IDEAS FOR RYZOM

Continuing with the Clothes Crafting idea, this occupation will supply the Design Templates needed to craft varied clothing beyond the basic hum-drum pattern you learn just by acquiring the Clothes Crafting skill.

Disclaimer: I have not looked at Occupations much at all, so I don't know a lot about how they work. I am also not the least bit qualified even to be an armchair fashion designer =)

You should be presented with a 3-D display of a mannequin, much like the image presented when you right-click a wearable item and view its Info. From this display, you should be able to modify the length of the dress (for example), how it covers the shoulders (over one shoulder, strapless, etc), attach extra patterns, etc. The difference between "pants" and "shorts" should be how long you want the legs to be in the design and what you name it.

There should be restrictions in the design process to maintain some sort of modesty, since players can't always be trusted to do it ;)

In terms of using consumable materials to design clothes, you could have a "dress" base template, a base template for "strapless top", a base template for "frilly lacy trim", etc. Combining these base templates together consumes them and creates a new Design Template object that can be traded with crafters.

Each race should have a fashion designer npc who can teach relevant information for designs specific to that race.

Finally, Fashion Designers should be able to leave a brief note on their Design Templates that shows up on a mouse-over, particularly when viewing the design in the clothes crafting tool window.

Edited to add: The fashion designer who creates a Design Template should either have the ability to duplicate the design (consuming any consumables that the original required), or to have the design options saved for easy recall. This way, someone producing a series of outfits for an event, such as a wedding, would not go mentally insane sizing, re-sizing, and re-frilly-ing a dozen different dresses to make them identical.

This particular suggestion likely needs a LOT of fine-tuning given my admitted ignorance on the topics.
Please be gentle =)