Creative Tooling

Explorations in Future Forward Thinking












FASHION DESIGNERLiz Shevelev

Liz is an emerging fashion designer whose work has been seen on Kylie Jenner, Megan Fox, Rosalía, Noah Cyrus, Sabrina Claudio and many other icons. Her design approach blurs the lines between art and fashion, crafting sculptural garments that transcend traditional thinking in today’s fashion. 

A self-identified renegade textile artist, she specializes in melting and collaging fabric, giving her pieces the sublime beauty that is inherent to destruction and reinterpretation.



What is your creative process?
Different everyday - look at inspiration images, movies, museums for inspiration

Fabric/medium I’m working with, depends on the project

Creating for myself or someone else

How do you collect inspiration?
Library, looking through books, feeling books, archives

Jstor

Film historian major

Museums for images – Whitney on display

Scan books or take photos then organize them into a folder, print them out and collage them onto a physical moodboard or paste into sketchbook

Will take images out after a project – throw them out or put them in a folder and reuse the board


Map out your creative journey
1) Pre-creation — 25%

2) Creation — 65% when making physical work, when you plan it digitally the laws of physics won’t work the way you want it to

3) Post-creation — 5-10% “bad at sharing things” don’t love it, when I’m done with a project I want to be done, tough to document and share

How do you go from digital to physical?
Sketch or take photos of fabric, collage in Photoshop with the fabrics in the sketches

Start from sketch, start making it

70% physical, 30% digital 

Digital for a client - Procreate on iPad “it’s the best”

Favorite design tools and why?
User interface is straightforward for Procreate, lots of brushes, painterly and easy, accessible 

Clo3d – would be using it much more and it’s expensive, artists can’t afford expensive monthly software, used it in school (was taught it), complicated to teach more of it to yourself, not as user friendly as Adobe, does the physics stuff

Lite tool? Best part about clo3d is sketching up whatever you want, it will make patterns for you

If the software can print out patterns, that would be huge

Don’t make patterns just drape typically - Immediately makes things and drape things

Adobe - everyone kind of needs

Loves Figma

The greatest creative tool that we need is sketching in Procreate and it becomes a render!

Turns into a render, get patterns for it

Also helpful for sculpture


Working with manufacturers?
Sample maker, they make patterns for you

Had a great point person at the factory, bring physical samples I made/collected, sketches, fabrics

Communicating feedback – text for urgent and then in person feedback, didn’t need a lot of rounds

Feedback flow for a custom piece?
Someone will call it up, will present a sketch/verbal, then receive 50% upfront payment (sometimes all), make it, do a fitting, correct it, give it to them

Everything is in person with the client - particular with how I work


Most frustrating thing in the creative process?
Don’t love cutting things out - cutting out patterns, the fabric itself

Doesn’t like sewing! Scrappy, would work with a factory

$$ would make it easier, expensive to work with a factory

Sample is at least $1,000 – $3k for a wedding dress, $800 for a t shirt

Typically minimums in production 

Factory allowed 25 min but most are 100,500, 1,000 upfront 

Samples for photoshoots / proof of concept for buyers

Latest inspirations?
Oil painting, ceramics, tulips - lots of work is inspired by flowers

Most surreal project?
On Julia Fox’s tv show – nothing felt real! 

When are you most inspired?
When it’s overcast, rainy, early morning, everyone’s asleep on Sunday

Creative habits?
Jotting ideas down on a phone (Notes app) or notebook, rapid fire writing down ideas

Where/how do you do your best work?
Home studio - everything at home

How do you hope to grow as a creative?
More discipline, difference between having a successful artist business