I thought I was more interested in architecture, but I didn't go to the architect master Tadao Ando's talk last week. Instead I went to Vivienne Westwood's exhibition to get some fashion inspiration.
I believe most of us know about Westwood from the products in her shops, namely the handbags, wallets, belts and clothes. Most of you will remember her trademark symbol, which is a planet thing with a cross at the time. Actually, Westwood's creativity and styles are more than those things that you can buy, and her design attitude is very much inspiring.
Right at the entrance of the exhibition, she already posted this line up, and she is the rebel type. Perhaps, all designers are born or trained to be like a rebel, defying everything in life and searching for the roads that nobody has walked on before.
However, she didn't just aim high. She started with all the basics on how to make clothes and on histories of fashion. She read and tried to understand all the bits of fashion in our life, from past to present. Only in that way, can she seek the new ideas from what she knows.
She also said that creativity came from technique, and that is very true. Too many people these days fail to understand this and just go design. Without the basics, you won't be able to realize the dreams in a fine and detailed way.
Now let's talk a look at her works which once shocked her countries and the whole world, and some of them still shock our mind.
Then after some crazy ideas and exaggerating colors and patterns, she also tried something more played-down, but still having a striking look and style.
And she is not afraid of anything, being a complete just-do-it lady...a peacock on the head!
In shoes, she also tried very different things, refining our usual perceptions of shoes...
You may think that many of these things cannot be worn, or that if you wear them you won't go out onto the streets without being looked at. However, that is what design is all about. Sometimes you just need to push boundary. Maybe the outcome is not practical, but at least you try and do it or even finish it. It is the inspiration for others that matters, not just practicality. I believe that if everyone is just thinking about typical shirts and trousers in fashion, then there will be no new things for us to see and to choose from. If these great designers didn't impress us with all these beautiful and jaw-dropping works, we won't have the inspiration or be stimulated to try more in other fields of design.
I admire her, for she is the real designer. She said, "Fashion is a baby I picked up and never put down." Such passion is exactly what drives her, and also the world, to achieve more and more. It is not just her fahsion that changes the world, but also her determination and way of design that continue to shock and inspire all of us.
you should check the page gallery on that website too. Sevral days ago I already bought the matte painting book too. Very inspiring!
