How to come up with design ideas
Where do ideas come from?
Regarding lingerie design, I tend to still work in collections, I use to make a collection of influences, one collection was all to so with seasons, I had a liberty print, of bare branches for winter then from that black mesh teamed with floral straps, black with gold stars for winters nights. Other influences can be do with colours, brights in the summer months and darker in autumn/winter.
Many people who tend to have straps play heavily in their collection have been influenced by the architectural buildings. It could be one image that you build your designs from, or one fabric or one era. My designs are heavily influenced from Vintage swimwear, I like their shapes and their twist on style lines they use.
So how do I come with ideas?
I’ll take you through how I made a decision on each product I launched.
Vanjo lingerie
When I first started out working for myself, I did so through launching my own lingerie brand, Vanjo came from personal reasons I was a 30DD and all the cute bright coloured lingerie came only in 32A-36C anything above a DD cup seems to be aimed at the older market, I did find lingerie I liked but a lot was padded and the prints were far a few between. I had previously worked for high streets and worked with Liberty prints in the Tana Lawn, and loved it, at the time I launched (2005) I couldn’t find any bras in a DD+ in Liberty prints, so that was my decision to use it. It was bright, fun and just had so many beautiful prints. This then led onto using delicate stretch meshes not seen in the bigger cup market either. The only doubts I had when I launched Vanjo was the old adage is this not out there because no-one has done it or because there is no market for it? I think you can research and research but at the end of the day you have to go with gut feeling and follow where it leads you.
*delicate stretch mesh design from 2009 available up to 34FF
Bras - The shape of the bra came about because I knew that vertical seams uplifted the boobs, I wanted to design a stretch bra, not a rigid bra, I didn’t want to go down the three-piece cup that the bigger cup market was full of.
Soft bra - Soft bras was such a small market back then and not the vast variety of bralettes you see today. They only seemed to come in S, M L and those that were cup sized tended to be aimed at the older market and came in white, black, beige or token colours. I went travelling before I launched Vanjo, and every long haul flight I would have to unclip my bra for comfort then have to re-clip it when I went to the toilet or stood up to walk about, it was on a plane I drafted out my design shape thinking I needed to launch a bra that offered great support cut comfortable enough to sleep in and travel in. That shape is still in the Vanjo range today.
Briefs - The shapes of the briefs for Vanjo, were all low slung regular style briefs, some had vintage details such as rouching, this decision to keep a well fitted simple brief was from personal experience, when I bought a bigger sized cup bra, I would often scream in my head when I saw the matching brief “just because I’m wearing a bigger cup bra doesn’t mean that I want bigger knickers”.
Once I had worked out the shapes the actual designs were easy, I launched two collections a year, and within each collection was 3 styles of bra and briefs (the same shape bra dropped in different colours) then I use to do random drops of lingerie throughout the year if I found fabric I loved. Within each collection, each bra had to be strong enough to stand by itself but also had to sit within the collection and compliment the rest of the lingerie. Once I had worked out colours, most design ideas were done by seeing the fabrics and sitting with them and working out the collection. Nothing followed the trends in the shops as I didn’t want it age.
If you are aiming to launch a lingerie collection I think you need to answer the following? Who am I aiming for, who is my target market? Mine was targeting young women, with bigger cups who wanted fun and and well-fitted bras. What do I want to include? Mine was always mixing colour and prints. How do I want the customer to feel? Mine was the feeling that they had choice with the lingerie they wanted, that their cup size wasn’t an after thought, a token colour or design that wouldn’t work in their size, and that they didn’t always have to wear a traditional bra the whole time (hence the soft bra). By answering those couple of questions it makes designing lingerie so much easier, you know what direction you are heading.
And if you’re interested in why I launched the books etc that I have then:
How to be a Lingerie designer - I use to receive questions from people asking for tips or advice about starting their own lingerie brand, so I researched where I could point them towards and saw there were heaps of books about fashion outlining the process but hardly any Lingerie books, so I began to draft out the process you would need to start a lingerie brand. The name came from a friend who use to joke “so you want to become a lingerie designer?” and I dropped the so you want to and replaced it with ‘how’ and the original website was called that as well as I didn’t know much about SEO and though that would be what people would search for.
The Anatomy of the bra - was to show a more in depth look at the bra, because lets’s face it the bra is a complex thing, so it was just to provide a more in depth look at it.
How to spec, tech and grade a bra and brief - after covering each section lightly in HTBALD I realised that people needed more information, there were heaps of great designers out there, who hadn’t gone to study lingerie design and just wanted to know the technical side of everything, and I wanted something accessible that wasn’t expensive. The reason it came out in 3 separate books first was because to write that size book in one go would have been too overwhelming and take too long, to get what I wanted in it (in fact the grade book took five years from idea to release), and the main factor when I wrote it all first I had my first child and two children later the grade book got released so it was also a time thing.
How to sketch a bra and brief - I want to say this came about because I wanted to help people with their drawing of lingerie which obviously I do, but the driving force behind this was that I mega pissed that people kept taking my drawing and passing it off as theirs. So it was more of a case if you want the drawing then at least pay for them. When I released it I didn’t realise how successful it would be and there is another one in the pipeline of different shapes.
Design sheets - This PDF pack, is all the sheets I used in Vanjo, it aimed to cut out time spent putting together and laying it all out. So PDF of specs, tech packs, costing sheet, time line, cutting sheet etc all the bits you may need starting out your lingerie line.
Technical drawings - I didn’t learn Illustrator at uni, and in the jobs I took you either hand drew your idea and made a sample, or there was a graphic team that did the drawings, so it was something I learnt quite late on, when I was learning, I down loaded some templates, and thought they were bloody awful, they didn’t have all the styles on, or all the correct types of stitch. So I wanted to help those just starting out who wanted the correct brush or accessory for their lingerie design.
Computerised Spec sheet - I got approached by different people to help them with their spec sheet, and as it got busier, I decided to make it more accessible, so you just put sample size measurements and the formulas in the excel sheets work out every size. The ones in Inches came about as the US which is a big market of mine, still use inches not cms.
Costing sheet - A bit similar to the lingerie spec sheet, in that I got asked to help out with costing or could I point them in a direction that would work it out. The cost sheet is just direct costs so take exactly what it costs to make (there are different ways to cost your lingerie) and what I use to find helpful was if I made 10, 20 or 100 bras how much I need, which helped in ordering fabrics.
One-on-one - this idea came about as I receive so many emails asking for advice, and I try and answer every one, but when people come with a long list of questions I can now point them to this link so they can book in and we can go through everything. It’s one of my favourite services I offer as I love talking about lingerie and helping people take their idea to a final result. One of the best parts is when people come back when they get further along with their design idea and I get to see where they are in the design process and talk them through their next steps.
So to answer the questions I posed before : Who am I aiming for, who is my target market? People who want to learn more about lingerie design at an affordable price, and presented in an easy way to understand. What do I want to include? Reliable knowledge in a fun way, learning something new can be hard enough without it being hard work. How do I want the customer to feel? Like they are supported and like they can do this, they can launch their own lingerie brand or understand more about lingerie, like every thing is solvable.
Hope this helped - there are ideas anywhere you look, you may turn a problem into a solution or simply get inspired by fabrics then you need design. It doesn’t matter where your ideas come from, it’s about being open enough to keep receiving them. And for a heads up, when you begin to produce something just be aware everyone will have an option but if you know the direction you want to go and what you stand for, let them opinion away!!
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