With the original prompt allowing full exploration into the potentials of emerging technology with limited prototyping, I decided to explore where emerging technology can benefit fashion buyers. In the end, the imaginative solution uses MR/VR glasses to control what the user sees and E-textiles to sense what the user feels to create a fashion show that is completely personal yet shareable.
Going into the project, I knew I wanted my focus to be on my personal interest of integrating emerging technology into fashion shows. I chose to narrow my scope to how fashion buyers experience fashion.
When I first narrowed into fashion buyers, I had to let go of my assumption that all they did was attend fashion shows and select things to buy for their client. I used online articles and interviews to learn that their job also entails understanding sales, eyeing trends, forecasting, and a lot of meetings; attending fashion shows was only a potential task. With all that being said, I asked myself:
How can technology help fashion buyers experience fashion to know what to buy?
I wanted to see where emerging technology was already occurring in fashion and clothing. I became very interested in e-textiles and smart clothing and tried to incorporate them into my ideas.
Left: Myant is a company that uses smart clothing to track users' physical health.
Right: An art-science project that uses e-textiles to create physical sensations to the user.
I used sketches to explore where technology and fashion would combine in hopes that it would begin pointing me in a direction, but they felt very scattered.
I realized they were scattered, because I didn’t know what can help fashion buyers.
I knew that buyers had to be aware of trends for their clients, but what are other pain points?
Buyers have a lot of different tasks that go into the buying process, so I decided to narrow down on their experience during a fashion show.
The goal of the project was to explore how emerging technologies can be used. I used this as an opportunity to explore a personal interest of mine: the fashion space. Originally focused on fashion buyers, I ended up creating a personal yet shareable fashion experience.
CONTEXT
Purdue UX Learning Studio Spring 2020
TEAM
This was a solo project:)
CONTRIBUTIONS
Primary + Secondary research, visual design, prototyping, user testing
Observations
Since I was sadly not invited to fashion week this year, I watched two fashion shows online: J. W. Anderson Fall/Winter 2020/2021 and AREA Fall/Winter 2020/2021. I chose these two shows because they were brands I was unfamiliar with so I wouldn’t have any preconceived notions about them, and because they were both well-lit so I could see the audience.
Main insights
The biggest insight for me were how useful a phone was. People used their phones for taking pictures, looking through when they didn’t have a clear view, and recording. Phones were used as an extension of their memory, but because this was happening, most people were experiencing a lot of the show through their phones. This made me ask what makes something phone-worthy? and what if they didn’t have a phone?
Fashion Buyer Journey Map
To help me understand further the experience of a buyer at a fashion show, I primarily relied on “Day in the Life” interviews with fashion buyers and the observations to help me create a journey map of a fashion buyer at a show.
Main Insights
Although I knew more about fashion buyers and their needs, I was finding that my sketches weren't addressing the issues in a compelling way. Instead of enhancing the experience of clothing to improve the buying experience, the ideas were trying to rapidly address targeted pain points. Something was missing in my understanding of the fashion experience.
I used an annotated portfolio to look at the underlying point of showcasing fashion, as well as juxtapose technology and fashion to help me ideate.
Main insights
The idea of appreciation that emerged drew me back to the fashion buyer’s purpose. They are challenged to select items their clients would appreciate wearing. I used this guiding goal and the ideas of a tactile and shareable experience to help me create more ideas.
I felt that these ideas were going in a better direction, but I still couldn’t pinpoint one that could really bring in the aspect of appreciation. I decided to create a set of cultural probes to learn more about how other people appreciate clothing.
I deployed a cultural probe consisting of four activities to one person (due to COVID-19 precautions) to learn how people appreciate clothing.
Activity 1 | What does fashion mean to you?
Participant listened to the song 'Fashion' by Lady Gaga and wrote down what clothes meant to them. It was very direct way to understand where they see value in their clothing.
The participant wrote about how clothing was empowering.
Activity 2 | If clothes could speak
Participant drew three pieces of their favorite clothing and used provided speech bubbles to write down what the clothes would say if they could speak.
What was surprising was that every piece of clothing said something related to how the wearer felt or looked.
Activity 3 | 4 Sense Outfit
Particpant was prompted to create an outfit they could smell, hear, feel, and taste.
The participant listed items that would go under each category. It was interesting how each category had a list, showing that it wasn’t just one thing it would be.
