A Typology Of Creativity In Fashion Design And Development

Article Title 9
Fashion Practice, Volume 6, Issue 1, pp. 9–36
DOI: 10.2752/175693814X13916967094759
Reprints available directly from the Publishers.
Photocopying permitted by licence only.
© 2014 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
Mary Ruppert-
Stroescu and
Jana M. Hawley
Mary Ruppert-Stroescu, Assistant
Professor at Oklahoma State University,
applies creativity research to sustainable
design, wearable electronics, and
teaching. Her academic career was
preceded by fashion industry experience
in Europe.
mary.ruppert-stroescu@okstate.edu
Jana M. Hawley is Professor and
Department Chair at University of
Missouri. She is a HERS Fellow, SEC
Fellow, and a Fulbright Scholar. Her
scholarship includes sustainability and
global initiatives.
hawleyj@missouri.edu
A Typology of
Creativity in
Fashion Design
and Development
Abstract
Creatively harnessing the zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, and translating
its influence into unique, timely, and marketable merchandise has been
the key to survival of fashion-focused companies since the dawn of the
twentieth century. We combined a cognitive perspective on creativity
with cultural materialism to develop probing questions for a grounded
theory study of the question: How does the creative process for de-
sign and development function in the global fashion industry of the
twenty-first century? A typology for creativity in fashion design and
development emerged from data gathered in a series of in-depth inter-

10 Mary Ruppert-Stroescu and Jana M. Hawley
views in an international context. We defined Leadership Creativity
and Adaptive Creativity at extreme ends of a continuum. Leadership
Creativity overrules current archetypes and shifts the sector in a new
direction while Adaptive Creativity integrates existing paradigms into
a direction the sector is already trending. This typology outlines eight
descriptive attributes relating to the environment in which fashion de-
sign and development functions, and designates distinct components of
those attributes that categorize the creative type. The majority of work
in fashion design and development today reflects Adaptive Creativity.
Specifically naming and describing these attributes and the interplay
between Leadership Creativity and Adaptive Creativity, the typology
lends structure to otherwise ambiguous parameters related to creativity
in fashion design and development.
KEYWORDS: creativity, fashion industry, fashion design, product
development
Introduction
Creatively harnessing the zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, and translat-
ing its influence into unique, timely, and marketable merchandise has
been the key to survival of fashion-focused companies since the dawn
of the twentieth century. The fashion industry of today is influenced by
economic, geo-political, cultural, and technological forces. This con-
stant evolution prompts the question: How does the creative process of
fashion design and development (FDD) function in the global fashion
industry of the early twenty-first century? In order to properly address
this subject, we must expand our perception of creativity to include
not only a creative product, but also the creativity found in the system
(Eckert and Stacey 2003) of developing all products, whether or not the
end result exemplifies characteristics typically considered to be creative.
Research about creativity comes from diverse areas, such as psych-
ology, business, engineering, design, education, mathematics, computer
science, and philosophy. Scholars from many of these fields agree that cre-
ativity takes diverse forms (Boden 1990; Florida 2002; Sternberg 2006;
Sternberg et al. 2002; Weisberg 2006). Defining creativity is a complex
process (Cross et al. 1996), however creative ideas and products should
be both novel and useful (Boden 1990; Weisberg 2006). Classifying cre-
ativity types is useful in order to understand the “nature of creativity”
(Sternberg 2006: 1). Creativity has been categorized as personal, where
the discovery may be novel for the individual, but has already been real-
ized by someone else, and historic, where the discovery is novel for the
entire culture/society (Boden 1990). Accepting creativity is important
(Florida 2005), yet people sometimes demonstrate aversion to creativ-
ity even when they know that it fulfills a need (Mueller et al. 2012).

A Typology of Creativity in Fashion Design and Development 11
Creative thinking draws on the same intellectual resources as ordin-
ary thinking (Boden 1990; Weisberg 2006), and different types of
creativity have been identified in relation to the creative contribution to
the field (Boden 1990; Sternberg et al. 2002; Weisberg 2006). Artistic
creativity, a process of developing an idea with no specific goal, has
been distinguished from scientific creativity where the problem space is
usually defined (Boden 1990; Weisberg 2006).
The steps of the creative process can range in number, and gener-
ally include stages related to preparation, incubation, illumination, and
evaluation (Boden 1990). These stages have been delineated in general
terms (Ambrose et al. 2003; Boden 1990; Sartre et al. 2010), in relation
to the designer and his or her interface with the product development
process (Aspelund 2006; Cross 1997; Cross et al. 1996; Dorst and Cross
2001), and in relation to fashion design (Fiore et al. 1996; LaBat and
Sokolowski 1999; Lamb and Kallal 1992; Suwa and Tversky 1997).
Creativity related to fashion design has distinct characteristics. In
addition to providing a novel (Weisberg 2006) consumable product
(Rhodes 1961) fashion design creativity has the supplementary require-
ment of creating value (Csikszentmihalyi 1996) by instilling desire and
need for change (Kawamura 2005; Wilson 2003). Conceptual models
considering personal creativity have been developed to shape inquiry
and understanding of the individual’s process of FDD (Bailey 1998;
Lamb and Kallal 1992; Le Pechoux 2000; Mete 2006). In addition,
attention has been given to the practice of developing creativity in
the teaching/learning environment for fashion design (Dragoo 2004;
Karpova et al. 2011; Kim and Farrell-Beck 2003; Lee 2005; Murray
2005; Robinson 2011; Rudd and Chattaraman 2005; Rudd and Reilly
2004; Simpson 2004).
This article extends inquiry related to creativity in FDD by examining
the larger cultural context (Hamilton 1997: 8), addressing the fashion
industry that is a part of the fashion system (Hamilton 1997; Vinken
2005). The results of this analysis provide structure to otherwise am-
biguous parameters (Hamilton 1997) of creativity related to the prac-
tice of FDD.
Defining the Fashion Industry
The term fashion can apply to both tangible and intangible activities.
Behaviors ranging from one’s choice of dress or adornment, one’s
manner of socializing with peers, and one’s choice of language and
method of communication are only a few examples. These behaviors
contribute to the fashion system (Hamilton 1997; Vinken 2005), yet
can exist independently from any commercial enterprise. Because the
purpose of this article is to contribute to the understanding of creativity
in relation to FDD in the context of the commercially driven fashion
industry, the following section will clarify the definition of the fashion
industry.

