AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF FASHION DESIGN:
DESIGNER, PRODUCT AND CONSUMER

Due to the technological breakthroughs, consumption culture has been evolved over the last twenty years.  We are living in a fast-paced, experience-driven and knowledge-based society.  Today, people can access and obtain information freely, easily and quickly.  In fact, consumers are much knowledgeable on fashion trend, design features, performance and characteristics of a product.  As they shop for a consumer product, they are not merely seeking for functional values.  They are often looking for multi-attributes of a product to satisfy their physical, psychological (Kaiser 1990) and emotional needs (Howard 2001).    

In line with this phenomenon, fashion industry has been undergone substantial transformation as well.  Fashion houses are no longer working with two collections per year – Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer.  Many fashion professionals are working with multiple collections and deliveries every season.  They are constantly searching for fresh idea and creating new products in order to meet their customer’s aspirations.  Fast-fashion (Foroohar, 2005; Frazer, 2006) companies such as Zara and H&M have been successfully using agile manufacturing, lean production and quick response strategies to reduce the production lead time, increase their competitive advantage and expedite the design process.

In order to address these ongoing challenges and remain competitive in the marketplace, fashion designers and professionals must go beyond design.  They have to look into the relationship between designer (ideation), product (innovative design) and consumer (aspirations).  With this respect, a number of questions should be raised and addressed.  For example:

1. What constitute consumer’s mind? 
2. How can a designer find out their customer’s aspiration?
3. What type of product a fashion designer should offer if today’s customers are ‘multi-attributes’ seekers?
4. What kind of R&D (Research and Development) method should be used for this fast-paced industry?

Many researchers have investigated and examined on this topic from different angles (Bloch 1995; O’Cass 2004; Pesendorfer 1995).  However, to the best of our knowledge, the design aspect of this particular topic has received only limited attention.  This research project was undertaken to examine the trichotomy of conceptualization, creation and configuration within the design process.  Consumption culture was discussed and design issues were identified in this paper.  Based on cross-disciplinary literatures, a conceptual framework was developed; and a case study was presented in this paper in order to enhance the interpretation.