Designers dont have to design anymore? Invasion of the IG boutiques.

Recently owner of the online boutique “Sorella, Heather Sanders, snapped on a girl who made an IG comment questioning her credibility as a designer. 

It seems she took offense to the girls questioning and opinion as she called her out her name and told her to drop out of school. Yet she also admitted to not designing, sketching, or sewing her pieces. Just that they are basically, custom made to her desires and then mass produced to fill her online boutiques orders. If there is no doubt to her qualifications to be a designer, why the hostility? So the questions still remain.. Do you design? Do you Sketch? And if you don’t... can you still be called a designer?

Merriam- Webster: ¹de·sign·er

noun \di-ˈzī-nər\

: a person who plans how something new will look and be made : a person who creates and often produces a new product, style, etc.

Collins English Dictionary: designer 

(dɪˈzaɪnə) -  n

1.             a person who devises and executes designs, as for works of art, clothes, machines, etc

In this new age world where everything is easily accessible the definitions of certain art forms have been blurred. It started with the musical artists, made its way to the models, and has now settled in the visual designers. Especially fashion. With access literally at your fingertips thanks to websites that build websites, whole sale from china, and debit/credit cards more and more “desingers” and boutiques are popping up on your IG timeline than ever. 

Now in no way is a boutique owner a designer, we can call them a curator of pieces of expressional iconography depending on the quality of what they buy and sell. A boutique should be like an art gallery of fashion. 

Some of these “online boutiques” should just be called middle women. They buy the clothes in bulk to sell to you individually. Same clothes and quality you may find at any local avenue, strip mall, rainbow, mandee, etc.  This is where the use of term “boutique” cannot be applied.

Worse yet we have the “designers”… in my opinion designers are innovative. They rework silhouettes and themes used over and over again and bring fresh life to it. A slew of crop tops, destroyed denim, two pieces and dresses made of spandex lycra in colors and prints you handpicked does not quite equate to designing. 

Now I do believe a designer doesn’t necessarily have to sketch or even sew that well ( basics are needed), but they must have the creative vision to see clothes in an innovative way. This is where adjectives come into play. For those who make custom made everyday pieces this is the “street wear designer”, what I call a clothes designer.  For those who possess a skill and passion they have refined to produce garments that express emotion and time “high fashion designer” or fashion designer.  

There are clothes and then there is Fashion.

The difference lies in the details.. is it one dress or set in several colors and pattens or is  it one color scheme and pattern used for several dresses and sets? Though both take time and effort one edges the other out with talent and ingenious.  We need both, just not in excess. Pick and choose the originators of both from the copy cats.

 The "Copy Cats", these are the people who will buy previously made basic items, iron on some graphic, stitch on a patch and call themselves designing something. STAY AWAY FROM THEM. And even be leery of the ones who have a manufacture if its nothing more than something you could order custom online.

Above all else (or possibly below) wear what makes you feel good, what expresses what you want to say to the world on any given day. From head to toe.