Sportswear

As a starting point for this project, I went to research sportswear in shops on Oxford Street such as Nike Town, Adidas and Selfridges. The objective of this was to understand details, prints and colours are important when designing sportswear, which tends to fit very basic streamlined designs, in order to make it appealing and interesting.

These are some of the photos which I took during my research trip:

I was then told that I had to focus on a particular sport. I chose running as my sport because it is the sport that interests me the most and there has been are recent influx in high-tech running gear which really excites me. I was inspired by how high-tech sportswear is very 'trendy', almost to the point where 'hipsters' have started wearing it as a fashion statement, for example wearing sports bras and running leggings to night clubs and on the street. I then decided to design a collection to appeal to this target audience, that could be worn for leisure and exercise.

This is my concept board that I created inspired by this idea. A lot of the images came from Tumblr as sportswear is a big 'Tumblr trend' at the moment.

I also had to choose a London landmark to use as inspiration. I chose the skate park at the Southbank as it is covered in interesting graffiti which I could use as a print. I was inspired by the rough, graphic, colourful sportswear prints used in the 1980's, and made some of my own versions using oil pastels, referring to photos that I found and took of graffiti at the south bank.

To start designing my collection, I extracted details from my research to use as inspiration.
 I experimented with placing them on the stand too and playing with the scale and placement of the details. While I was designing, I kept in mind that I wanted to create something sporty and streamlined but still stylish and wearable.

One of the tutors noticed that there was an element so sexiness to my mood board, almost fetishising sportswear, as to many people, being athletic is a big turn on. I decided to play on this by adding mesh to make my designs revealing in a subtle way.

In terms of colour scheme, I will place my prints on a plain white and black backgrounds for the basis of the prints to make the bold colours stand out, and I will add neon colours to the details to accentuate them. I want my collection to able to be worn at both a rave and the gym!

This is my final illustration without colour. I add in the print and colour on photoshop as soon as I can!