Fashioning clothing with and for mature women: a small-scale sustainable design business model
- Submitting institution
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Coventry University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 19403531
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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10.1108/MD-12-2016-0942
- Title of journal
- Management Decision
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 3
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 0025-1747
- Open access status
- Exception within 3 months of publication
- Month of publication
- September
- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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2
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Sustainable fashion design has tended to focus on ethical sourcing and production. Business models are linked to large volumes of sales and production and display limited engagement with consumers. The research sought to respond through the co-design of fashion clothing for mature women.
Participatory, practice-based research was undertaken with over 40 older women (age 55-75), to explore how their embodied clothing knowledge could inform a more inclusive and sustainable fashion methodology. The methodology involved a simultaneous approach to designing textiles and garments in relation to body shape, creative low waste pattern cutting, underpinned by phenomenological analysis of individuals lived experiences of fashion undertaken by Sadkowska. Semi-structured interviews, co-creative workshops, fitting sessions and collaborative photoshoots were undertaken, and participants stressed the need for a more inclusive design process and expressed a willingness to buy from a brand/retailer who would offer them such a collaborative opportunity. The need for a more flexible sizing approach to the design of fashion for older women was evident.
The project contributed over 30 prototypes comprising different silhouettes and fabrications for mature women. A short film, ‘Emotional Fit’, was co-produced to inform and capture the research-through-making process. The article outlines a novel, small-scale business model that responds to mature female consumers’ needs and expectations for fashionable clothing based on emotional durability.
Dissemination included the Fashion Salon event in association with Fashion Revolution Week (April 2017). Seventeen participants modelled the co-designed outcomes for an audience of 150 people from the local community, fashion industry and academia. An article for the Conversation has had 12,5k reads and been re-published by iNews, Yahoo! News and the Japanese news website https://newsphere.jp/. The Emotional Fit film was presented at the Women’s Over Fifty Film Festival in 2017 and 2018, and shortlisted at Best of the Fest, HOME, Manchester in 2019.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -