From the mind to the runway

This past Friday, the Wall Street Journal’s Home Front featured the Tuscan villa of designer Frida Giannini, the creative mind behind Gucci’s revamped image.

The Italian designer, who is known for looking into Gucci’s past for inspiration, prefers historical references as a guide to creating spaces in her home and her collections. Her classic feminine interpretation of the Gucci house is a far cry from the Gucci in the ’90s and early 2000s.

Each collection presented at fashion week was inspired by something. Jean Paul Gaultier’s latest collection was inspired by modern dance and, in turn, he commissioned top model Coco Rocha to perform a modern dance while wearing his creations.

Inspirations range from a simple obsession with shapes, such as in the Calvin Klein spring collection, to more complex inspirations like those of Alexander McQueen who, according to style.com, was moved by Charles Darwin, the survival of the fittest and the toxic results of industrialization on the planet.

Sometimes designers are inspired by music, sometimes by history and almost always with what’s happening in today’s society. The fashions we choose depend on our mood and a multitude of other factors too advanced to discuss in a simple fashion column.

When legendary designers such as John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld sit down at their drawing tables, they are in a particular mood. They are inspired by a particular set of things. It is fascinating to see a designer’s inspiration transformed into a runway piece.

Our clothes have the ability to transform us – they serve as a chameleon for our various moods. One day you might decide you like blue and do an entire outfit in blue, while the next day, you might decide that black is the way to go and do an entire outfit in black. Casual or dressy – why not both?

Through clothing, we have the power to wear different personas from one day to the next. And the world’s top designers know that. Their collections are as diverse as the customers who buy them.

Walking to class, I sometimes wonder if other people see fashion as I do – an extension of our personality and our moods. Sometimes I wake up and say to myself, “Today, I want to be on Wall Street,” and I wear dress pants, a tie and vest. On my way home, I see someone dressed in all black, and the next morning I wear black skinny pants, a button-up, black vest and black boots.

Designers want us to be inspired not only by their collections and what we see on the runway, but what we see in our daily life: the environment, our peers, architecture, etc.
If your mood requires an elegant ensemble and fur inspires you, then by all means wear fur. If a cloudy day has you in a darkened mood, then perhaps you might wear black booties, leggings and a trench coat.

The next time you see a great outfit, ask yourself, “Why did the designer create that, and why is that particular person wearing it?”

You’ll be surprised how much you can learn about a person just by what they wear.

Stay classy IU.