Co-Design
Co-Design refers to a collaborative approach where designers, users, and other stakeholders work together to create and shape fashion products and experiences. It involves actively involving end-users and incorporating their ideas, preferences, and feedback into the design process. Co-design recognizes that users play an essential role in shaping fashion trends and that their input is valuable in creating products that meet their needs and desires.
In co-design, the traditional top-down approach of designing and dictating fashion trends is replaced with a participatory model. It emphasizes inclusivity, transparency, and shared decision-making. The aim is to create products that resonate with users on a deeper level, resulting in increased customer satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty.
Through co-design, fashion brands and designers engage users as active participants, inviting them to contribute their insights, opinions, and creative ideas. This can be done through various methods, such as focus groups, surveys, workshops, or online platforms. By involving users from the early stages of the design process, brands gain valuable insights into their preferences, lifestyles, and aspirations, which helps in developing more relevant and appealing fashion products.
Co-design also fosters a sense of ownership and connection between users and the fashion brand. When users feel valued and involved in the design process, they develop a deeper emotional attachment to the products they help create. This can lead to increased brand loyalty, advocacy, and word-of-mouth promotion.
Additionally, co-design encourages sustainability and responsible usage in the fashion industry. By involving users in the design process, brands can gather information on their preferences for sustainable materials, ethical production practices, and durable and versatile designs. This collaboration promotes a shift towards more sustainable fashion choices and reduces the environmental impact of the industry.
In summary, co-design is a collaborative approach that involves actively engaging users and other stakeholders in the design process. It recognizes the value of user input, promotes inclusivity, and leads to the creation of more customer-centric and sustainable fashion products. By involving users as partners, fashion brands can enhance customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty, and contribute to positive social and environmental impact.
Case studies
Threadless – Community-designed apparel platform
Threadless is an online marketplace that operates entirely on community co-creation: artists submit designs, the wider community votes, and the highest-scoring designs are produced and sold, with artists receiving royalties. This model embeds co-design into the core business logic, making users active stakeholders in deciding which graphics appear on fashion products.
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AWAYTOMARS – Artificial Intelligence and Co-Creation
AWAYTOMARS is a fashion-technology company built around a collaborative design platform where a global community submits ideas that are iterated and selected for production through co-creation processes. By using crowdsourcing and open innovation, the brand redistributes creative authorship from a traditional in-house design team to a network of contributors, making co-design central to both aesthetics and product pipeline.
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Uniqlo – UT Grand Prix (UTGP) Global T-shirt Design Competition
Uniqlo’s UT Grand Prix (UTGP) is an annual open T-shirt design competition that invites people worldwide to submit graphic designs around a given theme. Winning entries are produced and sold globally as part of Uniqlo’s UT collection, turning participants into recognized co-designers of the brand’s visual language.
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The Fabricant – The Fabricant Studio Digital Co-creation Platform
The Fabricant Studio is a digital fashion platform that enables users to co-create virtual garments together with 3D fashion artists, using asset libraries and collaborative workflows to generate new looks. The platform facilitates thousands of co-created digital pieces, positioning wearers and creators as partners in authorship rather than passive consumers.
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Open Style Lab – Adaptive Fashion Co-design with Disabled Communities
Open Style Lab is a non-profit organization that brings together designers, engineers, occupational therapists, and disabled participants to co-design adaptive clothing and wearable solutions. Through workshops and long-term projects, OSL develops garments “with, not for” disabled users, embedding lived experience into inclusive fashion design.
Project link
References
Zhang, H., & Ma, Z. (2022). Is my design better? A co-creation perspective for online fashion design. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 16(3), 384–402. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-05-2021-0132
Hur, E., & Beverley, K. (2023). Fostering sustainable fashion innovation: Insights from ideation tool development and co-creation workshops. Sustainability, 15(21), 15499. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115499
Wu, D., Zhuang, M., Zhang, X., & Zhao, Y. (2023). Towards circular fashion: Design for community-based clothing reuse and upcycling services under a social innovation perspective. Sustainability, 15(1), 262. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010262
Maciejko, M., Wypych, M., & Biele, C. (2022). Co-creating sustainable fashion: A participatory approach for involving users in the design process. Fashion Highlights. https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3124
Cramer, J. (2011). Made to keep: Product longevity through participatory design in fashion. Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, 5(5). https://doi.org/10.18848/1833-1874/CGP/v05i05/38170