As the owner of a creative business, it may not come as a surprise that one of the favourite parts of my job is coming up with the vision for a new collection. And the spring/summer season is by far my favourite season; it always gets my creative juices flowing! There isn't really a routine step-by-step process I follow. I may be inspired by a colour, a shape, or a film I've seen. It really could be anything.
One thing that I do all the time though, is research trends. These can be forecasts of colour trends, design trends, technology trends, you name it. I love colours and sometimes, I will see a colour somewhere, in a photo, in nature, at a leather trade show, and the whole concept builds up from there.
Mood boards are my favourite 'creative aid', kind of like flash cards were when I was a student at university. I like to spend hours making mood boards, I find it really relaxing and inspirational. I'm a very visual person and I love the way images make me feel.
Every image in the mood board represents something to me. It takes time and there are a lot of cuts and layout changes during the process. You can't have too many images or the message will be lost. I may start with an image and end up not using it at all because I've gone a whole other direction.
