Sunayana Shankar| Textile Design
Srishti School of Art, Design, Technology
Diploma Project Proposal- II
11th July 2011
CLIENT: Industree
Retail outlet: Mother Earth
Industree Craft was set up in 1994 by Neelam Chhiber, Gita Ram and Poonam Bir Kasturi. It is a social enterprise which started by selling home accessory products designed by Industree but manufactured in villages. They worked through NGOs and self-help groups. Industree believes in supporting rural producers and agricultural workers by sustaining their livelihood.
Industree crafts branched into a non- profit (Industree Crafts Foundation) and a ‘for profit’ design, retail and export wing (Mother Earth) in order to make the social enterprise self-sustained and commercially viable. The social mission was to connect the artisan to the market to help them get a fair price for their products.
DESIGN BRIEF
Designing Fabrics for Fashion using Shibori and Block Printing Techniques
A brand needs to constantly grow and evolve. The project involves bringing in a fresh look to the brand by introducing new elements, thereby expanding its categories in garments. Mother Earth works based on its idea of a marketable brand and the customer demands. It is a semi luxury brand and believes in adding a personal touch to its products by exploring various areas of textiles thereby offering unique prints and styling to its customers. The project requires me to work with Shibori and Block Print designs for Spring/Summer 2012 collection. I would be required to follow an intense design process starting with Trend Forecast for Spring/Summer 2012 and Market research and study of current brands. Developing themes for the collection keeping it tuned to the philosophy of the brand. Mother Earth also aims at developing its market in South and West India.
The fundamental need of this project is innovation. Mother Earth is a design led company which caters to a wide variety of customers, hence a range of choices and tastes need to be kept in mind. It looks at expanding its product variety by filling in the missing gaps. This project requires me to develop different fabric bases and experiment with different surfaces and textures.
RESEARCH
- Trend Forecast for Spring/Summer 2012
- Market Survey of Brands : FabIndia
West Side
Shoppers Stop
Max
Lifestyle
Splash
Anokhi
People Tree
Soma
Global Desi
Suvasa
Bodhi
- Understanding how Retail Brands work
- Books on Shibori and resist dyeing techniques; Block print
- Work done on Shibori
- Research on surface development: textures and treatments
APPROACH
- Understanding international trends and applying them to the Indian market
- Understanding the buying trends and how it differs from one region to another
- Interacting with the Mother Earth store staff
- Market research: visiting various stores
- Trends for colour, motif and pattern
- Explore various materials in terms of texture and surface
- Maintaining the Philosophy and identity of the brand
- Understanding the working system of the client and finding space for my creativity
- Keeping the look contemporary yet traditional
CONSTRAINTS
- Cost
- Retail oriented products. Since Mother Earth is a retail brand the product needs to be marketable and consumer oriented
- Retail is very fast paced. The work needs to be quick.
- Since I will be working with Kalamkari, it has restrictions in terms of colour and kind of pattern
LEARNING
- Working on a commercial project
- Understanding how trends are determined
- Being part of a design led team
- Learning to work on quick designs for a retail market
- Translating a theme into fabric
- Catering to a wide range of customers
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- How will I combine Tradition with modernity?
- What are the factors that determine the buying trends in different cities?
- What are the customer needs in terms of price, prints and fabric?
- What is the history of Kalamakari and how has it changed over the years?
- Understanding the visual language of block printing
- Do Block Printers have their own imagery and visual language?
- How will I incorporate the versatility of Block Printing into the collection?
- How will the technique enhance the garment or vice versa ?
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