ISSN 0378-5254 Journal of Consumer Sciences, Vol 47, 2019 FASHION DESIGN PRAXIS AND PRACTICE: THE DUALITY BETWEEN ‘DESIGN FOR’ AND ‘DESIGN WITH’ Neshane Harvey*, Piet Ankiewicz & Francois van As ABSTRACT and collaboration through actual user participation, with which to enhance design Fashion design as design for consumers process activities and better align user needs consequently aligns with the technology-driven and desires. design and traditional user-centered design paradigms. Although not incorrect, shifts towards design with present the potential for an alternative fashion design praxis. However, in a — Dr N Harvey* South African context, fashion design praxis and Department of Fashion Design practice have never been explored from the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture perspective of design for and design with. University of Johannesburg Without empirical investigation, the praxis and Former PhD student practice of fashion designers are unclear, and it Faculty of Education is difficult to determine if design with emerges as University of Johannesburg an alternate strategy. A question may arise – ‘so Johannesburg what if design with materialises?’ – but the value South Africa lies in knowing the praxis and how it manifests Phone: +27 (0) 11 559 1072 in fashion design practice. This study aimed to Email: [email protected] explore and describe the praxis, as well as *Corresponding author practice, of two Johannesburg-based fashion designers in order to determine if and how — Prof P Ankiewicz design with emerges. The research question is Department of Science and Technology aligned with the aim: what is the design praxis Education and practice of two Johannesburg-based Faculty of Education fashion designers? University of Johannesburg Johannesburg Through a qualitative case study of two South Africa Johannesburg-based fashion designers, data Phone: +27 (0) 11 559 2640 collection was conducted face-to-face, in semi- Email: [email protected] structured interviews with the fashion designers. In addition, data collection included one dyadic, — Dr F van As semi-structured interview with one of these Department of Science and Technology fashion designers, as well as an actual user. Education Analysis of the collected data utilized a constant Faculty of Education comparative method with Atlas.ti used as a tool. University of Johannesburg Johannesburg The findings show that both fashion designers South Africa engaged in fashion design using a design for Phone: +27 (0) 11 559 4196 praxis. On the other hand, one fashion designer Email: [email protected] also engaged in praxis and practice as design with, hence an alternative strategy. The significance of this alternative strategy is two- fold. Firstly, it has the potential to change ARTICLE INFO fashion design praxis and practice to align with Received February 2019 the paradigm shift towards human-centered Revised June 2019 design. Secondly, design with evoked inclusivity Accepted September 2019 40 Fashion design praxis and practice: the duality between ‘design for’ and ‘design with’ ISSN 0378-5254 Journal of Consumer Sciences, Vol 47, 2019 KEYWORDS identification (initial stage), ideation, fashion design praxis, practice, design for, conceptualisation and prototyping. It can be design with argued that consumer market research frames the design problem and triggers the initial design process stage. Sanders and Stappers (2008; INTRODUCTION 2012) in their fuzzy-front end design process model, maintain that the initial stage is unclear There is a fundamental difference between and ‘wicked’ because not all necessary praxis and practice. Praxis is the designer ethos, information is available in the early stages to the way one thinks about and approaches the frame the design problem, which culminates in a discipline of design whereas practice is the lack of clear design criteria and constraints. The pragmatic application of praxis concepts. In argument made is that design for is not invalid fashion design, the common and perhaps but that design with, within a human-centered dominant, praxis is design for. Scholars, writing design (HCD) paradigm, is an alternative about fashion design, proclaim that designers emerging discourse and praxis that, in its own draw from multimodal aspects, such as personal right, has the potential to change designer ethos feelings, self-expression, intuition, previously and the practice of fashion design. designed products, imagination and inspirational imagery as primary stimuli with which to drive Writing about fashion design, Fletcher and praxis and initiate design process activities Grose (2012) make it clear that design with (Aspelund, 2010; Laamanen & Seitamaa- users is about active, collaborative participation Hakkarainen, 2014; Lee & Jirousek, 2015). Such between designers and users whereas design designer praxis manifests in design for self- for consumers is about addressing specific user gratification or products intended to meet target needs. Drawing from this statement, design for market consumer needs. and design with present opposing praxis. The technology-driven design (TDD) paradigm, Market researchers study consumers as passive echoing design for, continues to govern fashion subjects employing data collection strategies design praxis and practice (Sanders & Stappers, such as literature reviews, market analysis, 2014; Fletcher, 2015). The argument made in observations and Likert scale questionnaires to this paper is that dichotomies exist between collect data about consumer needs (Keiser & design with and design for with the former Garner, 2012; Tullio-Pow & Strickfaden, 2015). showing potential for an alternative strategy that As such, with design for, consumers are aligns with general paradigm shifts. However, in positioned at the core of marketing (Keiser & the context of Gauteng – as one of the nine Garner, 2012). It is not the case that these provinces in South Africa, although studies strategies are inapplicable, however, design for about design process activities exist (Tselepis et pre-supposes certain considerations. If fashion al., 2015), there is limited empirical evidence designers apply secondary research to trigger exploring and describing the praxis, as well as the design process, the possibility exists that practice, of Johannesburg-based fashion they may not have substantial, in-depth designers to determine if and how design with understanding of consumer needs. Moreover, emerges as an alternative strategy. The value of fashion designers may not know if their design with lies in knowing the praxis and how it designed products address target market needs manifests in fashion design practice. if the voices of those who use designed products are excluded from design process activities. LITERATURE REVIEW Market research may well provide information to The TDD paradigm is market-oriented and, as fashion designers about target consumer needs such designer praxis manifests as design for and trending fashions. Then again, consumer customers, otherwise known as consumers market research tends to be carried out post- (Sanders & Stappers, 2014). Within this product development and is thus implicated in paradigm, market researchers study people as the tail-end of the process subsequent to the passive subjects employing observations and design process activities of problem Fashion design praxis and practice: the duality between ‘design for’ and ‘design with’ 41 ISSN 0378-5254 Journal of Consumer Sciences, Vol 47, 2019 surveys. This information, as an input strategy participatory design, which is aimed toward with which to drive design, is transmitted to commercial and business improvement, involves designers who then engage in design activities a group of users who participate in the design from their expert lens to design for people process in order to assist designers who (Stappers & Visser, 2007; Smal & Harvey, enhance or develop novel products (Steen, 2017). Essentially, general TDD praxis gives 2011). For that reason, HCD praxis places rise to the design of material products for mass people, who are termed users, and their needs, production and consumption from the lens of preferences and voices at the core of design designer intuition, and their expert knowledge (Keinonen, 2010; Steen, 2011; Norman, 2013; and beliefs (Krippendorff, 2006; Friess, 2010; Giacomin, 2014; IDEO, 2015). The authors Taffe, 2015). The same scholars also note that acknowledge different terminology to be found in the TDD paradigm reveals designer-centered the literature - consumers or customers (in philosophies, thinking and approaches to design for) and users (in design with). For this practice. Hence, TDD, embedded in design for, reason, the term customer or consumer is used displays similarities with conventional fashion to narrate from a design for lens whilst design design praxis. with is accompanied by the term users. HCD discourse emerged to counterbalance the HCD grounds itself in qualitative data collection TDD paradigm (Krippendorf, 2006; Nelson & methods such as semi-structured interviews, Stolterman, 2012). It must be noted that HCD both individual and focus groups, as well as also goes by the name user-centered design narratives (Hanington, 2010; Norman, 2013; (UCD) (Hanington, 2003; Friess, 2010; Giacomin, 2014; Sanders & Stappers, 2014; Keinonen, 2010). However, the difference IDEO, 2015). The same scholars also state that between these lies in praxis and practice. actual users are participants and that designers Although mainstream UCD focuses