Abstract:

The paper aims to highlight the final results of the Laboratorio [omitted for blind review], in collaboration with M Missoni, the second line of Missoni brand.
The methodology used was archivism, and it is based on archives of past collections as an inspirational point to revisit the original aesthetics of the brand. The knitwear sector represents a very fertile design area since knitwear design involves several aspects and allows a high degree of intervention and experimentation at all levels of the production chain. It is a complex process, combining the old technical knowledge of the manual tradition with the experimentation of the project and technological innovation. The direct contact with the objects of the archive allowed the students to expand their historical knowledge of fashion, overcoming the limits of a didactic that, many times, privileges a theoretical speech of the costume.

In Italy, handicrafts are essential for companies' success when they can project themselves into a new economic and cultural dimension. In this way, we can talk about knitwear design as a specific field of Made in Italy that is completely changing: to become a project, knitwear must produce garments enhancing traditional techniques and expressing the spirit of the time.

Taking care of textiles in a Design School represents not only examining a historical sector of Made in Italy production but also, above all, dealing with an integrated design concerning materials, design, construction, prototypes, techniques. The goal of education at the [omitted for blind review] has always been to transfer a design methodology that can cross different categories of products.

From a shared summary, students had to work on two lines of research; the first, listening to the tracks from Polo & Pan's electronic music album Caravelle, to inspire and feel to describe a possible scenario in which to assemble a collection of capsules of 10 to 12 clothes. The second line of research concerned the analysis of some textile prints, from the historical archive of the Missoni brand, to edit them again at the same time and insert them in the scenarios described above. On the other hand, using the brand's historical memory, through impressions, to determine its renewed identity, the contemporary DNA.

The design challenge, therefore, was to work through an incremental innovation process that would allow students to create something innovative and contemporary for the brand. Incremental innovation consists of moderate improvements in existing products and processes. It refers to small but essential changes that aim to extract the maximum possible value from existing products. Today, the ability of designers to explore contexts initially, proposing ideas and results that are not just technical solutions to established problems, sees creativity and education in fashion design as the ability to solve problems through materials and their constant innovation in clothes, try on or examine old problems differently, to go beyond the usual idea of ​​fashion.

Among the merits of this experience is the recognition of the relationship between the archive and design practice, the importance attributed to the archive and the representation of the past for the knowledge of the identity of Italian Knitwear.

Keywords:

Knitwear, M Missoni Project, Design, Incremental Innovation, Company Archive.