Abstract:

Historically, throughout the development and innovation of both fashion and technology, the two areas have come to integrate through testing each other’s limits and improving one another, mainly by accelerating production. Today, the joint field of fashion technology, also defined as fashionable technology or fashion-tech, introduces the intersection of design, fashion, science and technology (Seymour, 2008). As interdisciplinary processes combining different fields and tools to create user experience (Guler, Gannon & Sicchio, 2016), motivations for creating fashion technology range from expressing oneself to functionality (Seymour, 2008) to creating ways of communication and increased sustainability (Forbes, 2016).

From design to retail, from product to communication, fashion and technology are interconnected and the shift from craft to industrial production, from analogue to digital involves all stages of the production process, improving them and making them quicker and more efficient. Furthermore, fashion technology can incorporate all technologies that are incorporating the body (i.e. biotechnology, nanotechnology, textile technology etc.) along with necessary tools and software utilized within textile technologies and fashion design (Seymour, 2010), in combination of wearables, smart textiles and digital manufacturing.

Wearables, originating from wearable computers that have operational and interactional constancy (McLuhan, 1967), relate and have the goal to be the amplifier of the human body, enable interaction and communication, while also combining aesthetics and style (Tenuta L. Futures for Fashion, 2017) in the shape of clothing, accessories and jewellery (Seymour, 2008; 2010). Within the area of smart textiles, where the fabric can sense and response to external stimuli (Koncar, 2016), mainly apparel related to health, wellbeing and protection has been developed, with the focus ranging between function and aesthetics. Lastly, digital manufacturing entails cutting-edge technologies or processes, such as 3D printing (Sun & Zhao, 2017), AI and AR (Fashionbi, 2017) that are focused on production, retail and distribution.

The study is carried out within the Education4Fashion-Tech project, funded by Erasmus+, with the aim of developing a fashion-tech curriculum for fashion designers, blending fashion and design education with digital skills and digital manufacturing capabilities. As a starting point for the project, the study aims to examine the contemporary state-of-the-art and emerging macro areas of high-qualitative didactic experiences, and research and development work of stakeholders in the field.

Thus, the objective of the study is to explore the state-of-the-art of high-qualitative educational experiences in the field of fashion-tech. By investigating the state-of-the art of the field, an understanding will first and foremost be gained of the topics, courses, programmes taught within higher education institutions (HEI) in Europe and worldwide.

This further allows gain insights the state-of-the art of research and development work within the field, based on the structure, teams, products and methodologies utilised by companies and research centres, compared to those implemented by HEIs.

Keywords:

Fashion-Tech, Education, Curriculum Development, Smart Textile, Wearables, Digital Manufacturing.