Inspiration is all pervasive, yet the idea of it is intriguing. Whether we call it inspiration, benchmarks, or any other term, as designers, artists, creators of any kind, we go through and acquire an inexplicable amount of stimuli everyday that unconsciously influence our outputs at one point or another.

For a fashion designer looking at, say, WGSN, inspiration trickles down linearly. At least, it is intended to. I have to admit, I have a rather ambivalent relationship with mainstream fashion, even as an ex-fashion-industry-insider. While runway collections were an endless source of awe and inspiration (there I go again!) with its big, bold ideas, being a designer further down the line came with a shadow of conformity, agreeing with trends and contributing to the trickle.

Be that as it may, I'm endlessly in love with formal exuberance of fashion: textiles, drapes, surface ornamentation and textures that brought me to study fashion in the first place. I played with this image-making experiment a couple of years ago– it was about starting with a piece of inspiration, picking connecting threads and creating without stopping, in any medium that lent itself as a canvas. It went something like this:

1. Picking a runway piece I was utterly excited about.
2. Illustrating it with nature’s own gift of textures, patterns & vivid colors.
3. Taking the set of natural forms used to create something else.
4. Picking a thread from the derivative to create something else from there.

High-fashion is often loaded with the expectation of a trickle-down. Using it as a starting point to create a tangential chain of new ideas moving from one medium to another, rather than traditional reinterpretation focused on maintaining the source inspiration; the process helps break away while serving ample inspiration. Whilst visual and material constraints were set up from the start, with every new iteration, new patterns would emerge.

This time, I was perusing through Elle's trend of the season: ruffles. I picked Delpozo's piece from the New York Fashion Week. The ruffled yet pure silhouette in the very pristine white got me inspired about the possibilities of subtlety.

So, illustrating ruffles. Is it weird that spiralising, that appears a lot like ruffles is all the rage in the food world these days? I had an idea, rather a borrowed metaphor. I brought back chicoree, cucumbers, white radishes and apples from the market. After creating the foundational form with chicoree petals and spiralised radishes, there was sea salt, moong dal and puffed rice in my pantry to detail and finish the rest.

Now for the next stage. Using the artwork as a palette of raw materials, I started to think of the next piece. A fresh, spring salad felt appropriate. The trick was in the dressing, of course!

Here's what I landed with, and this time you can try it out!

Chicoree White Salad
Serves 2

For the salad:
1 chicoree
5 radishes
1 apple
5 tablespoons puffed rice, lightly toasted
A handful of moong sprouts
Mint leaves to garnish

For the dressing:
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 tablespoons cup oil
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ras el-hanout
Salt & pepper to taste

How to

1. Place all the ingredients for the salad dressing in a bowl and whisk together until smooth. Set aside.

2. Wash the chicoree, separate it into singular petals and arrange them on the plate.

3. Channeling your greatest knife skills, thinly slice the apple into slim discs and distribute them around the chicoree.

4. Then, using a spiraliser, spiralise all of the white radishes, and place them opened up, inside the chicoree petals.

5. Drizzle your dressing over the top of the salad and sprinkle the toasted puffed rice. Top with a few sprigs of mint and it’s ready!

Moving on, but really, having had my lunch plans sorted with the last exploration, I wondered what was next. Wanting to go a little further with the ruffle theme and the circular motifs from the apples, I went to the drawing board simply playing with circles and negative space.

So that's that, my friends!

As a graphic and user experience designer working to create rational, goal-oriented solutions, I still wrestle with why I find this interesting and fun. Perhaps it is about finding a place for newness (if it even exists) and evolution in the creative process by extrapolating what is considered inspiration.

Until next time!