Critical design: a new vision for fashion design studies

Abstract

This contribution proposes to look out for new inspiration in sociocritical design discourses for an innovative approach in research and education in the discipline of fashion design. For this reason, it is not only investigating sociocritical design in theory and practice within the field of critical design but also interested in the feasibility of the method of discourse analysis as an innovative approach for this specific research area. A vivid and elaborated academic discourse can be found in critical design studies and, simultaneously, openness for systemic change in design as a practice and the designer’s role for the future. In contrast, the status quo in fashion design research is on a very manageable level and locates itself, e.g. in Germany, rather in fashion theory of historical or sociological context instead of questioning fashion design practice of today. Hence, this contribution also seeks to support a livelier exchange in fashion design research with propositioning discourse analysis, more precisely the Sociology Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD), as an innovative research method within this area.

Keywords:

• Critical design
• fashion design education
• innovation in fashion design
• fashion design education research
• systemic change
• discourse analysis
• SKAD

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carolin Ermer

Carolin Ermer is working as a research fellow at HTW Berlin and is currently finalizing her Ph.D. at TU Berlin at the intersection of fashion design research and social science. Her main areas of interest are transformation in the context of design education and competencies and learning approaches for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).