The Evolution of the Brazilian Floral

Florals are one of the most popular patterns on fabric. Walk into a clothing store and a floral print is guaranteed to cover a few garments. I myself have designed or refined a bunch of florals for Mata Traders like the Roses print and the Falling Florals print. You might be asking what makes this floral print different? 

One of many images from StyleSite Trend Forecast for Spring 2014.

We always start by looking at the trend forecasts to see if there is something we can adapt for the clothing we make. The image above hooked us in. Check out how intricate the designs are and how the colors are so vibrant that they pop off the screen! I immediately started researching tropical and local flowers of Brazil and started drawing. I had pages of sketches but ended up using 2 main flowers as my focal images to then construct the grand repeat. For weeks I worked on using 4 or 5 vibrant colors weaving them in-between each flower in a vision of a dress bursting with an energetic floral. Towards the end of the design period, reality set in and the entire design team realized that we needed to change our perspective on this specific print. 

Yes, having a super crazy colorful dress would be awesome but how many of these colors can we really get with the natural dyes from our cooperatives? Would 5 colors be too much to produce? What if it doesn't translate to a dress? With a new vision, we scaled the colors back from 5 to 2, we produced the print on a large scale and made one color variation in similar blues and one in red and purple. 

From right: Parisian Book Shop Dress  &  Isle of the Sky Dress 

The dresses came back wonderfully! The scaling back of color makes these dresses seem so much more sophisticated. The Isle of the Sky Dress in the blue fabric is calming and almost has a floating feel to it, while the Parisian Bookshop Dress in the red and purple color combo is vibrant and gives of a dramatic vibe. 

This is a perfect example of evolution in a print. We started with a wild vision of different Brazilian flowers cascading in many colors across dresses and ended up with a simpler and calmer version. The design team had to figure out how this fun and crazy trend could work for us and our abilities and facilities and in the end created a wonderful print. 

Little Houses

It's crazy to think that in the fashion industry we have to design a collection a year in advance! One cold winter day in 2013, the design team at Mata Traders sat around a table, enveloped in sweaters, hot tea/coffee in hand, flipping through the spring 2014 trend forecast shining from our computer screens. These wonderful images of warmth and color that symbolize spring gave me a sense of hope that maybe we would soon see the sun, but more importantly, got our brains racing for possibilities for new textiles and garment. 

A few trend images.

My eyes were immediately drawn to a series of images of little houses like the ones above. These colorful homes toppling over of each other, create a cozy and friendly feeling of neighborhoods and community. I fell in love with the concept and decided we MUST have a "Little Houses" print in the Spring 2014 collection. 

I began with hand drawing a few sketches of houses, scanning them into my computer and layering them on top of each other using Adobe Photoshop. Finally, after days of piecing together the perfect repeat and choosing the best color combo, it all came together. 

We love the print so much that we are using it in 2 different styles! On the left is the Summerfest Dress Houses, which is only 1 of 4 patterns available in this dress! On the right is the Starboard Dress. I absolutely love the playful orange piping and solid panels on this garment. Both dresses are simultaneously bold and playful, sure to turn heads and many will compliment your fashion style and choices.

Left: Summerfest Dress (Houses)      Right: Starboard Dress (Houses)

Sailboats

Let's dive into spring/summer 2014! Nothing says summer like sailboats, especially in Chicago. Lake Michigan is full of boats and yachts during the warmer months and though I can't afford to get out on the lake, I can easily get behind this pattern.

The journey of this print was definitely an adventure. As a team, we at Mata Traders decided that adding a dash of nautical into the spring 2014 mix would be an awesome idea. Like the "Tools of the Trade" dress from Spring '13 and many other textiles designs for Mata Traders, I collaborated with Nora Slavin Howe (the fabulous mom of Mata Traders' creative director, Maureen Dunn). Nora is a wonderful artist who hand sketched a bunch of sailboats. I scanned her drawings, took on the role of pattern technician and played around with color, orientation, scale and repeat for over a week before we finally decided on the perfect print. 

From left to right: Starboard Dress, Tied and True Top and Summerfest Dress.

Once we got a fabric sample back we knew we had to use this print on a top. The Tied and True Top matches the print beautifully. The tie in the front carries a nautical element while still looking work appropriate. The Starboard Dress on the left and the Summerfest Dress on the right are enhanced with yellow piping and trim which brings out the bright sunny feel of summer. Both dresses are super comfortable, fun and a perfect warm weather outfit!

Spring '14 on ModCloth!

WOW! It has been way too long since I have written a post, but that just means I have been working like crazy these last few months, and boy do I have some goodies to share! Within the next few weeks I will be writing about all my projects but for now I thought I would start with an exciting announcement.

Textile designs by Shifra Whiteman. Garments by Mata Traders. Sold through ModCloth. 

ModCloth is, once again, selling garments with my textile designs! I designed these fabrics for Mata Traders and ModCloth ordered these garments to start Spring '14. On the far left, is the Perennial Picking Top, in the same floral print I designed for the Fall '13 Meet Me in the Meadow Dress. The cascading roses make this top look so sweet. Next to it we have the An Enchanted Evening Dress. This dress was designed specifically for ModCloth but the same fabric can be found on other dresses in Mata Traders' Spring '14 collection (available on their website in April). The following dress is the Give You a Print Dress in Hexagons. I designed this print for Mata Traders' Spring '13 collection but it was so cute that we decided to use it again! On our far right we have the Carry On With Confidence Top in Sailboats. This was a fun collaboration textile which I will write about in the next few weeks. I love how nautical the top looks with that tie in front. 

This is literally just the tip of the iceberg! Each of these designs has a story behind it, which I will write about and cannot wait to share so stay tuned! 

Forecasting the Doodles Print

I get so excited about the first day of the design process for a new collection at Mata Traders. The design crew sits at a table and combs through the trend forecast. We identify what we like individually and then think about what would work well with our manufacturing capabilities and overall esthetic. Sometimes (if we're are lucky) we see really strong trends and decide to merge them. That was the case with this Doodles print.

Doodles Print. Textile design by Shifra Whiteman. Dresses by Mata Traders. Spring '13 collection.

There were some great images in our trend forecast back in 2012. One page was full of   hand drawn doodles, which is one of my favorite styles to create. After perusing the pages a bit more, we noticed the slight shift from the southwestern/aztec trend that were all the rage in Spring 2012, to more Moroccan and Moorish geometric trends popping up all over the Spring 2013 forecast. Combining both the hand drawn style with Moroccan and Moorish shapes seemed like the perfect match.

Dresses by Mata Traders.

This Doodles print was designed as a traditional block print which gave a softer, yet still edgy feel to the fabric. It was produced in 2 color ways, on 2 different garments and gives off 2 totally different vibes: The strong and structured Shanghai Shift Dress on the left and the flowy and playful Twist and Twirl Dress on the right. 

I personally enjoyed the challenge of merging different trends. Just reminiscing and writing about this process has gotten me excited about the start of designing a whole new collection. In just a few weeks we will start designing for Mata Traders' Spring 2015  line and I am sure we will have many amazing stories of processes and inspiration to share with you.