First Team Meeting

Monday 22nd July

Today we met for the first time as a full team. Our team consists of three Fashion students; Amelia Baker, Kate Arbuckle and Kristal Roberts, as well as two Visual Communication students; Courteney Moore and Jessica Singleton. We have based our group under the theme, ”Human-centric transformation through design”.

As a group we have decided to use this class to develop and expand on a successful project Kristal established last semester in an elective paper. The aim for our project is to create an intervention that slows down the fashion consumption cycle by increasing garment wear. We will develop a sustainable rental company that connects established and emerging designers with customers through an app and website. The platform will educate women on sustainable fashion in the hope that the fashion industry will eventually be able to operate as a circular economy. The company will be titled, ”Refresh”.

Now that we had established our project aim we began to brainstorm ideas and possibilities for Refresh. This brainstorm session highlighted areas that we need to research and develop to ensure our aim is successful. Below are some key points from our first group discussion.

• Our target market will be young adult women who are fashion conscious and care for the environment, but when shopping on a limited budget struggle to stay away from fast-fashion, trend driven retailers.
• An existing platform similar to ours is ”Designer Wardrobe”. Our project will have a similar concept however, sustainability will be at the foreground.
• Designer rating system. We could establish a set of criteria that rates each designer as to how sustainable their garments are.
• Set up a membership system for customers. The system will come with potential perks.
• Complete a survey on our target audience to influence our decisions. Questions to be asked could include, ”How many wears do you often get out of a new garment”, or, ”What do you do with your clothes once you have decided you wish to no longer wear them”.
• Potential pop-up locations that in the future could lead to a store. These physical locations would provide a space for customers to try on the garments before renting.
• A contract would need to be set up between our brand and designers. We would need to establish a percentage of revenue that designers would receive with each successful rental.
• Not only will the company promote established high-end designers, but we will also provide a platform for emerging designers to get their brands heard. There will also be a focus/favour towards local fashion designers.
• We will start with standard sizing (sizes 8-16), with the hope in the future that we can expand our size range and also potentially introduce menswear.
• Along with the rental system the app will also include ”style guides”. These guides could illustrate how an individual garment can be worn multiple ways to promote a ”capsule wardrobe”.
• We need to determine a budget and a way to approach designers.
• A large focus will be placed on social media to promote the brand and concept (influencers, hashtags, ads).
• Sustainable packing is essential. We need to look into companies that provide sustainable packaging. Also we need to plan what goes with the garment inside the package. We could possibly include a card that communicates the garments journey (design-production-Refresh-customer). ”Who made my clothes?” concept.

Our next step as a group is to plan the specific areas we want to research and develop first that are most important, i.e. budget, survey, app layout, designer/garment guidelines.