I’m still trying to track down the quote I read in a fashion book years ago defining “The woman on the Street.” I heard this term a lot from Elsa Klensch on CNN while eating breakfast as a teen, but I wasn’t sure what it meant. I was pretty busy laughing at the extremes of fashion shows – I hadn’t realized yet that a fashion show is the boldest example of ideas, they get toned down and interpreted later in the design cycle when people decide what of the offerings they actually like.
The Woman on the street is the lady who inspires a designer by wearing clothes in a particular way, or creating her own clothes. She’s solving problems stylishly. She knows what she wants and she makes it for herself. She might adapt existing items, or sew, knit, crochet, embroider them.
Most consumers will know what they want once they see it already made by someone else, perhaps after watching someone else wear it.
I know how to make what I want (or at least a nice project that explores a technique or stitch I’m interested in) but I’m not sure if I know how to make something that someone else will want to make when they see it. And I’m still working on how to showcase my projects so an editor will want to pay me to make something that someone else will want to make when they see it.
Can you see what you want to make before you see it as a pattern?