That’s one reason it’s great to have a small fashion sketchbook in your purse at all times, because you never know when inspiration may strike. There are many ways to use these books, but here are a few of the most common:Ĭapturing Inspiration and Planning Outfitsĭo you ever see someone wearing an amazing outfit on the street, think “oh, I must copy that!” and then promptly forget? One of the biggest advantages of fashion sketchbooks is that you really don’t need to be good at drawing! Just use the croquis as an outline and mark on your seamlines and details, and you’ll end up with a great representation of your design. Once you draw on top of the croquis, you’ll have a proportionally correct garment and the croquis will fade into the background, leaving a professional-looking image. To avoid a confusing image, most fashion sketchbooks (though not all) print the croquis in a light color, or use faint dots-you can read more about the approaches of different sketchbooks below. If you’ve ever tried to free-hand draw a person, you’ll know how hard it is to get the proportions right the idea of a fashion sketchbook is that it gives you a shape first, onto which you can draw your garments. Theoretically, a fashion sketchbook could be any pad of paper or book where you draw ideas for garments! However, the key to most specially-designed sketchbooks is that they contain croquis.

The word croquis literally translates to 'sketch.' However, in the fashion world a croquis is a body template from which you sketch.

Draw past tense