Integrated Design Learning Methods in Fashion Retail Design Studio

The growing complexity in the economic sphere, the accelerating rate of change, the omnipresence of information technology and the globalisation of cultural processes spin an intricate web of flows of goods, people and information, assigning a central role to policies capable of enhancing and developing innovative potential through research, education and learning. What stands before us today is a world far from the simple recipes of classical industrial culture: it is a complex world in which high technology plays at re-combining itself into the most diverse of forms, with mature technologies as much as with refined forms of artisanal production. The expected homogenisation of productive models has left room for an explosion of variety. The competitive value of businesses is ever more linked to their ability, enclosed within design action, to integrate codifiable and transferable knowledge with that which is tacit and contextual [1] [2]. Interdisciplinary knowledge becomes the qualitative and operational parameter capable of interpreting and guiding new production and consumer scenarios along local and global paths. Non-linear paths, let it be clear. Singular adventures, where a multidimensional thought supports «that game played between clarity and obscurity that is complexity itself» [3]. Within this framework, the purpose of higher education must tackle the formation of theoretical knowledge and that of operational knowledge and be capable of weaving a different kind of dialogue between educational contexts and productive realities. In design education, attention is focused back onto the relationships between basic and specialist knowledge, between knowledge and skill, between high-culture technical and scientific information and the know-how that can be applied directly in the professional world. And the learning methods themselves are based on these. With regards to this, the present paper describes the structure, format and contents planned and developed in view of the “Fashion Retail Design Studio” Course held within the context of the Laurea Magistrale programme (equivalent to Master of Science and hereinafter referred to as LM) dedicated to Design for the Fashion System (School of Design – Politecnico di Milano). The Course’s structure, starting with a given design theme, was a chance to experiment with a workshop model in which teachers (professors, researchers and professionals) could experience the close interaction between building up knowledge and skills, with the use of different learning models within an experience-based context. The disciplinary standpoint is that of Retail Design and the area is that of Design for the fashion product-system. Retail Design is characterised as a field with a strong directorial capacity of bringing together and integrating skills – just as an example, those concerning interior and service design, communication design, set, exhibit design and management –. This integration is reflected in the educational project both with regards to the contents and the organisation of the design workshop. The course is divided into 4 sequential learning moments, pursued in line with varying pedagogical models, all interdependent and focused on exploring different aspects of the same design field.