In the context of the fashion industry, style indicates an item with a
specific set of characteristics (Conway 1997) that is adopted by a group
of people (Diamond and Diamond 2002) for a limited amount of time
(Wilson 2003). In addition to the tangible characteristics of the style,
fashion products are embodied with an abstract force (Babcock 1986)
whose integral components are novelty and change (Kawamura 2005).
This abstract force is separate from clothing or any other vehicle that
may be used to convey the fashion concept (Kawamura 2005); however,
to some extent fashion products are dependent on the physical artifacts
that provide a tangible representation of the concept driving the desire
for novelty and change (Wilson 2003). In summary, fashion is a system
that “serves as a means by which goods are systematically invested and
divested of meaningful properties” (McCracken 1986, 76) that is “a
function of any complex, industrial nation-state, and has the respon-
sibility for the production, marketing, and merchandising of products
associated with the construction of individual appearance” (Hamilton
1997: 2). The fashion industry, therefore, focuses on the commercial
activities within the fashion system (Hamilton 1997; Vinken 2005), and
addresses many economic levels, from low-priced budget products to
bespoke products selling for tens of thousands of dollars each, and all
price levels in between (Keiser and Garner 2012).
This complex system operates within the context of industrial socie-
ties that “willingly accept, indeed encourage, the radical changes that
result from deliberate human effort and the effect of anonymous social
forces” (McCracken 1986: 76). Today’s fashion industry endures be-
cause of change as it simultaneously reflects and affects the culture in
which it exists. In order to remain successful, companies must change the
aesthetic properties of a product on a regular basis, carefully cultivating
the desire for and need of the new product by transferring to the new
item an abstract force similar to the one that created the meaning that
initially pushed the outgoing product into popularity. Consequently, we
define the fashion industry as all companies or individuals involved in
the creation, production, promotion, and sale of items that: (a) have
novel and specific aesthetic and functional properties, (b) trigger psy-
chological reactions related to desire and need, and (c) are adopted by a
group of people for a limited amount of time.
The environment of today’s fashion designers is characterized by
increased competition, enhanced consumer awareness, and rapidly de-
veloping technology. Fashion industry competition is fierce due to the
combination of immediate and rapid dissemination of information about
fashion trends, the lack of copyright protection, and the ability of the
competition to quickly respond to change. In this environment, it can be
extremely difficult to secure full financial benefit from creative fashion
products. Overt, rapid copying of fashion designs poses a multitude of
problems for the fashion leaders, not the least of which is the inability to
amortize investment in the process required to produce creative products.

The multifaceted phenomena that fall under the fashion umbrella
include cultural (Hamilton 1997; Kawamura 2004; Vinken 2005;
Wilson 2003) and sociocultural dimensions (Vinken 2005; Workman
and Freeburg 2009). Fashion has been examined as a sub-field of soci-
ology (Kawamura 2005), compared to fine and performing art (Wilson
2003), and examined in the business, marketing, consumer behavior,
and management (Cillo and Verona 2008) literature. The apparel and
textile product segment of the fashion industry is one of the largest
commercial enterprises in the global marketplace (Kunz and Garner
2007) and includes the manufacture and the subsequent wholesale and
retail sale of fibers, yarns, fabrics, apparel, accessories, jewelry, and even
perfume for men, women, and children as well as home furnishings and
a variety of textile soft goods (Dickerson 2003). On November 4, 2011,
the World Trade Organization listed on its website that in 2010, textiles
and clothing alone contributed US$602 billion to world trade and rep-
resented 4.1 percent of the world’s merchandise exports. Basic products
do not change radically from one season to the next, while the driving
force behind fashion products is change (Kunz and Garner 2007).
Researching the fashion industry has traditionally been marginalized
in academic circles, criticized in feminist circles and reduced to simple
buying and selling in business circles (Kawamura 2005; Vinken 2005;
Wilson 2003). Obvious strides have been made, however, that validate
the dialogue regarding the phenomenon of fashion. Within the past fif-
teen years, several highly regarded peer-reviewed academic journals that
focus on fashion have become well established. Furthermore, the fash-
ion, academic, and journalistic communities were startled in 2006 when
Washington, DC fashion columnist Robin Givhan received the Pulitzer
Prize for criticism “for her witty, closely observed essays that transform
fashion criticism into cultural criticism” (www.pulitzer.org n.d.).
This overview of the fashion industry provides a foundation for un-
derstanding the cultural environment of FDD professionals and reveals
a complex and multifaceted context where the nature of the fashion
designer’s work is strongly influenced by factors outside of his or her
control. This article provides structure to those factors that facilitate a
better understanding of how environmental shifts influence the creative
process in order for fashion designers and product developers to adapt
to and thrive in this changing environment.
Conceptual Framework
When addressing creative FDD, attention was given to the cultural sys-
tem (Hamilton 1997; Tylka and Calogero 2010) in which the designer
functions, a context particularly characterized by rapid change (Eckert
and Stacey 2003). Our cultural analysis was rooted in an anthropo-
logical tradition. We combined a cognitive perspective on creativity

