Published in February 2023 by Laurence King Publishing, Fashion Bags and Accessories, Creative Design and Production brings together bag and accessories design, materials and production in a single resource that traces the history and future, technical skillsets and cultural potence of this specialist fashion sector.
Celebrating the book's launch, Central Saint Martins and Laurence King Publishing hosted a conversation between Darla and fashion historian and curator Alistair O’Neill, Professor of Fashion History and Theory, Central Saint Martins on 8 March. Structured around Darla’s career in fashion design and education, this far-reaching discussion delved into the context and environment behind the book, the provenance of bags and accessories in fashion and the distinctive skillset of the bags and accessories designer.
“I think that there’s still a narrative about creative people writing about their practice and I think that narrative is that we struggle to be understood outside of what we create. And I just wanted the experience of writing quite precisely about my practice, from the context and history of bags, the design process, product development phase and you know design development, in a really precise, exact sort of language. And I wanted to make the book accessible to people. So I think that’s the first thing. Secondly I’m really fortunate in my career in that I encountered a lot of people along the way who were really generous to me and supported me and I found my way as a result of that. So for me this is not really a book – it’s a creative breadcrumb, and I believe as a creative person, you have the obligation to leave a trail of creative breadcrumbs for other people to follow who come after you."
“I think this is a book which is for anyone who’s interested in fashion, anyone who’s interested in fashion accessories and bags, a product designer, a digital designer, and I think it’s also a book that can be used for teaching and it’s definitely a book that students should connect with, and I think I have had a long involvement with design education and for me that’s always been about knowledge exchange – I always see teaching as a 2-way street and I’ve never taught a group of students where I didn’t gain from that experience myself.
So the fantastic thing about teaching is the sort of boundary-testing students do, and it pushes you to find your creative best as well. And lots of the students I’ve taught have really tested what an accessory could be, and should be – and I wanted to capture that in this book. So I think it’s definitely for students but informed by students."
“There seemed to be a space for a book that was about the history and the context of bags, the design process and thinking, the materials, because that’s a huge area of innovation at the moment; the product development and the fashion development. I wanted to do something that encapsulated all those things, and that was the starting point."
“Through a set of circumstances, I found my way to Saint Martins at a sort of point where the stars aligned. So there were a lot of other people coming into that space who were creative, who were quite left-field and all came together in a fantastic ideas exchange. I think at the time I came, there was such a huge atomic cloud of activity at Saint Martins, very interdisciplinary, all the things we talk about today were happening then and I think the physical proximity of being together in the same building rubbing shoulders with people who were sculptors, or who were painters, or studying graphics or jewellery design, it infused me with a kind of an interest in everything, from the top of the person to the bottom of the person."
"I think there’s a tradition of the Hollywood starlet, and the accoutrements of the Hollywood starlet – her hair, her clothes, her shoes – I think that’s the start of those sort of relationships. And then of course there’s that instant connection between the product and the celebrity and there’s an instant opportunity for other people to buy into that lifestyle and buy into that vision. With Jackie O and the Gucci bag – it took a woman who was probably one of the most photographed, iconic women in the world, rather sedately holding her handbag, and she demonstrated the kind of social liberation of women by slinging the bag over her shoulder and carrying it in a very informal way, and captured the mood of the moment that many women wanted to encapsulate and be part of."
"For me, hand-drawing is the language of design, that is our language. I think it’s universal. I think there are challenges around drawing bags that don’t exist in the same way with clothes – with bags you’ve got to understand perspective drawing, you’ve got to be able to draw something in 360 degrees and that takes a lot of practice, but for me, there’s a quickness, there’s an ideation phase where you have a creative outpouring of ideas you just want to get down as quickly as you possibly can. And hand-drawing is the best way I still believe of doing that. For me that quick sketching, that ideation is a really important part of the first process of design. You then use process drawing and working drawing to actually work something out, but there’s something about thinking it through in your brain and trying to sketch out a three-dimensional object as you’re trying to work the design out."
"They are very different. I think fashion designers tend to draw the fronts and backs of things. Accessories designers have to understand perspective drawing, so we have some of the same challenges maybe as product designers and as architectures, and we expect a huge number of skills of accessory and bag designers. They’ve got to understand the connection between clothing and accessories, they’ve got to understand the fashion landscape, they’ve got to be predictive, to tell what might come, they’ve got to have drawing skills, they’ve got to understand things in 3D and they’ve got to have the dexterity to make and constantly be weaving between 2D and 3D because one of the biggest differences I think between designing clothes and designing bags, is it’s a stop-start process. With a garment you can sit down at the machine and pretty much make it. That is not true of accessories. You go between drawing something, testing it out, maybe making part of a bag, going back to drawing then back to 3D. And now we’re expecting designers to be digital designers as well. So it’s a huge array of skills that bag designers have to have."
"I think for many students, there’s a huge anxiety about what happens next. University has been a constant for many, pre and post pandemic and after that there is a big unknown around what the future holds. And if I can support them into developing a professional portfolio and industry engagement, why wouldn’t I. We have a generation of creative changemakers moving into companies and industry and we need to give them the confidence and opportunity to direct their agency and efforts into creating change from within. Students today would rather earn less than work with companies that don’t reflect their values and that’s a sign of their character and we should support them as much as possible in how to move forward.”
Video by Complitaly News.