Design Internship in India

WOMEN’S APPAREL DESIGN INTERNSHIP: THE VANCA, INDIA

DROP 1

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The Vanca, like most other online brands, launches its clothes as individual pieces rather than as a collection. This was a challenge for me to understand since I have always thought of collections in a cohesive way, but I learned that online, having too much of the same color palette or prints can actually deter customers from purchasing more, whereas in store, you can launch collections as a whole.

INITIAL SKETCHES

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Since the factory was close to our office, we had the option to actually go and talk to the head of their patterning department, which made communication very easy.

Swatches for samples were picked mostly based on fabric weight and drape, not color or print.

FIT SAMPLES / PROTOTYPES

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DROP 2

Concept

For the second drop, I was really inspired to design a collection based on the traditional Indian embroidery technique called Schiffli. Schiffli is also commonly known as cutwork embroidery. I wanted to explore different traditional embroidery techniques since India is the only place I could get that authentic experience.

Budget/ Cost Efficiency

After discussing this with the head designer, I realized that doing a whole collection incorporating schiffli would be very expensive and out of the brand's budget. Therefore, we decided to develop Schiffli prints that we could get printed on the clothes to give that illusion instead.So, I hand drew 5 different variations of Schiffli prints that we then sent to the printing company to get samples made.

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Hand developed Schiffli prints

I created Schiffli prints that were a good assortment of organic and geometric.

I tried to make the stitches and cutwork look as realistic as possible to give off the illusion of actual Schiffli embroidery. I hand drew them with a sharpie and then had it sent to a printing facility. Some of these are all over prints, while some are for panels and or trims.