INTRODUCTION

Fashion is very often tied to identity, as through a way of dressing one can represent their character, and at the same time: integrity and belonging. Fashion industry tends to exploit those relationships, providing its wearers with high volumes of clothing, released in multiple collections a season.

The distribution of new garments is motivated by economic growth, and the designs are based on recent trends, which become short-lived due to the pressure of introducing new products.. Majority of fast fashion brands sacrifice quality and focus on quantity, assuming that if their customers do not find one product appealing, comfortable or durable, they are ready to buy another piece in its place.

Therefore it can be said that the fashion industry and the process of designing clothing are not motivated by the real needs of those who will wear the clothing, but by profit.

This raises the issue of how to bring the focus of the fashion industry on the needs of its wearers and what kinds of practices can be introduced to facilitate this process. As other design fields, and design researchers, have been seeking to define and implement approaches that are aimed at increasing user-involvement and user-satisfaction, this thesis intends to bring that perspective into the field of fashion design and answer the fol- lowing research question:

How can the implementation of participatory design approach into the fashion design process lead towards centring the industry around the real needs of the wearers?

RESEARCH APPROACH

The aim of this project is to develop a framework that can facilitate focusing the fashion design process on the needs of the wearers, through incorporating a participatory approach.

The double diamond method was adapted in order to structure the research. After conducting the secondary research in the form of literature review, and after conducting a survey, a research-through-design approach was adopted. This involved using the ideation and prototyping phases as parts of the research to further inform the project. Similarly, two workshops conducted served not only as a way of testing the framework prototype, but also to generate new insights and ideas.

LITERATURE REVIEW

THE WEARER VERSUS THE MASS MARKET FASHION

The nature of fashion and its link to individuals’ personal identity defines its fluid, changing character, while the mass production allows for easy access to new styles of clothing, leading to excessive consumerism, binding fashion development to the economic one.

According to Fletcher (2016), wearers are fashion practitioners, as using garments is what makes one a fashion practitioner. Designers assign meanings to the objects they are designing - garments, while the wearers consume those meanings. Therefore the way of dressing connects the wearer to the society, as others can read and interpret their configuration.

As the wearers’ identity, values and perception of self change with time, so does evolve their way of dressing. According to Connor-Crabb and Rigby (2019) clothing worn and kept most often provides value during the process of constructing identity.

Fashion brands exploit those relationships, as the availability of fast, mass-produced clothing has only increased the individualised consumption of fashion. Fast fashion has contributed not only to the production of high volumes of products at low prices, but also shortening life cycles and lowering the quality. Through the excessive production and consumption, today’s fashion is tied to economic growth and retailers compete in newness. The nature of the fashion industry makes the connection between fashion and consumerism seem impossible to break.

FASHION DESIGN PROCESS

Mass market is the biggest sector of the fashion industry, offering high volumes of clothing at low prices. It is driven by profit and competitiveness, and fast fashion is a sector of value segment of mass market fashion and is associated with extremely short lead times, replication of recent trends, low quality and low prices. 

Fashion design process can be seen as similar to the general design process, however it has some elements that are specific to the nature of the industry. Munasinghe, Dissanayake and Druckman (2021) identify five main steps of the design process: trend research, trend pack development, design development, prototype development, finalisation of range and approval. The teams working on the process involve multiple participants on various levels.

As it can be seen from the chart above developed based on Munasinghe, Dissanayake and Druckman (2021), the design process involves multiple professionals and significant decisions are being taken not based on the design potential of the products, but are very profit-oriented or influenced by the time that is restricted by the fast pace of the industry. This limits the role of designers. There is little time and opportunity to explore new concepts or silhouettes, so designers are forced to rely on sales statistics and replicating trends of high-end fashion brands.

Furthermore, the majority of the decisive power lies in the hands of non-design related professionals - the members of management, buying and merchandising teams, confirming how the fashion industry is motivated by financial decisions and that the role and innovation of designers is restricted.