(Weisberg 2006) with cultural materialism (Harris 1979; White 1959)
to develop probing questions that explored creativity in FDD through
a series of in-depth interviews in an international context employing
the grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and
Corbin 1990). The areas of inquiry were shaped through attention to
the components of culture related to ideology, social structure, and
technology (Hamilton 1987; Harris 1979; White 1959). By examin-
ing the interaction of these three layers of culture, motivations and
explanations for changing phenomena were revealed. Understanding
the cultural context is important to fashion design (Eckert and Stacey
2003) and this approach to the cultural system was proven effective for
analyzing the fashion industry (Hamilton 1987).
From this cultural paradigm, areas of inquiry framed around the
question, “How does the creative process for design and development
function in the global fashion industry of the twenty-first century?”
were compiled following the cognitive creativity precept that “ideas and
tangible products that are novel and useful are assumed to emerge from
the application of ordinary, fundamental cognitive processes to existing
knowledge structures” (Ward 2007). Leading questions explored the
participant’s ideology, worldview, and values by addressing the partici-
pant’s etic and emic perspectives regarding the creative process in gen-
eral, the participant’s personal experience with fashion design, and the
fashion industry. Social structure, or the organizations that frame the
designer’s environment, was perceived through examining components
of the working atmosphere, company structure, product distribution
strategies, and overall supply chain. Participants were asked to consider
aspects of technology related to artifacts found in their environments,
technological tools that facilitated the creative development process,
and technology that facilitated the flow of information.
Investigating the cultural environment in which a fashion designer
functions from the above perspective initiated a process of probing data
collection and analysis employing inductive and deductive reasoning
that led to the development of a typology for creativity in FDD. The
intent of this exploratory study was to analyze and categorize themes
drawn from the individual interview data. By linking the interview data
to relevant literature and environmental factors inherent in the global
fashion industry, we established a typology of creativity for fashion de-
sign and development.
Methods
We chose to explore creativity in FDD through a specific industry seg-
ment, a practice that has proven successful in creativity studies when
focusing on specific, easily identifiable, and universal aspects of that do-
main (Dorst and Cross 2001). The following distinctive characteristics

of the luxury fashion industry render its lens particularly appropriate
for this study: (a) strong brand definition (Miller and Mills 2012; Ward
et al. 2006), (b) easily perceivable rapid change (Cappetta et al. 2006;
Eckert and Stacey 2003), (c) universal patterns of design development
(Dorst and Cross 2001; Eckert and Stacey 2003; Stacey and Eckert
2010; Suwa and Tversky 1997), and (d) proven applicability to diverse
product and price categories (Cappetta et al. 2006; Eckert and Stacey
2003).
Producing creative, expensive apparel and presenting it in high-
profile fashion shows has been recognized as an effective approach to
fashion brand development (Ward et al. 2006). Those fashion brands
influence the overall forecasting process (Eckert and Stacey 2003) and
in turn enable further commercial exploitation of the brand image
through licensing to assorted products that enhance revenue by expand-
ing brand reach to diverse consumer populations and selling at price
points that range from couture to mass market. An example is found
in the Jean Paul Gaultier brand where in addition to the company’s
couture and designer ready-to-wear lines, they sold a capsule collection
at the Target budget store chain. Rapid change is observed when the
new, distinguishable products are released at least twice a year, with the
norm being five times a year: spring, summer, fall, winter, and resort
(Keiser and Garner 2012). In addition, the luxury fashion system has
proven to delineate concepts that can be applied to innovative design
development in the small electronics industry because of the dynamic
and easily noticeable importance given to stylistic changes (Cappetta et
al. 2006). The patterns of the fashion design process also find parallels
in the fields of industrial design (Dorst and Cross 2001), engineering
(Eckert and Stacey 2003), graphic design (Stacey and Eckert 2010), and
architecture (Suwa and Tversky 1997).
Participants
Participants were chosen for this study based on the principle of theo-
retical sampling (Creswell 1998) to have similar characteristics of pro-
fessional experience in the creative phase of apparel development for
the luxury fashion industry yet diverse attributes to strengthen the range
of responses that, through constant comparison, lead to an effective
grounded theory study. To recruit participants, a number of design-
ers, trend forecasters, and industry executives in France, the UK, and
the USA were approached. Fashion industry executives were included
if they either administered design departments or managed designers.
Fourteen people agreed to participate in this study. Figure 1 provides
an overview of the range of participant characteristics in relation to
age, experience, education, birth countries, nationalities, residence, and
professional activity.

Among the participants are professionals of similar profiles from
diverse countries. Examples include: a trend forecaster who worked
in France and one in the USA; a French haute couture designer and a
New York designer who sold at the luxury/couture price point; a free-
lance knitwear designer from France and a freelance shoe designer from
Figure 1
Participant characteristics.

