Exploring Fashion Design Methods: Understanding Human Factors in New Society Contexts

Abstract

In the last decades the progressive technological advances have been changing dramatically the way we experience life, shaping the relationships that we establish with what surrounds us in new unprecedented ways. By changing who we are and what we perceive to be, this phenomenon gradually created an individual that is self-aware and self-sustainable.

Technological advances change communication forever and the individual sees its existence split between two different worlds: the actual and the virtual. In this new era of existence new necessities arise from a body that finds new ways of experiencing its limitations (and enhancements).

In a time of growing individuality and with much more technological power at finger disposal, all users and especially new designers and design students, are allowed to play the “individuality game” even if dominated by rules of big corporations and globalized interests. It’s a quest for self-identity and affirmation that we seek on the things we do, the things we buy and the people we connect, in order to make a statement on our person and nature.

Fashion design as a privileged means of communication is a great way for creativity and self-expression of the individual, playing and acknowledging his individual role.

This paper is part of a PhD research on the influence of the digital tools and digital environments in human creativity and concept development, in the specific case of fashion design products. With this paper we intend to comprehend how human beings have evolved culturally and socially so we can identify the most reliable paths to an efficient generative experience, regarding human factors and the users necessities and expectations. It’s an attempt to map the actual human positioning on how we connect with each other and with the environment.

The digital environments induce a drastic change in the way research, concept development and project communication are made, changing forever the practice of design. The full understanding of the creative potential of digital languages is a real necessity to those who want to be prepared to the uncertain future of fashion design. Regarding this, the results of this study will help to understand how the fashion designer of the future will need to be, how he will act and how he will think.