Fashion. Innovation. Research. Evolution (F.I.R.E)

Project Outcomes

FIREup was designated by the AHRC as a pilot project of 15 months, testing ways of engaging research with the fashion designer sector, and consultation was maintained throughout, with AHRC representatives attending the final dissemination event. The project opened a new space (both offline and online) for collaboration between designer fashion businesses and academic researchers to catalyse innovation, bring research closer to the industry and stimulate sustainable business development through brokering new research relationships and mentoring. The academic/industry community that was established has continued and developed within further research projects.

The FIREup project was targeted at SMEs in the designer fashion sector, a high proportion of which are micro fashion enterprises with less than 10 employees (some sole traders), under £250,000 turnover and 3-5 years trading record. This was the community that most readily engaged with the FIREup workshop activities and funding call. Via an industry survey and targeted interviews, insights were clearly defined into the needs of this sector, which has the agility and capacity for high levels of innovation, but is time- and resource-poor. 

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The FIREup project researched the needs and interests of micro fashion businesses, and developed typologies and ontologies that underpinned the creation of a prototype online platform for knowledge exchange dedicated to the designer fashion sector. Based on identified topics, the content of interest to this community was taken directly to its members via a unique Twitter engine, developed specifically for the project, to deliver a curated feed of research information and potential opportunities. 

• To document the FIREup catalyst projects and their collaborative processes, five films were created, publicly available on the FIREup Vimeo site and FIRE website. The films are a valuable tool for communicating the nature of the FIREup project and provide insights into the under-researched designer fashion sector to both industry and academic communities. Communication was also facilitated via short animations to engage designers with the project. 
   

• The practical results of the FIREup project were presented at the AHRC Creative Economy Showcase event held in London in March 2014, and a detailed report was provided to AHRC to inform the development of future policy on the funding of fashion research. 
   

• A conference paper was presented by Sandy Black at the 2016 Global Fashion Conference at Stockholm University, entitled “Reconciling innovation with environmental and economic sustainability: collaborative research with design-led fashion enterprise.”
   

• The insights from the FIRE project research fed directly into the development of the following AHRC-funded project Rethinking Fashion Design Entrepreneurship: Fostering Sustainable Practices, based at CSF, with partners from Middlesex University and the Open University.
   

• The RCUK NEMODE (New Economic Models in the Digital Economy) funded workshop “What’s Digital about Fashion Design: Fashion Technology and the Digital Economy” was designed to help fashion designers to understand technologies for new economic models in the digital economy. It took place in Oct 2015 and a report What’s Digital About Fashion Design? was produced for the councils’ initiative NEMODE NETWORK+. This gave an overview of relevant technologies and the opportunities and barriers to the adoption of digital technologies for new business models specifically in the designer fashion SME sector.