London; a women’s wear designer from the USA and a women’s wear
designer from France; a textile designer based in France and one based
in the USA. The President of the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt a Porter et
des Couturiers in Paris was not paralleled with his counterpart in the
USA, the President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America,
who refused the interview. This participant’s executive-level industry
experience was paralleled with a former Vice President of Design of a
major US apparel corporation. Obtaining a diverse yet cohesive body
of participants was an important component of the research design in
order to include a range of perspectives relevant to the FDD process.
Variation in participant characteristics lent credibility to this explor-
atory study, providing the potential for a wide range of responses, while
unifying characteristics related to education, experience, and current
professional activity provided necessary cohesiveness.
Data Collection
Data were collected by completing extensive interviews of fashion design-
ers and industry professionals in an international context. Completing
long interviews (McCracken 1988) has a proven record of usefulness in
the study of the creative process (Ambrose et al. 2003; Csikszentmihalyi
1996; Gardner 1993). The interview schedule, developed to explore the
overarching question, “How does the creative process for design and
development function in the global fashion industry of the twenty-first
century?” began with probing questions to generate general comments
about creativity and the participant’s creative process. When rapport
was established, questions focused on creativity in FDD inquiring about
sources of inspiration and the overall working environment.
All of the interviews covered each of these domains of inquiry,
although none of the interviews strictly stayed with only the pre-es-
tablished questions. The interviews were digitally recorded and tran-
scribed by one of the researchers. By mutual agreement, the identity of
the participants was kept anonymous in the interview data. Data were
manually analyzed using the open coding (Creswell 1998) method after
each interview. According to the grounded theory tradition (Denzin and
Lincoln 2000), each interview was analyzed immediately. Initial data
analysis consisted of identifying concepts, categorizing, and searching
for seminal relationships among them, while constantly comparing
(Glaser and Strauss 1967) in order to discover themes from the data
independent of the domains of inquiry.
At the onset of this grounded theory study the overarching structure
of the probing questions centered on creativity from the participant’s
perspective. Succeeding interviews were affected by the insight gleaned,
either confirming or disconfirming categories and in some cases evolv-
ing into new directions. For example, as the interviews progressed, the

distinct nature of the larger cultural context of creativity in FDD was re-
vealed through the data, thus prompting us to establish new categories
and to adjust interviews to integrate inquiry about the macro environ-
ment. A category of responses emerged around the idea that creativity
exists at multiple levels of the FDD process (Dorst and Cross 2001).
Another theme that evolved from the data relates to the difference be-
tween “personal creativity and historic creativity” (Boden 1990). In ad-
dition, data revealed responses related to system-level creativity (Dorst
and Cross 2001). The data were collected until a point of repeatable
regularities. Further analysis established relationships between the cat-
egories, resulting in theory that is grounded in the data.
Data Analysis
After completion of all of the interviews, data were introduced into
NvivoTM
software and the open coding process continued. The process
of open coding led to axial coding (Creswell 1998), as variables emerged
that led to specific phenomena and concepts. A posteriori themes devel-
oped that related to those phenomena. The NvivoTM
data were printed
and additional themes were hand-coded. The final phase in the data
review process was to reread each of the interview transcripts, further
evaluating and organizing the findings where appropriate, ensuring that
data for the categories were saturated (Creswell 1998). Triangulation
was used to demonstrate the saturation of responses and the accuracy
of the analysis (Denzin and Lincoln 2000; Kimchi et al. 1991). In rela-
tion to the saturation of responses, triangulation revealed verification
of data collection through evidence of response repetition from diverse
participants.
Results
Themes drawn from the data relate to: (a) the distinct nature of crea-
tivity in the fashion industry, (b) the importance and influence of the
market and the consumer, (c) the interrelationship of creativity, price,
and brand image, (d) the interdependence of creativity types, and finally
(e) the typology of creativity in FDD. We discuss below participant re-
sponses related to each of these themes that led us, through inductive
and deductive reasoning, to recognize two equally important types of
creativity in FDD. Building upon Sternberg’s (2006) propulsion model
of creative contributions we define Leadership Creativity and Adaptive
Creativity at extreme ends of a continuum. Leadership Creativity over-
rules current archetypes and shifts the sector in a new direction while
Adaptive Creativity integrates existing paradigms into a direction the
sector is already trending.

The Distinct Nature of Creativity in the Fashion Industry
Creativity is present in the fashion industry in distinct forms, and atten-
tion to creativity permeates all areas. It “is the mantra of (the fashion)
industry. It is the beginning and the end of the conversation. We all say
we want new thoughts, we want creativity, we believe that we support
creativity. It is the word on everybody’s lips” (Interview participant B,
August 14, 2007). Creativity that rejects the current paradigm and leads
the field into a new direction was described in terms of “historical crea-
tivity” (Boden 1990). “It is really changing the history of costume. To do
things which have never been done, or anyway to interpret them in a way
which was never done, as of course everything is taken from the past”
(Interview participant F, July 17, 2007). “The creator creates history, he
doesn’t follow history. It is not a soldier, it is not someone who follows, it
is someone who brings an image … the true creators … are very rare by
definition in the entire world” (Interview participant D, July 10, 2007).
The data raised awareness of a segment of FDD that does not focus on
determining a revolutionary product, but on adapting existing fashion
products, putting the emphasis on the process of bringing the product to
the consumer. This manner of adapting existing fashion products points
to “synthesizing current paradigms” (Sternberg 2006: 96) that push the
field forward in a predetermined direction. For example, “creativity
doesn’t have to be weird … [but] creativity is connected to the word
new, or fresh. You know, just the next step. You don’t have to go all the
way to the top of the ladder, just move it along” (Interview participant
J, September 12, 2007). Being creative in FDD doesn’t necessarily mean
focusing on making a completely new product. “For … the Forever
21’s, There is creativity in translating what the other people are doing
into your price point” (Interview participant D, July 10, 2007). In this
example, the creative emphasis would be at the system level (Dorst and
Cross 2001) of producing the product, and would not be as evident
when examining final product.
Fashion Design Creativity in Relation to Marketability and
the Consumer
Creativity in fashion design is linked to market position (Eckert and
Stacey 2003) and creating value (Csikszentmihalyi 1999); however,
these two concepts can be considered inherently conflicting paradigms.
“It is by virtue of the laws of imitation that we obey fashion. It is nearly
by a protestation against these laws of imitation that fashion tries to be
creative” (Interview participant D, July 10, 2007). Adopting a consumer
focus, often seen as providing commercial success, can stifle creativity
that is intended to redirect the field, or at the very least predetermine the
outcome to some degree.
Because the purpose of fashion design is to create a product with a
practical function, the creative fashion designer’s task is to attend to
the consumer’s needs in a subtle manner, creating a harmony that the

