Innovation in Design

How does innovation relate to the fashion industry? Fashion Group International recently held a talk where four industry speakers gave their insight on the subject. Samantha Docherty reports.

With 18 years' experience in designing and manufacturing her own brand and a further four years of freelance designing, Mary Gualtieri has a good grounding for her current position as SIP NSW Manager for Kreitals Consulting Group.
Helping clients to identify innovation and innovative activity to access government grants through the Strategic Investment program, Kreitals Consulting Group fosters the development of a sustainable and internationally competitive TCF design and manufacturing industry in Australia.
For Gualtieri the design in the fashion industry needs to be innovative to deliver brand definition and customer value.
"In a competitive market economy, business sustainability is achieved through continually enhancing the value of products and service to customers. Innovative design ignites excitement, aspiration and creates luxury. It makes the customer feel they are getting something special and something that is not found on the mass market. They recognize there is added value and pay more for it. Innovation repositions your brand amongst its competitors and allows customers to feel as if they are receiving personal attention."
Recently Gualtieri experienced an example of design innovation.
"A menswear manufacture wanted to create a jacket out of a delicate viscose fabric. Not the type of fabric generally used for this purpose, it failed to provide the formational frame that the jacket required to deliver functions such as warmth, weight and structure. The manufacturer needed to create an interior support shell that would structure the jacket and create the functional requirements. Because of the fabric's delicate form, he couldn't build the interior structure by using traditional jacket support frames such as fusing and padding. If he did, the interior frame line would show through to the outside of the garment and make it look uneven and lumpy.
"As a result he had to test other non routine fabrications that would enable the interior support to be applied in gradual elevation and by identifying which specific areas needed the elevation variances; hence constructing the jacket from the inside.
My point is - the manufacturer didn't set out to intentionally create an innovation; he was merely trying to resolve his problem. In doing this, in a way he'd never done before, means that innovation has occurred. New knowledge is acquired when you are forced to think outside the routine comfort zone to resolve such problems; therefore inspiring the application of knowledge to create additional value and changes."

Consultant, researcher, writer and speaker on numerous subjects including - futures studies, strategic planning, change management and performance management, Futurist Dr Peter Saul helps companies develop scenarios of the futures they may have to operate in.
Saul believes inspiration can be found in trends affecting the fashion industry. In planning the future of its company Saul says the fashion industry ought to be considering nanotechnology, global warming, sustainability and high-energy costs and population demographics.
"Nanotechnology companies such as Nano-Tex have already created materials that repel water, sweat and stains and kill germs and fungi. Grasim, a major Indian textile company, is talking to Nano-Tex about licensing its technology.
The US Army has invested $50M with the Institute of Soldiering at MIT on clothing that kills bacteria and fungi and protects against toxic agents. Dupont and Raytheon are partners in this research."
Other avenues that could develop from Nanotechnology include clothes and accessories containing sensors that monitor our state of health and adjust our clothes' temperature and humidity permeability. These clothes could even wirelessly transmit health information to our doctors.
Not only targeting our own well being but also the planets, society's awareness of global warming, sustainability and high energy costs could change the way manufacturers produce their garments. Much like the five star energy rating on white goods, Saul says it may be fashionable to buy products (including clothes) with small ecological footprints.
"New products and packaging may undergo an ecological audit for immediate and longer term impacts on human and ecological health. The creation of a 'green label' which will be controlled and monitored throughout the product's or service's life cycle by some kind of sustainability registration or accreditation institute will mean companies will reduce energy and water consumption in production and in ongoing product care and maintenance; and reduce energy in transportation to markets."
Targeting different market sectors, Saul says new innovations are starting to arise with examples like a new line of jeans designed by a small company in northern Italy that caters to Muslims seeking to stay comfortable while they pray.
The bagginess is to ensure the wearer avoids stiffness while bending down repeatedly during prayers. The larger pockets are for holding all the accessories Muslims have to take off while they worship and the jeans have green seams, because green is the sacred colour of Islam.

