Sensing is a practice that can be mastered. we have observed that innovators in fashion have very deep sensibilities that influence their creation. And it’s a skill that can be developed to articulate a deep understanding of the influences which generate creative outcomes.

So it is not enough to describe these kinds of practices and skills, we enable you to generate them in a high-intensity environment. 

In this session, you will get to practice sensing trend basis your preparation done for this session.

You will be required to come with all your research about the collection you plan to contest for in the 12-week play.

This session has an outcome by its design. During this session, we will be seeing how you generate your unique trends. Out of our experience, there will be interesting patterns that will emerge from this collective work. There will be patterns of breakdown and definite patterns of accomplishments. And each of it is self-created. In this session, we will get to identify which patterns to take and which to overcome.

This distinction has therefore been allocated 2 weeks as in the creative practice. its based on the belief that conception takes more time than execution. 

Our design pointedly rejects a procedural approach to trend forecasting and innovation. We offer practices.

This 12-week Internship is like a stage where we enact the real-life board room with real deliverables with guidance and hand-holding from our mentors.

Sensing has a very special place for it’s a sacred space where there is no process involved. It’s non-linear in its nature. And sometimes it is transcendental in its experience.

For Fashion Designers, it’s all about Sensing Trends and Sensing Fashion. Refer to the template mind map in the video about its possible scope

For Buying and Merchandising its Sensing it’s about The art and science of merchandising to achieve full-price sell-through. Refer to the template mind map in the video about its possible scope

Marketing, it’s about sensing the pulse of the market in terms of demand forecasting. Refer to the template mind map in the video about its possible scope

This week we will distinguish sensing not just as the art and science but as a practice of generating innovative fashion.

Glossary: (As in Video)

Design:

Look – See – Imagine – Create (Model)

Look:

It’s a semi-passive state of collecting inputs and making initial rough assessments of what’s out there. It included scanning the environment to envision the big picture of the season. It sometimes uses rapid-fire question techniques to get some initial look and feel of the market sensibility. In nutshell, it gives you a first-pass assessment of what is in front of us.

Looking = Collecting and Screening

Looking questions: 

What is there? Is there a lot of it? What is not there?

How far am I am able to foresee the trend? What are the edges and limits of my vision in this situation? 

What do I recognise right away, and what throws me off?

Are the trends right in front of what I see? Can I get them rapidly or do I need to spend time figuring out what I am looking at?

Looking Activities: Scan across the consumer landscape, Build a big picture, not that the fashion landscape is like a forest which has its trees and also the leaves.

See: 

This is the other side of the Sensing coin and its where our fashion trained eyes see get more consciously active. While we were just looking, we were scanning the fashion trend landscape and collecting initial inputs. Now that we are seeing we are selecting inputs that are worth more detailed inspection. This is based on recognising and or hunting for new patterns sometimes consciously, oftentimes not.

Seeing = Selecting & Clumping

Seeing questions: 

Do I know what I’m seeing? Have I seen this before?

Are any patterns emerging? Have I seen this before?

Are any patterns emerging? Does anything, in particular, stand out?

What can I take away from what I see- What patterns. What priorities, What interactions to help me make enough sense of this environment in order to make decisions about it?

Seeing Activities:

Filter for relevance: Activities select those inputs worth another look and dismiss others. (Then later go back and check again)

Categories the fashion fads and trends and classics redefined and make distinctions e.g wrap dress was redefined by Dian von Furstenberg.

First-ever wrap dresses were designed by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s and by Claire McCardell in the 1940s. They were also popular during the Great Depression as women wore house dresses called “Hooverettes” with a similar silhouette. Later on, the design was reinvented by Diana von Furstenberg.

Imagining:

Imagining is what happens after the visuals have been collected and selected. and the time comes to start manipulating them. Imagining can best be thought of in one of two ways: It is either the act of seeing with our eyes closed or the act of seeing something that isn’t there.

Imagining = Seeing what isn’t there

imagining questions:

What have I seen this before? Can I make any analogies to things I’ve seen in the past?

Are there better ways to configure the patterns I see? Can I rearrange them to make more sense?

Can I manipulate the patterns so that something invisible becomes visible?

Is there a hidden framework connecting everything I saw? Can I use that framework as a place to put other things that I haven’t seen?

Imagining Activities:

Close your eyes to see more 🙂 seriously 

With all the visual inputs fresh in the mind, look with your eyes closed and see if new connections emerge.

Find Analogies: Ask, Where have I seen this before? and then imagine how an analogous solution might work in the new situation.

Manipulate the patterns: Turn pictures upside down, flop them left to right, switch coordinates to turn them inside out. see if something new becomes visible. In other words, Steal Like an Artist.

Creating:

The circle and the Square are already invented, what we do is recreate the same in another way. We all Steal the Circle and the Square all the time and we Create it like the real artist.

We cannot really explain how creation transcends it will now happen automatically. 

The creation of a designer is second to god. Actually, you are play god at the moment. And anything you can become the reality after that. It’s the most powerful zone one could be privileged to be in.

Now we show the magic which has already happened. and how we show it makes all the difference. It’s all about telling our stories in our own way.

Assessment: is not a value judgment but a validation that has a basis that is accurate, consistent and repeatable. It is measured by the fashiomist using the tool call swipe card.

Swipe Card: It’s a tool that measures the likes of the targeted audience. it’s like a tinder swipe card but it’s used to rank and evaluate the style performance before the Event.

Event: An event is a fashion occasion planned to accomplish a particular outcome it can be a research-based assessment of trends, a Price sensitivity of the product, an evaluation of the efficacy of the style match with a body shape, or a capture tool to gain consumer insights to build the CGC (consumer-generated content).