A Typology of Creativity in Fashion Design and Development

Abstract

Creatively harnessing the zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, and translating its influence into unique, timely, and marketable merchandise has been the key to survival of fashion-focused companies since the dawn of the twentieth century. We combined a cognitive perspective on creativity with cultural materialism to develop probing questions for a grounded theory study of the question: How does the creative process for design and development function in the global fashion industry of the twenty-first century? A typology for creativity in fashion design and development emerged from data gathered in a series of in-depth interviews in an international context. We defined Leadership Creativity and Adaptive Creativity at extreme ends of a continuum. Leadership Creativity overrules current archetypes and shifts the sector in a new direction while Adaptive Creativity integrates existing paradigms into a direction the sector is already trending. This typology outlines eight descriptive attributes relating to the environment in which fashion design and development functions, and designates distinct components of those attributes that categorize the creative type. The majority of work in fashion design and development today reflects Adaptive Creativity. Specifically naming and describing these attributes and the interplay between Leadership Creativity and Adaptive Creativity, the typology lends structure to otherwise ambiguous parameters related to creativity in fashion design and development.