A Platform for Upcoming Fashion Designers

Abstract

In the mid-90s Fashion Designing became and established industry in the Sri Lankan society, and with the beginning of the 21st century Fashion Design started to grow as a mainstream industry in Sri Lanka with professional fashion academies and the Apparel Industry started blooming in the society where currently it has become one of the largest export earning industries in the country. Yet, the studies show that there are many novice fashion designers who are struggling to come back up within the Fashion Market in Sri Lanka though there is great potential for them within the present market. The aim of this project is to help those fashion designers to overcome these struggles by giving them the necessary support and resources in one platform for them to increase their knowledge in the industry and also to showcase their talents as a fashion designer. Therefore, the project concentrates on tackling these struggles faced by the designers to build their own brand and come into the fashion industry. To design an efficient project various factors such as limitations of a fashion designer, current situation of the fashion industry, the apparel industry of Sri Lanka was taken into consideration and analyzed using existing literature and applications. Interviews with the professional fashion designers and questionnaires to the upcoming designers were given to further validated the results of the findings done by literature reviews. The findings which were obtained through the interviews and the survey indicates that a platform for the novice fashion designers will help them to get into the industry much easier than attempting alone. Based on the results, a web application was designed and developed for the fashion designers who are struggling to get into the industry. This solution guide the designers to maintain their own brand image to the target audience while making sales, and has enable them to connect with manufacturers to convert designs into ready-made products and to connect with the experts in the industry to be guided with the necessities of the industry. The application was evaluated by experts and non-experts, to establish a successful, highly praised application in helping the novice fashion designers with the necessary guidelines to be carried out to be successful brand image in the future.