SPACE FOR USER-CENTRED AND PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

Recent years have brought changes not only in line with the design processes and products but also in the design practice itself.

The purpose of user-centred design is to improve the understanding of users’ requirements and interactions and one of the main expectations of the process is that the greater is the user involvement and the more insights can be gathered, the better will be the design of the product, as it will be suitable for its purpose (Scariot, Heemanna and Padovani, 2012).

In participatory design, the user is an active contributor to each step of the design development process and both designer and user are co-creators of the project. It can help the users to develop a deeper understanding of the process, learn the effort necessary to produce products, and give more value through creating emotional attachment to the product.

Cramer (2011) also points out that in the past dressmaking and tailoring was a highly participatory process and it was the mass-production of garments that changed this approach.

These arguments suggest that participatory design is beneficial not only for the designers, but also for the users and that there are opportunities for the development of this approach on the fashion market.

SURVEY

A survey was conducted to collect insights about the wearers and their needs that the fashion industry does not meet. The questions ranged from yes/ no, multiple choice questions, through open-ended questions to opinion scale and the survey was designed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data.

The questions were shaped to first observe general shopping behaviour of the participants, and consequently dive into their experience with the materials used in clothing, sizing of the garments, their quality and overall satisfaction with the clothing available on the market. It was concluded with questions about participatory design and potential interest in this topic.

QUANTITATIVE SURVEY ANALYSIS

This section provides an analysis of quantitative data gathered in the survey. It was visualised in forms of charts and graphs to be able to observe trends and patterns on fashion behaviours and satisfaction and views of the wearers.

QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

The data used for this analysis was collected from the open-ended questions of the survey that tackled the topics of satisfaction with fabric and fashion options available on the market, as well as integrating user-centred and participatory design into the fashion industry. The answers collected were clustered using the ‘bottom-up’ approach, the clusters were compared against each other, merged if their content was similar and grouped into 4 main themes.

OPPORTUNITIES

Since designers’ work is often focused on research and reproduction of already emerging trends, this provides an opportunity for exploring alternative processes that would allow for bringing more focus on the wearers and their needs.

Furthermore, because participatory design is an approach that allows for a direct engagement of the wearers in the design process, it can help to increase the bond between fashion brands and wearers. It can also allow the wearers to learn more about the design process.

This combined creates an opportunity of designing a framework that can be incorporated in the fashion design process in order to allow implementing the participatory approach, while having the specific requirements of the fashion industry in mind.

The results of the survey highlighted the areas of fashion that can be explored within the newly created framework.

RESEARCH THROUGH DESIGN

This stage focuses on the development of a participatory framework for fashion design using the ‘research-through-design’ approach and through an exploration and combination of design research approach and traditional fashion design methods. Elements such as service design thinking and generative research are introduced as a basis for a more user-focused way of designing.

Service design can be described as a field that focuses on creating experiences through the use of both tangible and intangible media. However, as Stickdorn and Schnei- der (2011) claim, service design can be also defined as an approach rather than a specific discipline. Stickdorn and Schneider (2011) mention five key principles of service design, and according to them it should be user-centred, co-creative, use sequencing and evidencing, as well as be holistic.

Generative design research is an approach for co-designing and co-creating that brings the users into the design process in order to meet their needs, and it focus- es mostly on the front end of the design development (Sanders and Stappers, 2016). The co-creative approach relies on acts of collective creativity, which allows for creating more insights and connections because of collaboration of participants with various ways of thinking.

A proposed scheme of bringing service design thinking and generative approach to create a framework for fashion design is presented below.

The comparison of conventional elements of the fashion design process with the wearer needs highlighted by the research allowed to recognise the gaps between the two that can be filled through the framework solution.

Through the opportunities drawn from the research, the concept of designing a framework for a participatory approach for fashion design has emerged.

