DESIGN / TRANSDISCIPLINARY / INSIGHT '18



The Evolution of the Fashion Image



Co-authored with Shigorika Singh for Insight ‘18, National Institute of Design



A reflective analysis of influences on the design of the fashion image & its cyclical impact on consumer aspirations & purchase behavior.



Abstract





THE CONTEXT:


The consumption of fashion evolves with the consumer; once purchased through paper catalogues and in hallowed showrooms, with pieces arriving over weeks, now is available digitally with products delivered the same day. As this media and purchasing behavior evolves, the communication to this consumer evolves. The image, often a significantly influential aspect of this communication, is defined by:

  1. The selection of merchandise is data backward and provides commercial viability for the business.
  2. The visual, which is aspirational, and trickles down from a higher creative ethos.


THE THEORY:

  1. Merchandise: What the customer likes, already wears, and is most likely to buy informs the selection of the fashion catalogue. This catalogue then is fed back to the consumer and s/he makes the buy due to familiarity and accessibility. This is a confirmation of the nature of the data which becomes an information loop that feeds itself.

  2. Treatment: We imbue this basic merchandise with aspirational visual language that aligns with the top-down approach of fashion to increase the desirability of the product.
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  3. Treatment & Merchandise merge: Now the consumer is buying a product that s/he is familiar with but in an ambience that is more fashionable. So, his/her expectation rises from E to E1. When E1 becomes input I1 in the new information loop, it needs to be further imbued with higher fashion visual language, thereby making our information loop an upward spiral, where the input of the customer keeps rising incrementally.


Even though expectation rises in a unitary fashion (from E1 to E2, E3 and so on) and the upward spiral grows in a cylindrical fashion; the perception of the consumer finally having become fashionable at the latest buy is satiated momentarily. However, from the customers perspective, s/he is moving up in a conical upward spiral, unaware that the vertex moves up as well. At every consecutive loop, the spiral goes one step further… to infinity.



THE OBJECTIVE:

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What this paper does is zoom into the aspirational visual language of this process and examine the impact of stimuli that change the creative treatment for a product defined by the various personal biases (impacted by socio-cultural movements, technological and communication upgrade) that one employs deliberately or unwittingly to create this final image, its impact on the final product and the impact of the final product back on collective conscience.


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