FMM 371 Fashion Innovation
The purpose of this class is to engage students in the process of “design thinking.” Design thinking is widely applied in a number of diverse industries and disciplines and aims at generating disruptive ideas that are critical in today’s hyper-competitive business environment. Approaches such as this has been responsible for fashion innovations such as Rent-the-Runway and “see-now buy-now” runway shows.
Design thinking consists of: a) customer empathy, b) business model awareness and analysis, c) rapid ideation and prototyping, and d) embracing failure as a tool to quickly establish solutions to problems. Students will learn the foundations of design thinking (e.g., customer empathy map, business model canvas) along with its relation to the fashion industry, while simultaneously building skills in the makerspace (a series of projects throughout the course, which include: CAD, 3D printing, VR technology, automated embroidery, and vinyl cutting). These skills will be used by students in their final project to develop an innovative idea to disrupt the fashion industry. Students will prototype and beta test their concepts in real time. The course will expand its scope as new technologies emerge.
Prerequisite
FMM240