The goal is to create a framework that can inspire designers to later create final garment designs, help discover wearers their needs in the process and raise their awareness about the fashion industry.

The chart below illustrates the concept of the framework.

FRAMEWORK PROTOTYPE

Each step of the framework prototype is outlined below

STAGE 0: RESEARCH

The aim of this step is to prepare visual materials that can be later used in the session with the wearers.

STAGE 1: UNDERSTANDING THE USER

This step will focus on clashing the values and needs of the wearers with the brand values and the niche they occupy on the market.

STAGE 2: DEFINING FUNCTION THROUGH STORYTELLING

This part reverses the traditional fashion design process, which firstly focuses on the visual aspects of a collection, and will concentrate on defining the function of designed clothing through a storytelling approach.

STAGE 3: BUILDING IDENTITY THROUGH AESTHETICS

The final element will allow the participants to outline the visual outlook of the project that they are working on.

STAGE 4: USER-TESTING

The traditional fashion design pro- cess lacks a final user-testing of prototypes and this step will give the wearers who participated in the design process an opportunity to test and give feedback on the prototypes of the designed garments.

WORKSHOP 1

WORKSHOP DETAILS

PLACE: Lyzeum, Dessau Campus, Hoch- schule Anhalt

TIME: 5.05.2023, 15.30-18.00

PARTICIPANTS: 6 participants

STUDY QUESTIONS:

• How to integrate users into the fashion design process through familiarising them with the practices, utilising user experience frameworks and storytelling?

• What mechanisms allow the users to be integrated into the fashion design process through active participation?

WORKSHOP AIMS:

• Conduct an initial test the participatory fashion framework prototype in a small environment, and gather participant feedback

• Observe how the participants interact with prepared frameworks

• Familiarise the participants with the elements of the fashion design process

• Create visual materials that could be later utilised by a brand in order to develop a fashion collection.

Firstly, the participants were introduced with the aim, overview of the content, and the final outcomes of the workshop. Because the number of participants was not high, they worked together as one group. Each stage of the framework was prepared on a separate white board, with prompts for specific tasks written on them. The participants completed the tasks together, discussing each step and providing answers - through writing the answers, sketching and in the final tasks, pinning the prepared images, fabric swatches and colour cards.

This workshop served mainly as an initial test of the designed frame- work. 

After the workshop participants completed a reflections sheet with open-ended questions about their learning and contribution to the process, as well as their insights on the course of the workshop.

Additional insights on the process of conducting such a session have been recorded and applied to the design of the final contribution.

WORKSHOP 2

WORKSHOP DETAILS

PLACE: online - Miro board

TIME: 5.07.2023, 18.30-20.00

PARTICIPANTS: 3 participants

FASHION BRAND PRESENT: Bombus Artisanal

STUDY QUESTIONS:

• How to facilitate a dialogue between a fashion brand and the wearers through the proposed framework?

• What mechanisms allow the designers and the users to create fashion outcomes that can be later used to design clothing?

WORKSHOP AIMS:

• Conduct an initial test the framework prototype with the presence of a small fashion brand, and gather participant feedback

• Observe how the the brand interacts with the prepared frameworks

• Familiarise the participants with the elements of the fashion design process

• Create visual materials that could be later utilised by the brand in order to develop a fashion collection

This workshop was led by the founder and designer of Bombus Artisanal, Amber Jones, while I was present as a wearer-observer. The participants were introduced with the aim, overview of the content, and the final outcomes of the workshop, as well as the briefed on the identity of Bombus Artisanal as a brand. Each stage of the framework was completed on the miro board, the participants completed the tasks together, discussing each step and providing answers - through writing the answers, sketching and in the final tasks, being able to upload their own images to the moodboard.

This workshop aimed to observe how the framework applies to working with an existing fashion brand and participants with no design background.

After the workshop participants completed a reflections sheet with open-ended questions, a separate set of questions was completed by the brand.