consumer recognizes and connects to, while at the same time defining
product characteristics that are unique and serve a purpose.
Why is he (the designer) successful? Because he is subconsciously,
at the base, he is in the mind of each client that he addresses.
There is a transmission: why does a client buy? Because she rec-
ognizes, subconsciously, when looking at a designer’s work, a
harmony that she feels. (Interview participant D, July 10, 2007)
The harmony that the customer feels does not happen by chance. This
designer went on to describe the macro environment and the way in
which the rules of a target market evolve.
The world is rigid, especially the capitalist world we live in. We
receive so much media and information and images that form
our taste, and it is from there that certain targets are launched in
rapport with each market segment. Together with our knowledge
of the real process [and the] receptivity of images of this or that
subject, when we are a good designer we try to create a collection
with the goal of fitting within the rules of the target. (Interview
participant D, July 10, 2007)
FDD that rejects current paradigms was described by a trend fore-
caster as the antithesis of marketing-based product development that
focuses on defining the customer’s needs.
They do focus groups, questionnaires to interview people, etc.
And that is all stuff that taints the creative process. We (at my
trend forecasting company) are very turned off by that. I think
that fashion designers who are very creative, especially high-end
fashion designers, are turned off for the same reasons. Everybody
feels like it’s a publicity machine; something evil. (Interview par-
ticipant E, July 8, 2007)
Commercial success in the fashion industry includes gaining access
to the “cultural arbiters of fashion referring to the extant general cul-
tural system in which both the fashion system and individual fashion
consumers operate” (Hamilton 1997). These include the fashion gate-
keepers who decide which products to feature in magazines, online, on
celebrities, and in retail stores. Although other factors most certainly
come in to play, obtaining the attention of the fashion gatekeepers is
often dependent on the creativity of a designer’s work (Interview par-
ticipant F, July 17, 2007).
The reality of all these big brands with all this marketing has
also [been] trying to cut out the young designers because they

[big brands] take all the space in the magazines as advertisers
and all the space in the [editorial] pages because the editors use
them to get them to advertise more. They take all the air from the
rising designers. So the only way to get a brand to rise is to sell.
And to sell the only way is to keep the creativity, so it is related.
(Interview participant I, July 19, 2007)
The Interrelationship of Creativity, Price, and Brand Image
Participants commented about the level of sophistication applied when
translating design ideas into products that can be manufactured in ap-
propriate quantities, meeting both the aesthetic and economic expecta-
tions of the company and the target market. Interview participant F
below highlights the importance of creativity to a brand’s image regard-
less of the product’s price.
Today [because of globalization] in a sense the world is one coun-
try as the frontiers and barriers fade. [Globalization] means that
we can produce everywhere so that price is no longer a divisive
issue. The new technologies make this possible for everyone. You
can design in London or in NY, print in [New] Delhi and pro-
duce in Hong Kong. The differentiation is given by creativity. The
creativity that really builds the brand is more important than the
price and generally the product … Creativity becomes the neces-
sary element for a brand to become international. It [creativity]
supersedes marketing in importance. (Interview participant F,
July 17, 2007)
However, continued development of creative products is especially im-
portant if a designer’s image or brand is known to focus on innovation
and leadership.
For us, the clients and the press and everybody always look for
something very creative. It is hard, because sometimes you want
to be simple, and at the same time if it is simple, they don’t even
look at that. Like Dries Van Noten, like Alaïa, [the collection] has
to keep the hand but at the same time has to be creative. It (crea-
tivity) is very important. It is 70% of all of the world of fashion.
It is very important. (Interview participant I, July 19, 2007)
One participant, a designer, described a psychological link for the
consumer between a high price point and receptivity to Leadership
Creativity. “I think the main difference between upper-price and lower-
price clothing is that consumers can usually spend more money for
clothing that is more original and more unique” (Interview participant
B, August 14, 2007). At the highest price point, therefore, the design
problem to solve relates to developing a directional, innovative, unique,

