Buying Habits
1-3 hours
1-2 days
Discussion / Group activity
Collect
Description
Understanding consumer patterns for buying may ignite new ideas for a future fashion system, that is a sustainable alternative to the existing one. This activity proposes that students meet their future customer to collect insights on the motives and desires that drive us in desiring and acquiring new clothes.
How might we use people's aspirations for buying clothes as inspiration for new ideas?
Links to Pillar(s)
Cultural - Economic - Environmental - Social
Delivery
STEP 1: GROUP
Ask students to interview each other or consumers on the street on their buying habits and have students visualise their insights. Questions could be:
How often do you purchase new clothes?
When was the last time you purchased clothes?
What kinds of clothes do you buy?
How much money do you spend on clothes (and shoes and accessories) in a month/in a year?
STEP 2: CLASS
Ask students to present their visualisations and insights and use these as a basis for a plenary discussion.
This Activity Links To
The creation of visualisations of findings from interviews.
Suggested Readings
Fuad-Luke, A. 2009. Chapter 4. Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 onwards in: Design Activism - Beautiful strangeness for a sustainable world, Earthscan, London, pp. 77-138
Burns, B. 2010. Re-evaluating Obsolescence and Planning for it. In Cooper, T. (eds.) 'Longer Lasting Products: Alternatives to the Throwaway Society'. MPG Books Group, pp. 39-61