Re(dis)covering Fashion Designers : Interweaving Dressmaking and Placemaking

The starting point for this doctoral dissertation was the identification of the unclear social contribution of the fashion design profession in the contemporary fashion system. Concurrently, possibilities to expand the role of fashion designers were identified. This research was inspired by design thinking discourses in design research that have explored the practice of designers and encouraged them to question the boundaries of design as a profession. While reflecting critically on what it means to be a fashion designer, the main research question that arose aimed to conceptualize the role of fashion designers. In the research domain of design and fashion, a number of issues were noticed as a gap for studying fashion designers. In design research, the absent voice of fashion designers is acknowledged while exploring the generic characterization of design practice. The domain-specific knowledge and skills required to engage in fashion de¬sign were underexplored due to certain prejudices, including the view that fashion is feminized and frivolous, and lower in the hierarchy of design professions. In studies of fashion, the idea of fashion as an institutionalized system is widely accepted and explored. However, the aspect of designing, especially the dressmaking tradition, has been relatively overlooked compared to the meaning-making aspect due to “academicizing” and the image-making tendency. To overcome this gap between the domains, this dissertation aims to invite a dialogue embracing the symbolic and material worlds of fashion through two qualitative studies in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The metaphor of weaving – which has a number of advantages in this context – was adopted to not just interlace the narratives of the substudies but also to be used as a piece of fabric patchworking the gap between design and fashion. The two substudies were constructed because the rediscovery of the dressmaking practice of fashion designers is required prior to expanding their role. Accordingly, the first substudy was conducted to theorize fashion design thinking by identifying distinctive features of the profession. Based on a data-driven study of Helsinki-based fashion designers, the entangled relationship between their individual practice and shared culture was discovered. For the second substudy, Pre Helsinki, a designer-driven platform aiming at increasing global recognition of Finnish fashion talents, was investigated as a single case study to explore the expanded role of fashion designers as placemakers. Themes of placemaking that emerged from previous studies were examined while identifying practical descriptions of the case and active involvements of fashion designers in the platform. For interweaving these substudies, the findings were analyzed theoretically to examine how fashion design thinking is employed in the placemaking of Helsinki and Finland. These studies woven together present an original contribution of fashion designers in society and their expanded roles as placemakers. Thus, it further recovers the meaning of fashion design as a profession balancing between the symbolic and material worlds. Altogether, this dissertation invites fashion designers to rethink their roles and to act as engaged members of society

Rethinking the Roles of Fashion Designers : The Case of Pre Helsinki

Abstract: This paper discusses the diverse roles fashion designers play in the contemporary fashion industry. Taking Finland as a case, it particularly investigates how fashion designers are involved in regional identity formation. By conceptualizing the place-making ability of fashion designers, it adds a new perspective on the expanded roles of fashion designers recognized in design research. This is done through exploration of Pre Helsinki, a platform launched in 2013 seeking to internationalize Finnish fashion. This platform, created and operated mostly by fashion designers, serves as a vivid example of the different roles that designers can play. The study is based on qualitative methods, namely, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observation. Five characteristics of Pre Helsinki and five fashion designers? corresponding roles were identified, based on thematic analysis of the data. This paper concludes with suggestions for further investigation on fashion designers to establish a dialogue between fashion and design research.Peer reviewe

Places in the Making

This short paper questions what it means to make a sense of place through fashion design. The notion of placemaking has been discussed in the literature of design and fashion yet remains fragmented, especially due to the complexity of fashion. The nuances of place should be carefully examined when relating to fashion design. The ways in which the notion of place is conceptualized in fashion are introduced to explore impacts of designing fashion in two very different scales: the geographical space, such as cities and nations, and the human body. Fashion design transforms these spatial and bodily scales continuously through its dual system of material production for clothes and meaning production for fashion. Conceptualizing multiple scales of placemaking in fashion design can contribute to the understanding of its impacts in geographical and personal levels.Peer reviewe

