Skills in disguise

Many of the commercial design skills I rely on today were honed throughout a decade designing costumes & clothing for mass production; managing a product from concept to production, manufacturers, presenting to global retail buyers, forecasting trends creating tech packs & high resolution original artwork. Innovation is key when working on Licensed products with clients such as Disney, WB and Mattel, to name a few.

The latest

PROJECT:

‘Fearless’ costume collection. Featured design: “Nile Queen”

Client: Karnival Costumes

Skills used:

illustration
concept presentation
design & tech packs
garment construction
fabric sourcing
photoshoot planning

The brief:

Design and source a range of glamorous adult female fancy dress costumes for the company’s new brand ‘Fearless’. Costume specs and detail must meet the desired retail price point, whilst reflecting the quality of the Karnival brand.

Create concept drawings for sales presentation.

Work with Far East manufacturer to create prototypes and sales samples for photography.

The outcome:

I brought detailed market research + my knowledge of the online costume retail space together to create a range of commercial adult costumes for manufacture and worldwide distribution. Concept illustrations and mood boards were the starting point for all designs in the range. As these are used as a sales tool I like to make sure I’ve thought the design through so the concept drawings reflect an honest product in terms of detail and quality, as well as showing my thinking behind the historic references within the design.

I worked directly with the Chinese manufacturer to source fabrics, fit the samples and bring the costumes into the agreed target price point. This was a really enjoyable project to design. I also art-directed the photography for the whole range.

Portfolio