This is a list of books that I love, and you may very well love too! I recommend these to enjoy and refer to throughout your design career. They are brilliant sources of inspiration and are excellent resources to help develop the skills needed to create your own unique portfolio of work.
Fashion Drawing by Michelle Wesen Bryant
Being able to draw your designs is an important very useful skill in order to communicate your design ideas. This book covers the basic fashion drawing principles and shows you ways to render fabrics full of fabulous examples.
Fashion Designers Sketchbooks by Hywel Davies
Get a glimpse at the sketchbooks of popular fashion designers. This book will make you feel at ease if you ever feel like your drawings are a bit off or not sure if you’re doing the right thing! Everyone has their own unique design style and sketchbooks. I love these books as you can get an insight into the design process of designers.
Fashion The Whole Story by Marnie Fogg
This book walks through all the different types of fashion trends across time and different cultures. Organized chronologically, the book traces the evolution of fashion period by period and trend by trend, while detailed timelines provide historical and cultural context. A wonderful resource to understand the development of fashion over time as well as the details of designs including focal points of the different designs. Come back to it for inspiration and motivation whenever you need. You will also gain an understanding of different fashion designers throughout history.
Patternmaking for Fashion Design by Helen Joseph-Armstrong
This book is essential if you want to learn pattern cutting. It covers everything that you need to know, to draft patterns for your designs. Beautiful illustrations and clear instructions for pattern cutting it covers everything you need to know, from drafting your own blocks, womenswear, menswear and childrenswear.
Pattern Magic by Tomoko Nakamichi
Any of the Pattern Magic books by Tomoko Nakamichi will show you new ways to think about design and pattern cutting. I used the techniques from these books combined with some of my own concept research and it really helped me produce new design ideas.
The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff
Wonderful book to use as a reference point for different embellishments using three dimensional manipulation of fabric from a flat piece of cloth. Using fabric to create a variety of visual effects, it is described as an encyclopedia of techniques that resurface, reshape, restructure and reconstruct fabric.
The Sewing Book by Alison Smith
The ultimate sewing bible for beginners is a fabulous books for students and seasoned stitchers wanting to perfect their skills. It has a wonderful layout to show you sewing techniques step by step, from machine-stitching a buttonhole and attaching a collar, to altering patterns and building a basic sewing kit.