superbly crafted product made from the finest materials. “I think it
[creativity] is at a point where it has never been before where because of
the prices going so high we have the freedom and ability to do what we
have never done before” (Interview participant E, July 8, 2007).
This description reflects the concept of divergent thinking (Csiks-
zentmihalyi 1996) that leads to experimental creativity. Experimental
creativity in this context is distinct from Galenson’s (2009) description
in that rather than having imprecise goals, the experimental process in
fashion design is purposeful and directed toward a specific end goal
(Galenson 2009). Parallels can be found, also, in artistic creativity
(Boden 1990; Weisberg 2006) where the creative process is examined
within the context of artistic expression and in Sternberg’s redirection,
proposed as a “type of creativity that rejects current paradigms and at-
tempts to replace them.” We define Leadership Creativity as the process
of focusing on divergent, experimental, and insight-based thinking with
few restrictions and a heightened awareness of craft and technique to
develop products that push the industry into a direction different from
the way it is currently trending.
Leadership Creativity is often found at the highest price point be-
cause it requires investment in research and development (Eckert and
Stacey 2003). “Creation is always expensive by definition” (Interview
participant F, July 17, 2007).
I think that a lot of the time, especially in the luxury industry,
creativity allows more expensive processes to be done and you
know more amazing techniques and more complicated ways and
more complicated patternmaking and all that kind of stuff. So I
think that makes the more creatively made things more expensive,
so I think that people are ready to invest more to have more spe-
cial pieces. (Interview participant E, July 8, 2007)
At the lowest of price points, the problem to solve shifts focus from
the product to the system (Eckert and Stacey 2003) of translating
sophisticated design ideas into products that can be manufactured in
large quantities and have the allure of expensively priced design but
are adapted in such a way to make them attractive to the budget cus-
tomer (Keiser and Garner 2012) from both the aesthetic and economic
standpoints. Designing for the budget price category requires finding
a solution in an environment with specific boundaries and restrictions
and draws on convergent creativity (Runco 2007; Weisberg 2006). In
this case analytic skills employ a scientific methodology (Boden 1990;
Weisberg 2006) to synthesize given paradigms (Sternberg 2006) and the
focus shifts from the product to the development process, emphasizing
a more systems-level of creativity (Dorst and Cross 2001).
Adaptive Creativity is defined as the process of focusing on conver-
gent thinking, analytical and scientific methods that meet the challenge

of creating a product with well-established parameters or limitations
and imply a heightened awareness of operations, management, meth-
ods, and technology.
… it depends on the level of the industry you are working in …
further down the line, as you start working for some of those
other companies, like Forever 21, who are just knocking things
off … These people are creating a look based on someone else’s
look. For the followers, it is more how to translate what the other
people are doing into your price point. There is some creativity in
that, too. (Interview participant G, August 14 2007)
Interdependence of Creativity Types
These two types of creativity are not hierarchical. One is not better
than the other, and they actually feed off of each other. Figure 2 shows
the linkage between Leadership Creativity and Adaptive Creativity.
The predominance of Adaptive Creativity can be seen as a catalyst to
Leadership Creativity, and Adaptive Creativity finds its direction from
Leadership Creativity.
I think a lot of it comes in the way everybody is shopping and
rubbing off items. It looks like … you know the mess about fash-
ion if the merchandiser becomes a designer just by shopping and
picking ten garments and redoing them in a different color. And
if that is what fashion design is today, you know these higher
end designers are just so disgusted by that, they just want to get
back to authenticity. I think that is what is pushing them to do it.
(Interview participant E, July 8, 2007)
Figure 2
The linkage between
Leadership Creativity and
Adaptive Creativity.

Furthering the analysis in this context, we propose that the process
of developing fashion products with novel and specific aesthetic and
functional properties is forced through a cycle that is similar to the tra-
ditional fashion cycle (Keiser and Garner 2012), however Figure 2 high-
lights the manner in which Products with Adaptive Creativity (PAC)
contribute to market saturation that leads to consumer receptivity for,
even desire for, Products with Leadership Creativity (PLC).
Typology of Creativity in Fashion Design and Development
The generation of the Typology of Creativity in Fashion Design and
Development, visually depicted in Figure 3, is a result of concepts that
emerged directly from the data and ideas inspired by the data then
developed through combining existing literature with further industry
analysis at a theoretical level. Having identified the two types of creativ-
ity at extreme ends of a continuum, Leadership Creativity and Adaptive
Creativity, we designated eight attributes related to influences upon cre-
ativity in FDD: (1) research and development, (2) selling price, (3) na-
ture of the product, (4) consumer taste level, (5) technique, (6) number
of designs created and reproduced in a season, (7) consumer perception
and life cycle of the product, and (8) source of design inspiration. When
examining the typology attributes in relation to Leadership Creativity
and Adaptive Creativity, the nature of each attribute is distinct accord-
ing to creativity type (Sternberg 2006).
We chose to create a typology because by definition a typology em-
phasizes categorizing while not implying hierarchy or value. Each type
of creativity is valuable in equal measure to the fashion system and
the industry that has been created around that system. The following
Figure 3
Typology of creativity in fashion
design and development.

discussion characterizes Leadership Creativity and Adaptive Creativity
at two ends of a continuum.
Research and development
Leadership Creativity rejects existing ideas and attempts to supersede
them, therefore requiring an important investment in product research
and development. Dedicating resources to foster exploration and ex-
perimentation in a way that that is unique yet captures the zeitgeist and
leads the industry in a new direction is of primary importance. Adaptive
Creativity chiefly draws from literal representations of the product be-
ing designed, often from recent seasons, choosing components from
existing products and translating them into different products in a way
that follows the direction the industry has already assumed. Research
is limited to determining which existing products will be modified and
how to modify them in a manner that is cohesive with the established
trend and legally allowed.
Selling price
At the two extremes, a Product with Leadership Creativity (PLC) will
be sold at a price corresponding to the luxury market (Miller and Mills
2012), and a Product with Adaptive Creativity (PAC) is expected to be
sold at a low price, corresponding to the budget category (Keiser and
Garner 2012), usually selling for under US$100.
Nature of the product
The nature of the PLC is innovative and directional, distinctly different
from existing products on the market. Developed using divergent think-
ing in a context with few constraints, the product is the expression of
the designer’s creativity. PAC follow given trends for specific industry
segments, and therefore employ convergent thinking while being devel-
oped in an environment with strictly established parameters and many
limitations. The end product does not exemplify particularly high levels
of creativity.
Consumer taste level
Understanding and pleasing the target market’s taste level is an impor-
tant factor to consider when defining the type of creativity. A consumer’s
taste level for our purposes is defined in terms of refined or popular.
Leadership Creativity reflects refined taste, characterized by one who
possesses: (a) receptivity for the unusual, (b) sensibility for the beauty
of subtle and unique design characteristics, (c) an informed aesthetic,
and (d) appreciation for the time and effort required to develop high-
quality products. Popular taste, the focus of Adaptive Creativity, (a)
draws on influences in popular Western culture, especially those related
to sexuality and beauty (b) constructs aesthetic ideals through social
circles, and (c) gives little attention to quality. The creative challenge

