Designers for/and/with Manufacturing. Design-Driven Solutions for an Updated Dialogue between Young Creative Talents and the Textile-Knitwear Industry.

The article presents Con-text research built on the network of relationships with textile and knitwear companies established by the research team KnitDesign Lab and Imagis Lab. A first investigation of the existing relationships showed that they empowered the update of educational practices but also evidenced a significant gap between the university and entrepreneurial realities in understanding each other’s practices, skills, and objectives. Combining the expertise in the textile-knitwear area of KnitDesign Lab with the one in communication design of Imagis lab, the research project investigated the present needs and the future visions of young design talents and manufacturers and developed solutions to make them converge towards a common meeting point, Recognizing the contribution of an approach combining multidisciplinary methods and tools, the article presents a design process based on the Systemic Design Framework (Design Council) for building relationships between universities and SMEs to lay valid foundations for a constructive dialogue between the two opposite poles.