PUBLICATION | The Happy Feet Fashion Wearable Project: Co-Creation and Collaboration

Abstract

This case study explores the challenges encountered in collaboration and iterative prototyping by a UK design entrepreneur during the co-creation of a fashion wearable product: an interactive massaging shoe that combines artisanal handloom materials with conductive thread. The collaborative process and stages of co-creation are documented and constituted part of a Masters project in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at London College of Fashion. The collaboration between a fashion student and an electrical engineer, resulted in cross-disciplinary thinking to generate ‘workable' ideas and product prototypes. Drawing on the co-design model, the case study maps the design evolution in fashion wearables, records the stages of ideation and documents the collaboration between artisans and engineers to develop the prototypes for this project. At each stage of the process, the challenges and barriers to concept and prototype realization are explained.