when addressing the popular taste level includes satisfying established
parameters related to price, consumer desires, and market constraints
while the creative challenge at the refined level relates more to exploring
and experimenting in a context with few boundaries.
Technique
The techniques emphasized in a PLC reflect the application of exten-
sively developed skills, complex materials, and superb craftsmanship
required for a product of supreme quality. Manual labor and traditional
methods are emphasized. The PAC employs automated techniques and
emphasizes economical materials, methods, and craftsmanship that are
often of inferior quality. Creativity in relation to a PAC is less evident
when observing the final product. The creative significance of a PAC
involves recognizing the techniques employed at the system level (Eckert
and Stacey 2003), especially in relation to efficient management of op-
erations, material procurement, and production methods to bring costs
down.
Number of designs created and reproduced in a season
Collections reflecting Leadership Creativity are produced in low num-
bers, from one to around 100, for example, to maintain exclusivity. The
designers of PAC are expected to generate a high number of designs,
for some companies up to 150 per season, for example, that meet strict
requirements related to price and consumer demand. The PAC is pro-
duced in large numbers, from 1000 to 10,000+ per unit.
Consumer perception and life cycle of the product
The consumer of a PLC considers the purchase an investment. Due to
the high quality of craftsmanship and materials, the PLC endures physi-
cally for an extended time period. Whether the intended usage is for
one or multiple wearings, the PLC fulfills needs related to status and
prestige. The PAC consumer considers the lifespan of the product to be
relatively short. The craftsmanship and materials degrade quickly and
the consumer accepts to dispose of one PAC to replace it with another,
sometimes within a 6-month time period. The PAC fulfills consumer
needs related to belonging and social acceptance.
Source of design inspiration
In order for a fashion collection to be cohesive, designers create
themes around inspirational sources. Designers employing Leadership
Creativity look for inspiration to primary sources that are abstract and
not related to the product being designed. The resulting PLC only re-
flects the inspirational source in subtle, complex ways. Inspiration for
Adaptive Creativity comes from secondary sources, most often by ex-
amining literal representations of the product being designed that have
been recently released on the market (Eckert and Stacey 2003). The

resulting products resemble the inspirational product with identifiable
characteristics.
Discussion
The above section delineates characteristics of Leadership Creativity and
Adaptive Creativity at the two extremes of a continuum. We will discuss
here the complexity of the middle range of that continuum, combining
our analysis with existing literature and participant responses. While
understanding the extremes provides clarity, we have discovered these
two overarching commonalities between the two types of creativity:
l Both types of creativity require “thinking differently” (Sternberg
et al. 2002; Interview participant C, July 13, 2007)
l Problem solving is required regardless of the creativity type.
(Eckert and Stacey 2003; Interview participant B, August 14,
2007; Weisberg 2006)
It is important to note that fashion designers who practice pure
Leadership Creativity are in the minority (Eckert and Stacey, 2003;
Interview participant D, July 10, 2007). These are designers whose
work is expected to demonstrate historic creativity (Boden 1990). In
France, where King Louis XIV instituted laws to promote the concept
of fashion leadership in the seventeenth century (DeJean 2004), the lan-
guage contains distinct terms for people who practice these two types
of creativity. True Leadership Creativity, “really changing the history
of costume. To do things which have never been done, or anyway to
interpret them in a way which was never done” (Interview participant F,
July 17, 2007) is practiced by the créateurs, or creators, and the stylists,
or designers, even at the point closest to Leadership Creativity on the
continuum, integrate some form of Adaptive Creativity, While still a
creative process, Adaptive Creativity is a different type of creativity that
focuses more on the process than the product.
The creator creates history, he doesn’t follow history. It is not a
soldier, it is not someone who follows, it is someone who brings
an image … the true creators … are very rare by definition in the
entire world. A stylist, designer, is not really a creator. It is a man
of synthesis; meaning that it is someone who studies the images
that the true creators, who are very rare by definition in the entire
world, have created, and he will work on these images to use
them to serve the market he is addressing. (Interview participant
D, July 10, 2007)
The majority of work in the FDD paradigm of the early twenty-
first century is influenced by Adaptive Creativity. Visually depicting

