I am often asked why I make such a clear differenciation between fashion embroidery and general embroidery. The simple answer is that fashion embroidery is specifically designed for a specific application. It is designed within the context of a specific garment or home decor item. The garment on the left Murder on an evening dress, was designed by British designer Catherine Walker and is a perfect example of this. Take note of embroidered bloody knife (detail, bottom right). Also pictured on the top right is Pierre Ira's painted silk dress, another spectacular tribute to Dali.
When embroidery is designed without a purpose in mind less focus is usually put into the the overall shape of the design and it is difficult to make it meld into the design of a specific project. This is actually the reason I came up with Compositions embroidery design software, it allow you to easily and quickly combine several designs together to create an overall shape which will compliment to part of the garment or home ecore item upon which it is placed. To see a full demo of the software and the design collections created to be used within it go to http://www.annthegran.com/kparsons/SWF/KP%20Compositions%20Web%20Final.html