A selection of styles I designed and developed for Grover Rad.
Coming from a freelance background into this un-launched blank slate brand, I functioned as a creative catch-all — designing the collections, making tech packs and fabric recommendations, making patterns, and conducted fittings for early concept exploration.
I explored different croquis styles and we found that these on-mannequin digital illustrations were the founder’s preference, and helped reduce misalignment in expectations and superfluous development spending.
As time went on, I specialized in developing graphic prints and processes, using a combination of collage and hand-illustration to create repeat, engineered, and silk-screen prints. I developed process standards per material, and created video training materials to educate the other designer(s) on best practices.
See a selection of sketches, imagery, and process photos with descriptions below:
A design that didn't proceed to development but I really loved! This was when I started sketching in a photo-realistic way because I realized it would translate better for the founder (who didn't come from fashion) to understand. The brand began as a luxury fashion concept, but slowly evolved to offer more approachable designs, focusing on creative graphics rather than luxury finishing.
A design sketch of a denim shirt jacket and 501 style jeans, featuring a silkscreened print that I also designed, using imagery from a 19th century hand-written book of spells and incantations.
The silkscreened "Witchy" jeans first prototype. We used a water-based ink and asked the printer to vary squeegee pressure, although most of the off-set print and disressed areas are within the artwork. I created the graphic in Ps and Ai, manually distressing and manipulating the imagery before vectorizing it. One pant required 6 screens.
The silkscreened "Witchy" denim shirt jacket lookbook image.
Three colorway and scales of a repeat print I designed, using source imagery from a black and white hand-drawn comic strip we commissioned from mother-daughter artist duo Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Sophie Crumb.
A design sketch of an opera coat featuring the custom comic print. I also made the pattern for this style.
This opera coat was purchased by the MET Costume Institute for their permanent collection archive and was featured in a Vogue article about the brand launch.
Mock up of the graphic which I designed for this digitally printed jacket. I also created the plaid digitally and matched it across the seams as a engineered print.
Workshopping the engineered print process to match graphics across seams.
Troubleshooting sewing discrepancies: I worked with our sample maker to figure out what she needed (notches, continuing print in the margins, wide seam allowance) to match the graphics more accurately.
The final resulting jacket: Ivory denim twill with engineered digital print (individually mapped for all sizes) and printed silk lining.
An assortment of hand-sketches for quick review before moving into digitally illustrating them in color.
A design sketch of the "Ziggy" jacket - velvet jacket with crop circle inspired embroidery. I made the pattern and also drew and developed the embroidery.
First pattern drape of the Ziggy jacket.
Mocking up the embroidery scale and placement for the Ziggy jacket.
Testing embroidery thread colors for the Ziggy jacket.
Reviewing the Ziggy jacket cut panels and finished embroidery.
The Ziggy jacket final lookbook image.
A design sketch of a mohair opera coat featuring sister embroidery to the Ziggy jacket, which I also designed.
A mini-scale mock up of the embroidery placement for review with team.
The mohair opera coat lookbook image.
A design sketch of the "Stardust" chiffon dress and bodysuit which I also made the patterns for, with an all-over print that I designed from scans of an 18th century astronomy book.
Fitting the chiffon Stardust dress, originally designed to have a printed bodysuit worn underneath, we felt it drew too much attention away from the dress and the prints clashed once we saw them in person.
The Stardust dress lookbook image.
A cancelled style utilizing the same Stardust print as an embroidery. There was a high print minimum, so I designed a series of garments to utilize the fabric and add more daywear dress options to the assortment.
A daywear dress option from the previous assortment.
A trouser and shirt option from the previous assortment.
We decided to stick with a stock fabric instead of the custom embroidery and went with a woven cashmere for this oversized button up and pleated jodhpur trouser. I made the patterns for both of these styles as well as made the collage for the back of the shirt.
Cashmere shirt ghost flat. This was designed around the time that billionaires were going to space for the first time, which inspired the graphic.
I sketched this style on a figure to emphasize the body contouring of this lingerie piece which didn't translate well on the mannequin style.
A design carry-over of the printed plaid coat, featuring a collage of Mark Verbioff artworks.
This denim jacket involved an intensive finishing process, including discharge printing, screen printing, and wax application, inspired by the artist's collages.
A mock up to finalize the scale of the graphics on this overall which we wanted to laser-etch, but ended up screen printing because the laser process didn't work well on colored denim.
The finished overalls with water-based silk screen print.
Another silkscreened jean which I designed for C002, using the same process as the Witchy jeans.
A fun project: working with fashion legends, M&S Schmalberg to create a custom silk flower brooch. They sent an assortment of petals and I assembled a sample for them to then replicate.
Developing the print process: we found our signature mesh fabric and I worked with the printer on print settings, as well as some in-Psd manipulation to arrive at the perfect color/contrast/tone for each print.
The first engineered print process: I mapped and manipulated a figure illustration onto this mesh bodysuit pattern, scaling it proportionally for each size and creating multiple colorways.
Ghost flat of the final nude mesh samples.
Nude mesh bodysuit on a model, the leggings were also mapped and featured an inset brief. I also made the patterns for these styles.
Reviewing all the prints and embroidery that I designed for C002.
Working with our sample cutter on print placement for this "Hellfire" group: bustier, pants, mini dress, and jacket. We thought this would save more time than engineered printing all the patterns and sizes, but hand-placing all the pieces turned out to be just as labor intensive.
The final Hellfire sample group.
A quote from The Scarlet Letter which I hand-drew to be translated into an embroidery.
The first test of the Scarlet Letter embroidery.
The lookbook image and final application of the Scarlet Letter embroidery on a silk wool blazer.
A flat I drew of a corset style.
The first sample of that corset style during fitting, in ticking stripe cotton denim.