The Impact of Technology and Marketing on Designers

The aim of this paper is to study the role of designers in Haute couture fashion quality and determine the impact of technology and marketing in fashion manufacturing of the brand.

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Research objectives

To understand the impact of technology and marketing on designers

To understand the impact of technology and marketing on the role of designers they play in Haute Couture.

To understand the impact of technology and marketing on designers on the manufacturing of clothes

who will receive the questionnaire, how many people, how you are going to reach them

A designer organization that makes clothes for haute couture will be contacted through e-mails and by making calls. Designers will be sent a questionnaire based on open-ended and close-ended questions through e-mails that will help in gathering broader and relevant data. The questionnaire will be sent to total 15 designers. This questionnaire will help in gathering both qualitative and quantitative data. Further data for qualitative study will be gathers from secondary sources such as books, research papers, articles, etc.

For the attainment of the aim of the research, the objective is to test the hypothesis:

H0: Technology does not affect the role of designers in haute couture fashion quality

H1: Technology affects the role of designers in haute couture fashion quality

H0: Marketing does not affect the role of designers in haute couture fashion quality

H2: Marketing affects the role of designers in haute couture fashion quality

Qualitative study

To understand the impact of technology and marketing on designers

To understand the impact of technology and marketing on the role of designers they play in Haute Couture.

To understand the impact of technology and marketing on designers on the manufacturing of clothes

Literature review

Theoretical background

The definition of fashion quality:

In the fashion industry, quality refers to the measurable and reasonably standardized traits of clothes. When fashion quality is considered through haute couture then it refers to the use of expensive material, clothes that are prepared with close attention to finish and detail those (Yuasuf & Nabeshima, 2006).

Fashion industry and designers

The production of global fashion is associated with diverse retailers, designers, and companies who develop products for particular market levels and sectors. Fashion industry includes broad sectors such as jewelry, clothes, sportswear, etc.; but organization operates in one sector. These companies then decide on the material, price, and a number of products they need to produce. Designer firms or designers are the core element of the overall process of production. Designers enable organizations to distinguish the brands based on the number of production and quality of material they use. In other words, designers allow organizations to achieve their aim of price and quality clothes with a specific number of items. The responsibility of designers is to create a unique and new collection that fits the criteria, set by fashion companies. However, here it becomes necessary to analyze the role of designers in ensuring that the product meets the sustainability objectives and defined market criteria.

Emergence of couture business and designers in fashion industry:

Although the duties and activities of designers change across the sectors and levels of the fashion industry, however, a conventional design process exist. The emergence of this process occurred with the phenomenon of fashion designer during the mid of 19th century. However, the evolution of the fashion or can be traced back in the 17th century. In the mid of 1800s, the establishment of Charles Fredrick Worths couture business materialized the modern fashion industry. By the mid of the 1900s, fashion productions two systems had materialized from which the one was the expansion of clothing industry of ready to wear and tailors and couture businesses bespoke work. In this phase, the fashions contemporary production continued to rely on meeting the expectation of market and this reason became the basis of the brief of designers.

The fashion production process and design comprise a generic sequence of phases and activities that include five stages: research and analysis, synthesis phase, selection phase, manufacturing phase and distribution phase. The more the size of the company will be large the more the designers engagement with the process will diminish, and the duties of designers become limited to precise activities and tasks (Sinha, 2002).

Role of fashion designers with the impact of technology

To understand the role of designers in the fashion industry or couture business with the impact of technology and marketing is fundamental to this research. In broader terms, fashion designers generate and initiate ideas that become a trend; these are the people who have a high level of abilities to design (Cross, 2004).

Good designers must have a wide range of skills and their skills or abilities fall into two major categories called technical abilities and creative abilities. For the demonstration of creative abilities, it is pivotal that designers can generate unusual designs from unique concepts. They must have an ability to interpret the trend information into innovative design ideas. Alternatively, designers must have technical abilities as well; technical abilities are essential for designers for realizing the capacity and capabilities of fabric with the aim of following the garment through the entire production and development process (Jackson & Shaw, 2006). New technology changed the way of marketing and enhanced the liability of designers, as now designers are also liable to communicate the product to customers (Gwilt & Rissanen, 2012).

In a prior era, the fashion designers tried to come up with new ideas and wanted to create a revolution, but in the current arena, the competition pressurizes designers not just to innovate but make money as well. For coming up with new designs, it has become essential for designers to make the items popular and make rapid income as the fast fashion industry replace old designs quickly with new one. Now designers are no more the innovators in term of dress designing only, but they have started introducing new technologies to the fashion world. The use of 3D technology in manufacturing fashion clothes is an example of the impact of new technology on designers and therefore on fashion industry (De Zeem Magazine, 2014).

Empirical studies

Redress (2014), conducted a research and found that fashion industry is challenged by environmental impact. The fast fashion industry through replacing old designs with new is caused to enhance the landfill as the people are discarding more clothes than ever before. The fashion industry from the production to the utilization of the clothes by consumers generates waste. This issue has become a serious concern of designers and firms as well. In China the annual waste is more than 26 million tons, in Hong Kong it is approximately 106945 tons, in the UK is from 0.8 to 1 million tons. This issue inspired fashion companies to use new technologies and reduce the waste. The research determined that the new technology is important for reducing waste. The research did not discuss that how the technology impact designers and their way of introducing new fashion. The research did not use any statistical technique rather is discussed the ways technology reduce the waste (Redress, 2014).

Mohr (2013), in his research, analyzed the influence of social media marketing on the fashion industry. The research discussed the use of social media technology as a new strategy that helps the designers in playing an immense role in marketing their products to customers and attract them. Designers found the new ways to influence the emotions of customers (Mohr, 2013).

Bailey (2012) found the role of designers in the fashion industry with the impact of emerging technology. In doing so, the research used the theory of the psychology of dress proposed by Flugel J.C. the theory says that clothes are an indirect look at human emotions and feelings. People impart their personalities through their choice of clothes. The author in the research disclosed that the emergence of new technology improved the role of designers in the fashion industry and enabled them to design intelligent or smart garments rather produce unintelligent designs.

Emerging technologies enabled designers to come up with unique ideas through offering them numerous possibilities. New technology allowed the designer to play their roles more responsively and to chase the relationship of customers with what they wear in future. New technology also enforced designers to come up with new and unique designs, due to the availability of new and wider range of designed from all over the world on mobiles and laptops. Now people can search, compare, and assess, therefore, fashion designers have to put more efforts in designing clothes that are responsive, of high quality, trendy, and stylish (Bailey, 2012).

Azuma and Fernie (2003) in their research examined that how viral networking affects intrinsic fashion designs. They found that the emerging global fashion has changed the way people were used to perceiving the fashion. They found that now the focus of designers is at low cost and standardization rather having a focus on manufacturing designs based on psychological and physical needs. They found that globalization increased the competition, and it has become difficult for designers to produce a variety of designs. New marketing techniques, inspired to introduce intrinsic designs that enable organizations to capitalize on global fashion (Azuma and Fernie, 2003).

Shortcoming of existing research studies

It has been determined that several research studies have been conducted by considering fashion industry, but very few work exists on the role of designers they play in the fashion industry with the impact of technology and marketing in fashion manufacturing. Those researches that have been conducted either do not include the impact of marketing and those include the impact of technology does not consider the impact of it on designers in manufacturing designs appropriat...