Activity 4 | Finger fashion show
Participant was prompted to create a finger outfit and backdrop to have a photoshoot. This was to allow them to express their creativity. Materials were provided.
If nothing else, it was enjoyable to see them be creative:)
This probe helped me realize that fashion and clothing is such a personally embedded experience. A fashion buyer's purpose is to help people look and feel good based on trends, and that is what feeds into people’s appreciation of clothing. The purpose of the fashion show is to help buyers provide that good experience to their clients, but what if the focus was instead reversed to focus on the personal aspect of clothing?
This helped me rescope the focus to redesigning the fashion show to create a deeply personal yet shareable experience.
I began sketching while asking myself "What if the fashion show highlighted the internal feelings already attached instead of looking for new ones?"
Through that round of sketching, a short storyboard emerged that was centered on the user. The idea created a fashion experience based on the user’s life through clothes, making a deeply personal yet shareable experience.
Pre-show sketches
Potential idea: User would upload images of their life
pre-show
Potential idea: User would upload images, files, recordings, to represent their life
during show
During the show, users would be able to walk and see their clothing from the images on mannequins using MR technology. They would also wear smart clothing to track how they feel when seeing each piece, and they would be able to try on the clothing using MR and HD haptics.
during show
Users are only able to see their clothing through the MR; other users see their own. But, users are able to see other people change their digital clothing and share what they are wearing with others.
journey map
A lot of questions started coming up with the logistics of the before experience. The whole showcase put a heavy reliance on the actions the user would take beforehand. I wanted to see how that would affect the overall experience as well as other areas where negative memories or emotions would arise.
The journey map helped me realize two major things: the experience starts before the show, and negative experiences can turn into reflective moments.
service blueprint
Although the journey map helped me understand more about the emotional aspect of the journey, there was a lot of technology involved that felt very unfinished. How would users do this? Would the MR technology do that?
To help me identify areas that were more unclear regarding the technology involved, I created a service blueprint of the experience.
The blueprint made me realize how quixotic I was using technology in my solution. The way I assumed the technology could mix together left a lot of weak areas when it came to how realistic the idea was.
For instance, I was assuming that technology - whatever it may be - would be able to take an image and instantly turn it into a 3D MR image. Also, I didn’t think fully about how it would look considering dozens of people would attend the showcase at once.
Although my idea may be unrealistic, I decided to keep the idea because
The final idea is an experience that creates a personal fashion showcase. The experience gives users a new way to reminisce about their lives by confronting the clothing they had worn throughout. The experience also turns clothing presented at a showcase into a personal reflection instead of an item to sell.
I created a low production short video and a storyboard to illustrate the final idea.
Video
Storyboard
PRE-SHOW
Jan uploads images of her childhood, some of her favorite items, and music into the app.
DURING THE SHOW
When she first arrives, she is handed a set of special MR glasses and a change of clothes. After she changes, she enters into the actual showroom and sees a ton of garments around the room.
She goes to the first one, and realizes it was an outfit she used to wore regularly as a middle schooler. She notices the music changing to one of her favorite songs, and the background changes to an old picture of NYC she had uploaded. She swipes up on her arm to try on the garment, and immediately feels different. It feels like she just changed outfits. She looks at her arm, and it looks like she changed outfits too.
She looks around and notices no one is in those hideous outfits. Everyone was wearing something different. This is because through the MR glasses, everyone is able to see only their collection of clothing. She laughs to herself about how ridiculous her fashion sense was, and someone asks what she is seeing. She decides to show him instead. She fist bumps him and he can see himself wearing the clothings she sees. They both laugh, and he changes back by double tapping on his wrist.
Jan continous to walk around and see her old clothing, remembering different memories associated with each piece. She then comes across an old dress that she remembers being arrested in. She doesn’t want to face that right now, so she passes by.
She sees that the final outfit is what she wore to the showcase. She follows the arrows to a changing room to get ready to leave.
After the show
She gets an email later that week. It’s a digital catalogue of all of her outfits. It tells her how she was feeling when she passed outfits, what she tried on, and also showed who she shared with.
This project really pushed me to design with unrealized potential of cutting-edge technology. It allowed me to find a love for thinking about the future and thinking of the futures, while staying grounded in the realism of where we are now in terms of technological advances. This project was also a great realization for me in how low-production prototypes and visualizations can translate grandeurs ideas.