Faboulous? Beutiful? chic? Those might be words by fashion designers to describe clothes they find interesting, and also by “users” (costumers in Fashion jargon), to describe why they like the clothes they are wearing. ultimately, these are words to describe that something is working. Perhaps it makes you feel sexy, mature, more professional or just comfortable enough. The only thing you know, is that today, you want to trust those old jeans because you know how the fit and what image people get when they see you. 

Garments are closer to the user than any other product or design industry talking about UX these days. But why the term UX is not widely known in fashion design?. Maybe that is about to change:

My friend Greg Climer , an artist, fashion designer, tech graduate and professor in the Fashion School of Design at Parsons. introduced me to Local Wisdom . a research project on fashion design that focuses on usability and the user experience surrounding garments. Greg himself is launching a course in user centered design for Fashion this spring. 

Local Wisdom combines ethnographic research methods with design process. It gathers stories and images from the public of how people use their clothes at community photo shoots. These use practices are then the basis and inspiration for design projects in the UK, USA, Canada, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand which aim to amplify these practices and explore their integration into larger programmes or original business models.

I am sure there is a lot to learn for us, UX people, designers for the user experience or whatever title you may want to come up with , about clothing design. Fashion designers may not know this yet, but their discipline is perhaps the mother of User Experience Design.

image courtesy of Local Wisdom