Established in 1988, Longina Phillips Designs is one of Australia's leading and largest textile design studios. With an office in Sydney and New York, the company's growth has been through change and innovation.
From the humble beginnings of painting by hand, owner Lola Phillips invested $50,000 in her first CAD system and never looked back.
"With innovation comes also the recognition of opportunities. How do we recognise opportunities? - with new investment and risk."
Recognising it as an opportunity in creating a unique environment, Phillips says probably the best decision she made was investing in a CAD system.
"From then on we went with digital printing. We first started introducing it to our furnishing customers and now in the past two years we have created our own range.
"It isn't because I want to be a fashion designer, its more part of the educating process and showing our customers what's possible. We are in the industry of feel and touch and you have to show what can happen - it's almost like a show and tell."
Printing digitally as opposed to the traditional methods allows manufacturers to test the market by producing samples quickly with less expense. Particularly, when printing off-shore, from design concept to print production, traditional methods can take three to six weeks usually with mistakes. With digital Longina Phillips Designs can create a sample in one to three days with no waste, no screens, all in the office with full control.
"Our innovative approach is design and the tools that we use, the design is always the primary part making us stand apart from other people. The kind of environment we have created is quite unique."
Combining everything under one roof Phillips' design studio offers print and design in an innovative way.
"I know there is a certain fear about doing things in a new way but it's quite simple once you start. You can print digitally, make the garments and sell from them while the production is being done off-shore. Because you're selling from a real garment with the print and the fabric, the orders you're getting are real orders so there isn't any more guessing or saying I have to have a minimum of 1000 to 3000 metres and you only sell half and the rest you have to job [sell at a discount to get rid of it]. You can test the market, test what is going to work and if you don't get the orders you can it. It's simple but quite a different way of working to the traditional way where you were so use to doing a minimum and jobbing the rest."
Aware that higher pricing may be an issue for most companies, Phillips says the time saving and control of the quality is worth much more.
"I can buy the equipment as the same price as anyone else in the world. So whether you're in China, Korea, Pakistan, Europe or Australia the hardware - printer, inks and the software is all the same price the only difference is the labour. The labour here [in Australia] is much higher but off-shore they can not deliver you something in three days. I can. Because we have everything in the studio the process is quite seamless. We can do the design, print the fabric, and make the pattern and the garment and all in one day if necessary.
"Innovation has offered us a sustained growth, it is small because we have to educate our customer but it is there and I see a gradual continuation."

Appointed managing director of software company Lectra Australasia in 1997, Peter Richardson feels there is nothing as certain as change and that innovation is a part of that. Responsible for introducing change over his 30-year career in the rag trade, Richardson feels companies are facing more competitive challenges.
"Innovation is needed and the right price is needed, we need to control margins, brand image is important and customer loyalty is definitely one of the ways of keeping the business going."
World wide Lectra is a leader in providing a comprehensive range of high technology solutions and related services to 17'000 customers who are the major industrial users of textiles, leather and other soft materials.
Not just in CAD/CAM, other systems from Lectra can help companies adapt to the changing market.
"The technology we use now goes right through from the concept of the garment through to design and production and 3D visual merchandising - where the image you design can be shown in a virtual shop or catalogue. There are more and more people selling on the internet and we have customers that sell from laptops with an electronic catalogue, going around the city selling suits to customers in high rise buildings."
Consumers are more demanding today, if they like it they want it tomorrow. One way to lessen manufacturing pressure is to reduce lead times.
Using new technology like a body scanner can produce a garment from concept to retail in eight hours.
Customising apparel production, marker making and initialising small production cutting Richardson sees 3D body scanners as the future.
"At the moment a body scanner can cost $150'000, but it's like digital cameras and DVD players which did cost a lot of money, [the price will drop]. I see the body scanner as being part of using technology to innovate into niche markets. We are using technology to get from concept through to merchandise as quickly as possible.
"We did a project with RMIT students where we developed the fabric, printed it in the pattern shapes that we developed from the body scanner, made the garments up, photographed the garments and placed them into a 3D virtual shop. It took eight hours and probably could have even been four with better organisation.
"The US has been using body scanners to redo its sizing from the 1940s. There are 52 different classifications for sizing in the US and there are specific companies manufacturing for niche markets such as the Hispanics."
Other areas Richardson feels companies can be innovative is with fast fashion, producing entirely in-house and virtual sales.
"Constant ranges, high turnover, new fabrics, new ways of working, it's all innovative and it's change. With companies like Zara and Mango it's designed, it's produced, it's in and out - they see an opportunity and respond quickly.
Some of the larger companies in Europe are spending lots of money in terms of the design department, to get from concept to garment and ready to sell, and it's all in-house.
"We have a client in Brisbane that has a touch screen virtual catalogue [in its store] that allows a customer to These are innovations; using technology to get to that new sales channel."