Innovation in the fashion show design, a collaborative project between architecture, fashion and design students

Resumen

Nowadays, new pedagogical methods are necessary, especially in order to bring students closer to real problems, and to make them work into interdisciplinary teams, as they will be do in professional life.

It is true that product design, fashion design, and architecture students are used to work with problem based learning methodology. Therefore, they learn to face real problems as if they were working in a professional network. However, each discipline of design face different kind of challenges, so each kind of students focus creativity in a different way, without working with students of other disciplines.

In that sense, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) offers great opportunities for pedagogical innovation. UPM has three different Schools specialized in different aspects of creativity: Industrial Engineering and Product Design (ETSIDI), Architecture (ETSAM) and Fashion Design (CSDMM). The present project was actually thought in order to make students work together, in interdisciplinary teams as if they were facing a real professional problem.

Professional Fashion shows are a big issue, which requires designing spaces, performances, and other fashion aspects, not only clothes. Architects, product designers, and fashion designers need to work together on it. On the other hand, Mercedes Benz Madrid Fashion Week (MBMFW), the Spanish Fashion Week, is nowadays working on some renewal strategies. Therefore, it seems an interesting opportunity for working on it, asking students to face this renewal as a professional team would do.

Therefore, the students are asked to propose new designs (considering spaces, facilities, and fashion and artistic performances) for the different fashion brands that participate in the MBFW Madrid. As mentioned, students have to be organized into interdisciplinary teams, with architecture, fashion design, and product design students, working actively in order to solve their own challenge.

On the other hand, considering pedagogical methods, the first challenge was to organize more than 150 students from three different backgrounds. In that sense, the challenge was concentrated in one month of intensive work with weekly activities in the different venues of the University (Architecture, Product Design, and Fashion Design). Then, each week, students were asked to go to a different University centre, where a professor taught them some specific methods and knowledge. Big teaching spaces were prepared for group work and discussion, as in real professional meeting spaces.
Moreover, in order to make the challenge be closer to a real professional problem, a final session was planned in which each student group had to present its proposal to a professional jury. The jury was chaired by Charo Izquierdo, the Director of the real Mercedes Benz Madrid Fashion Week (MBMFW), who gave a professional feedback, similar to how she does in her professional practice.

According to the material developed by students, and also in accordance to Charo Izquierdo criteria, the final results were really impressive and innovative. Collaborative and interdisciplinary work was really rewarding for students, not only as a new experience, but also because of the level of every proposal.