Critical Notes on Designing Fashion

| openaire: EC/H2020/870759/EU//CreaTuresIn the contemporary society where fashion designers no longer dictate the creation of fashion, what they create embrace both material clothes and immaterial fashion regardless of their intentions. However, a contradiction is found while considering the relationship between what fashion designers desire to create (fashion) and what they actually create (clothes). Clothes become fashion through a social process; thus, fashion has shared authorship. Meanwhile, the process of making clothes have been overshadowed by selective designers and their imagemaking tendency for creating immaterial fashion. Moreover, the making of clothes requires involvements of multiple actors beyond the designers. Thus, this explorative presentation intends to call out fashion designers for taking a fuller responsibility of their creative practices while acknowledging co-authorship and being sensitive to their sociocultural and environmental impacts.Peer reviewe

Fashion Design Rediscovered

Fashion design is often understood as one of design’s subfields that lacks critical reflection on its domain-specific situation. Research on fashion design practice has either simply adopted research results from design studies or been overshadowed by its social and cultural implications from fashion studies. This paper questions this overgeneralization of design, especially the practice of design. For this inquiry, distinctive features of fashion design’s dressmaking practice are presented via a theoretical sampling of the literature on fashion design and design practice. Grounded theory was employed to construct a theory on dressmaking practice based on empirical data gathered from the fashion design profession.Peer reviewe

Centring Relationships More than Humans and Things: Translating Design through the Culture of the Far East

| openaire: EC/H2020/870759/EU//CreaTuresThroughout the development of design, while design has expanded widely beyond western societies, relatively limited knowledge from non-western cultures has been explored. For both having inclusive understanding of design and turning a monologue into an interactive dialogue, different cultural perspectives need to be embraced. Thus, with four cases in diverse design subfields from South Korea, this study projects a possibility to incorporate a perspective from East Asian culture. While the traditional approach to design was centralised on 'things', human-centredness has recently challenged the perspective. With a lens of Korean culture, more contemporary discussions on design, including activism, decolonisation and post-anthropocentrism, can be seen as an effort to recognise hidden or forgotten relationships in design beyond thing- and human-centred design, relationship-centred design in other words. From the context of South Korea, the ways in which the relationship is considered in relation to design areintroduced for initiating more active conversations between cultures. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future studies and implications to the field.Peer reviewe

Dressmaking Rediscovered

Fashion design as a combined term conveys a different connotation than separate words of fashion and design. This is due to the complexity of the fashion system that also involves certain social prejudices, such as gendered practice and being shallow. This has set a gap for considering fashion design as a serious topic to study in comparison to other design subfields, such as architecture and industrial design. However, this paper argues by emphasizing the dressmaking aspect in designing fashion, prejudices can be overcome. Finland, especially its capital Helsinki, is an established place for design and an emerging place for fashion. The recent development of the place where the encounter of design and fashion took place provides a unique condition for exploring the contemporary dressmaking practice of Helsinki-based fashion designers. A number of aspects identified from the context are shared to demonstrate how fashion design can be revisited besides the image-making aspect.Peer reviewe

Place-Making the Local to Reach the Global

The case of Pre-Helsinki, a designer-driven platform aiming at internationalizing Finnish fashion talents, illustrates how fashion designers through this platform mobilize local actors in reshaping Finnish fashion to increase its visibility at the international level. For this inquiry, the article develops the concept of place-making, which summarizes the collective efforts of fashion designers and other local actors in the internationalization of Finnish fashion. Place-making comprises three themes, including a dynamic and consolidated interplay among the local actors, economic and symbolic contributions of the actors to local development, and its implementation at multiple scales from neighborhood to city and nation. The data for analysis consist of semi-structured interviews with actors around the case and ethnographic observations. The research shows how Pre-Helsinki appeared as a reaction to local- and global-level disconnections in Finnish fashion and how these disconnections were addressed in its activities. The background, origin of the platform, its activities and main actors are discussed in the context of how the platform implements place-making and contributes to building a meaning of Helsinki and Finland as places of fashion. In conclusion, the case is explored in the broader development of the Finnish fashion ecosystem.Peer reviewe

Towards practice beyond fashion design: Studying fashion design research in Brazilian education

Peer reviewe