DESIGN CONTRIBUTION

A TOOLKIT FOR PARTICIPATORY APPROACH TO FASHION DESIGN

This toolkit for participatory approach to fashion design provides materials that can be used to educate fashion brands and designers about the participatory approach and to help them apply it to their work. The toolkit consists of following elements:

• a guide for introducing a participatory framework to fashion design process

• a set of cards for conducting each stage of the workshop framework

• space for adding own materials according to design language and style e.g. colour palettes or fabric swatches

The aim of creating this toolkit was to facilitate introducing the participatory approach to fashion design. Therefore fashion brands and designers can familiarise themselves with the participatory approach and implement it into their line of work. The contribution should support the design process of those who want to make their clothing more focused on users’ real needs.

DISCUSSION

The topics discussed in this thesis lay on the more theoretical side of design and the proposed contribution is an approach for other designers to use in their works rather than a specific product. 

One of the aims of this thesis was to bridge the theories and practices used in other design fields with fashion design.

In the proposed framework, even though the wearers are directly in-volved, they do not create specific garment or accessory designs. The framework aims to engage the participants into exploring the needs of the wearers through a fashion lens. 

Through that process both the wearers and designers taking part in a participatory decision become researchers - researchers of themselves, their own needs and their relationship with clothing.

The process of creating garment designs is left to the designers after the session, giving them some creative freedom and the chance to use their field-specific knowledge, skills and experience.

If this approach was to be placed on ‘The evolving map of design research and practice’ developed by Sanders (2008), it would find itself more on the research-led side of the spectrum, rather than the design-led axis. It would be also placed in the overlapping space of the user-centred design and participatory design, however, with a direction more towards the participatory approach.

The proposed framework directly involves the wearers in the process - turning them into ‘experts of their experience’ and relying on their insights, which places it in the participatory sphere. However, as it was already mentioned, the emphasis of the framework is on the wearers exploring, researching their needs, which is also characteristic for us- er-centred design. The suggested placement of this approach is presented above. 

This is only a proposed way of approaching the research conducted in this thesis and only a way of applying the principles of participatory design into the field of fashion design. The relationship between user-focused design, participatory approach and fashion design has not been widely explored yet and provides opportunities for further research and application.

FURTHER RESEARCH

This project could be further developed in the future through additional research and a number of improvements to the framework. 

• further testing of the framework: especially with other fashion brands

• development of the post workshop stage (user-testing of garments): a proposed tool for this stage is a garment probe test, where a garment is being sent to wearers with a set of specific questions in order to gather wearers’ feedback. Due to the nature of the fashion industry, this stage would be more difficult and time-consuming to test, and would require a longer collaboration with fashion brands.

• adjusting to a larger scale: to apply this framework to larger brands, especially in the mass-market sector, would require further research and testing

• further research opportunities: as the participatory approach in fashion design has not been widely explored, it opens opportunities for more research in this field

SUMMARY

This thesis aims to introduce a participatory approach into the process of fashion design.

Because of the development of the fashion sector into a mass-produc- tion industry, a large portion of the process is focused on economic growth and therefore developed into an extremely fast paced process, where the designers’ role is limited and focus on wearers’ needs is limited. A participatory approach is proposed in an attempt to centre the process more around the needs of the wearers.

A research through design approach was applied to create a participatory framework for fashion design. Through reviewing service design and generative design approaches and combining them with traditional fashion design approach, as well as insights on wearers needs gathered through a survey, a prototype was proposed.

Two workshops were conducted to test the framework and gather further insights that allowed it to improve the prototype.

The final result of this research is a participatory fashion toolkit that can be used in order to conduct workshops. The proposed research focuses more on discovering needs of the wearer, but at the same time it invites the wearer to be a part of the process and actively work with the designer on developing an outcome. In that way, both the wearer and the designer become researchers of themselves, rather than just co-creators of a product.

A full copy of this thesis in pdf format can be found below.