basic knowledge and skills required for making the minor alterations in readymade 
• garments to get the correct look and fit
• To help develop the ability to recognise and evaluate quality workmanship for making wise buying decisions
• To appraise the traditional Indian costumes of men and women from different regions of India-their styles 
• Fabrics, motifs used, colour combinations, jewellery, other accessories etc.
• Be able to develop Computer Aided Apparel Designs
• Be confident to pursue further studies in this field
• Pursue careers in the field of textiles / apparel