If there’s ever a perfect moment to explore art, self-expression and technology, it’s fashion week.
Earlier, we announced our Designers In Residence program with HP, which saw emerging designer Chloe Mottau taken under the wing of POPSUGAR Australia’s Fashion Editor, Kate McGregor, to launch a capsule collection at this year’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Check it out here:
If chapter one was an introduction to Chloe’s brainstorms and idea generation, chapter two has now arrived – the construction process. In the latest instalment below, we join Chloe and Kate four weeks out from MBFWA as they talk through Chloe’s methods of design construction, fusing both traditional and technological methodologies.
In many ways, the presence of technology in fashion is unsurprising. After all, we live in the digital age and, if the fashion world can be seen as an industry that has historically explored new limits and defied archaic boundaries, fashion seems to be the perfect space to merge aesthetic and technology.
In Chloe’s words, “tailoring is such a beautiful art form but then, on the flip-side, it’s using technology to subvert it and using technology to investigate it.”
In many ways, technology enables designers to bypass traditional sketching and designing techniques. Whether it’s bringing an idea to life within hours through digital drawings and photoshop or by incorporating scanned fabric onto digital sketches, technology has enabled the discovery of new techniques to inspire and create.
This digital landscape also provides an immediacy and user-friendly aspect that shatters all previous gatekeeping obstacles – anyone can create online, and create right now.
Furthermore, technology has also made it much easier for evolving designers to create and ultimately showcase their work in real time through social media. Designers are no longer constrained by prior reach limitations in order to present their collections to the world.
In our final instalment, we’ll be taking you to Chloe’s capsule collection at 2019’s MBFWA, which will show how technology can elevate the design process from brainstorming ideas to creating and launching realised collections.
If you’re feeling all sorts of inspired and want to follow a similar journey to Chloe’s, check out her trusty toolkit that allows for versatility and spontaneity – HP‘s sprocket printer, a mini printer compatible with your phone, and the HP Spectre Folio which is a laptop crafted from 100% genuine leather. The HP Spectre folio has three different modes (Forward, Tablet and Laptop mode), which can adapt to however your pretty heart desires to work.
Happy creating, you fashionable and technological aficionados.
