Consumer-centered collaborative design of fashion clothing brands: a communication and organizational structure study

Abstract

After analyzing the organizational structure and communication of three original Chinese fashion clothing brands, researchers argue that collaborative design is useful for achieving a common goal, communicating, and sharing information among consumers and stakeholders from the brand. Researchers summarized the design process in three structure models as balanced group structure, unified group structure, and radial group structure. Based on the unified group structure, two experimental projects are adopted to examine how to keep communication working effectively in the brands’ organizational structure. The results and feedback from the two experimental projects show that collaborative design improved the quality of design service. The study proposes a communicating structure model and interacting with the consumer and group members (stakeholders) that contribute to the achievement of modular design and collaborative design system setup. The limitation of the study is that it has not covered all stakeholders of brands’ organizational structures and the model needs to be enhanced.