Back to the drawing board

Nowness is a website that compiles interesting stories, photos, videos and other multimedia all in one place. The website's tagline is "daily exclusives for you to love," which I think sums up its mission pretty well. I often visit the site to watch videos and look through photos and, mainly, to gain inspiration. Their specific in-depth pieces are both interesting and informative. And in my opinion, the way in which the website presents its material is quite a unique platform. Recently, an entry from the beginning of September really caught my interest. It is titled, "Back to the drawing board," and it is a slideshow that consists of some text and photos of many different fashion designers' sketchbooks. According to Nowness, Hywel Davies "has compiled Fashion Designers’ Sketchbooks, a 208-page tome that collects the wonderfully revealing scrawls and illustrations of 50 top-flight fashion designers." The images on their website were taken from Davies' book (which came out September 29th). I found the images very intriguing and also inspiring. Being someone that comes from a designing background, I truly appreciate what Davies is trying to do and like to see how other designers go about their own creative process. I think it would be very beneficial to read his book and see all of the photos from the different designers, as the book includes some of the top names in the industry. The characteristics, colors and textures of the photos on Nowness completely pulled me in and made me want to take a closer look at Davies' book. Which designer's sketching style speaks to you?

The young and the creative.

Cecilia CassiniI came across this article on Style.com's fashion news feed. It's from the UK's The Independent and it discusses the way in which younger people are breaking into the fashion world. Not young models, but young designers, bloggers and the like. It starts out by describing a young fashion designer named Cecilia Cassini. I have read about her and her successes in the past, but this article was different in the fact that it talked about the entire trend of younger people becoming not only involved in fashion, but becoming leaders in the fashion world and industry. It gave more examples of other young people who had been successful too. Not only designers but bloggers and bloggers turned designers and stylists.

I found the article fascinating. And while I had heard of most of the people being discussed, I hadn't thought of how much of an impact they have begun to have on the industry. The power of the internet and other social web sites and media has helped to make their success possible in a way that might never have been imagined before. By sharing their thoughts via the web and connecting with other young people, they have made themselves very successful. And they've also made a name for themselves. Not only is this interesting, but it is inspiring. I mean, who wouldn't love to have the imagination of children and teens to help guide them?

I encourage you to read the article for yourself and perhaps look up the people that it spotlights. Even though not all of the children will be in the industry for the rest of their careers, I still think of this growth and boom of young creativity as a rising trend. And I'm not surprised at all that children have been able to make such a lasting impression on a world that values the new and next best, creative thing.