I remember my early days, learning how to sew, I was always taught to copy already laid down patterns, styles, and designs of top designers, I remember each time we were given an assignment to work on from the fashion academy I attended the first ever time, I would always add my touch of creativity, while some other student tagged me as an "oversabi" meaning someone that does too much, but I didn't let than get to me, and my then boss understands the reason and always points out that what made me stand out among the rest was me being a creative fashion designer, original talent and not just the copy and paste type of designer, this picture below reminds me of that time, Same dress, a copied design to the right and my creative touch on the model.
Even though being a creative designer is a good thing, that doesn't always mean we have the right to alter a client's dress from her will or desire, we can only advise when we feel what they want won't give the perfect result, band in cases whereby they still insist on going ahead with their desire, we have no choice than to heed to them.
I remember when this particular client, also a friend came with her beautiful lace fabric and wanted me to copy a style she had sourced from the internet, the style inspiration was made with an ankara fabric, which has a different texture, design, and pattern compared to her lace, I had advised we give it some little changes to suite her fabric, but she insisted on having the exact design she had showed to me, and so I obeyed, it wasn't until I had finished with the dress did she see the reason I had asked for a bit of original creativity from my side, I was done and it's stressful going back to make changes on an already made dress, after pleas from her and also justifying myself, I recreated the dress, adding a touch of my original creativity and here is the look O came up with, she loved it at first sight. The picture below says it all, she was so happy with the 3D effect I designed the dress with, compared to the flower designs around the chest area.
She learned to trust my abilities, and so did I, and even though customers are right according to whoever made that rule, I have to try to convince them a little harder to see reasons with me, and when they insist, they discover I was right all along, they will be paying extra charges fir the extra time, after all, the customer is always right, time is money and business is business.
As a fashion designer, this is just one of the numerous challenges we face, it's easier for bigger and known designers to be left to handle the creative process of a dress from start to finish and the owner gets to see the dress at the final stages, but being an upcoming , hopefully bigger designer someday,we have no choice that to deal with this problem and sone other till our big break, for now, I won't relent on my creative side, hopefully that big break comes soon.
All images used in this post are mine