Fashion is something a lot of us consume via magazines. You buy them, you read them, you save them, maybe you’ll cut pictures out of them to keep the bits you like or are inspired by. Some of us watch fashion shows and record them. A few a fortunate enough to be able to attend them and take pictures.That’s all good and fine, but it’s a bit hard to share, and even access if you’re not where you keep all this stuff. You’d have to lug with you wherever you go for that access, and that’s often not worth doing. How often have you done lugged your fashion or sewing inspiration “file” to show someone, or so you could have it, say, while you weren’t home but wanted to think about it? Not often, I’m guessing.

With the world becoming more digital and online, I’d like to share with you a more modern way to have access and share anything you’d like, with a focus on fashion and sewing here for the Guild. They are like “bookmarking” sites, where you can save what you see online, and keep it online. That way, as long as you have a computer with Internet access, generally not hard to find, you have access to it. Further, people can see it, if you so wish, any time they like. It’s all kind of like this site, but a lot simpler in that you “one-click” something you like and file it.

There are many sites for this sort of stuff. However, the most visual one and hottest one going is Pinterest. It’s like a digital bulletin board. You see. You pin. And maybe you file if you want to keep it organized cause for a lot of people, it’s gotten out of control, if you can believe it! It’s that simple, and if you want to see its effectiveness, below are some example links.

This first link is the fashion inspiration collection of a 3rd year Costumes Studies student at Dal. Peryn has this for her own reference, but to show others, since it is publicly viewable and searchable, what inspires her. There are some crazy stuff I LOVE in that collection like the butterfly dresses! Some very useful stuff, too, like the necklace length charts… and I don’t even wear necklaces! But after I make what my Mom calls my pimping suit jacket, upon description to her, I just might! Can you imagine if you could see the same sort of thing for some other guild members to know what inspires them? Or just inspire each other if we could collectively share what inspired us?

Peryn also has a coats and jackets file, stuff for her house file, some steampunk collection stuff, among others. You all can’t get away from steampunk long now since I started mentioning it last year, can you? 🙂

As with anything, it takes a little effort to build and maintain. However, when you look at it, don’t you think it’s worth it? I think I’m going to get an account started now… and start building by “stealing” some of Peryn’s stuff!

Don’t worry. It’s not really “stealing”. I’m just taking some of Peryn’s inspiration and making a duplicate in my file. She’s not losing anything. And to be honest, if you’re not familiar with the economics and morality of social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), when you “steal” someone’s stuff, it’s actually a compliment to them. You’re basically saying “I like it enough I’m going to add it to my stuff and propagate it to others”! It’s more like “approving” rather than “stealing”. Welcome to the new world order!

Once I get enough of my own content, probably some time early next year, I’ll do a post to share my Pinterest board with you. In the meanwhile, I hope some of you will give it a go, if you haven’t already, to share your Pinterest board with the rest of us! Leave a link as a comment if you have!