Textile Design Interview

The following is an interview with one of the owners at Creativo Surface Design Studio in New York. The studio produces textile designs for a major performance apparel company.

DR=Dirty Runner, CSD=Creativo Surface Design

DR: Are there differences in designing for technical fabrics (e.g. poly/spandex or nylon/spandex) versus non-technical?

CSD: One difference would be in the style of print. Most performance apparel companies tend to like active prints or prints that have movement. Also, from company to company, there may be certain color limitations. Other than that, you can pretty much achieve what you want, design wise, on most fabrics.

DR: Are you commissioned to create a specific design that the end user is looking for or alternatively, is the user buying textile designs from your collection?

CSD: In most cases both. Sometimes the client will find exactly what they are looking for in our collections, other times, they find something close that needs to be reworked slightly. Alternately, we also get commissioned to design single prints and whole collections as well.

DR: You’ve stated elsewhere that your influencers for textile design are shopping the market in New York and trend reports. Does this apply to active wear as well or does active wear have it’s own unique influencers?

CSD: Yes, it does. Trends trickle down in to all markets. It's just some markets will use those trends slightly different depending on use and market.

DR: Do you find that there is less demand for textile design in the active wear industry than in others industries (e.g. home furnishings)?

CSD: I wouldn't say that. Our core customers are swimwear/activewear. The active wear market certainly isn't as large as women's or juniors on a whole, but it's pretty large and growing none the less.

DR: Is there a predominant application for textile design in active wear? For example, are textile designs used primarily for accents on tops or as side panels? My thinking is that the cost of performance fabrics is usually greater than non-performance and in turn prohibits a design-intensive approach to active wear construction.

CSD: I would say the approach is the same as far as design no matter the application or placement.

DR: Do you find that your textile designs for active wear are more feminine in nature, and this is based on the assumption that there is more demand for design in the female versus male active wear market?

CSD: Typically, they are more feminine in nature, but most of all that is driven by color. The mens active wear market is pretty large as well, but is less print driven than the womens side.