this phenomenon on a continuum, Figure 4 situates pure Leadership
Creativity and pure Adaptive Creativity within the current fashion in-
dustry paradigm in terms of types of jobs related to producing a prod-
uct, the price point relative to those job types (Keiser and Garner 2012),
and illustrates the concept with examples of designers and companies in
the early twenty-first century who fall within the specified range from
Leadership Creativity to Adaptive Creativity.
As the overlapping, medium intensity, section of Figure 4 indicates,
price point restrictions are not always a deterrent to the application
of Leadership Creativity. When a company has a brand name that is
recognized for Leadership Creativity, such as Kenzo, Marc Jacobs, or
Donna Karan, for example, degrees of Leadership Creativity can still be
demonstrated within the better and contemporary price points.
At Kenzo, the design team “creat[ed] trends, [we didn’t] follow them”
(Interview participant H, July 21, 2007), however, those designer-level,
expensive, complex, and exclusive trend-setting pieces were simplified
and sold at contemporary prices then manufactured in larger quanti-
ties. This concept is visualized in Figure 5, as a pyramid (Rooke 2006)
where a few very expensive, very creative pieces are at the top, and the
selling price decreases while the number of items produced increases
and the product still reflects elements from Leadership Creativity.
Accomplishing the task of maintaining the product characteristics de-
fined by Leadership Creativity at a lower price point requires applica-
tion of the skills identified as key to Adaptive Creativity; in this case the
designer drew on her extensive knowledge of the system of FDD (Eckert
and Stacey 2003) that included methods, techniques, and technology
Figure 4
Leadership Creativity and
Adaptive Creativity in relation
to job type and price point,
with early twenty-first-century
fashion industry examples.

to balance the collection with pieces that maintained the allure of di-
rectional design and were executed in a way that enabled producing
higher quantities at lower prices. Globalization has given many more
cost-effective production opportunities to companies, providing more
options to the consumer at the lower price points (Interview participant
H, July 21, 2007).
Another combination of Leadership Creativity and Adaptive Creat-
ivity can be accomplished through applying a creativity type to catego-
ries of work within a product. Interview participant A, when discussing
her textile design development, spoke of “[starting] with a color and
a mood and a vision of a place or a season … Kyoto in the fall, there
is that gray leaden sky and then there are scarlet momiji leaves …”
(Interview participant A, August 12, 2007). When she advanced to the
stage of defining apparel shapes to cut the textiles into, she liked to “see
what is selling at [Henri] Bendel or Barneys … you go to the designers
and see what is out there” (Interview participant A, August 12, 2007).
In a similar manner, knitwear designers in Europe found inspiration for
textile patterns in tree bark or a Celtic symbol, but when they began to
put the pattern on a body, the designers looked to existing garments for
inspiration (Eckert and Stacey 2003).
As the above examples demonstrate, a company’s strategic plan may
draw on both types of creativity. The point of this discussion is to deter-
mine distinctive characteristics of the two types of creativity in product
design and development in order to better understand and support the
creative process, regardless of its type.
Figure 5
Combining Leadership
Creativity with Adaptive
Creativity.

Conclusions
The fashion industry holds an undeniably important place in the glo-
bal economy; however, creativity in fashion design and development
has received relatively little attention in the literature. This study ad-
dresses that gap by employing qualitative research methods to describe
how the creative process for design and development functions in the
global fashion industry of the early twenty-first century. Data from in-
depth interviews in an international context, collected and analyzed
simultaneously, led to the discovery of unexpected components of the
phenomenon. Further analysis and reflection led to the designation of
two distinct types of creativity employed in fashion design to develop
fresh products for a target market: Leadership Creativity overrules cur-
rent archetypes and shifts the sector in a new direction while Adaptive
Creativity integrates existing paradigms into a direction the sector is
already trending.
In order to better understand these creativity types, we determined
eight attributes of creativity in FDD, then described how each creativity
type exemplifies those attributes when considered at the extreme ends
of a continuum. Leadership Creativity is innovative and directional,
reflecting highly developed technique, appealing to a customer with
a refined taste who considers the purchase an investment. Adaptive
Creativity involves putting considerable emphasis on the system (Eckert
and Stacey 2003) of establishing efficient management of operations,
materials, and production methods to bring costs down, appealing to
customers with a wide range of taste levels, from refined to popular,
who consider the lifespan of the garment to be relatively short. The
highest degree of Adaptive Creativity is less evident when observing the
final product, as the creative emphasis is more “at the level of plans and
organization, strategies, and problem-solving processes” (Eckert and
Stacey 2003: 21).
This Typology of Creativity in Product Design and Development
is not hierarchal; there is no implication that one type of creative ac-
tivity is better or worse than another. We provided several examples
to demonstrate that a majority of companies practice some form of
Adaptive Creativity. A company’s strategic plan may draw on both
types of creativity by designating specific lines to specific categories, by
combining Leadership and Adaptive Creativity into one line, or by ap-
plying Leadership Creativity to one component of the product, such as
the textile, and Adaptive Creativity to another component, such as the
garment. The point of this discussion is to determine distinctive char-
acteristics of the two types of creativity in product design and develop-
ment in order to better understand and support the creative process,
regardless of its type.

Implications
This Typology for Creativity in Fashion Design and Development aids
to frame the problem space in order to stimulate the emergence of crea-
tive design concepts (Stacey and Eckert 2010). The delineation of the
attributes of the types of creativity in FDD presented here has the poten-
tial to enable innovative institutions and practitioners to acknowledge
and more effectively support creativity. Educators and human resource
development professionals will find the Typology useful as they develop
curricula that prepare designers, product developers, and managers to
work in the twenty-first-century FDD paradigm. Courses and profes-
sional training programs relating to both Leadership Creativity and
Adaptive Creativity can clearly enhance the designer’s creative poten-
tial. Overall, understanding the concepts presented here will enhance
the development and retention of creative talent.
Understanding the system in which creative FDD functions will fa-
cilitate ideological changes that need to take place in order to nurture
creative talent in FDD. Building creative communities and keeping them
vibrant is an important element in the quest for viable economic growth
(Florida 2005). Fashion industry companies will need to engage both
types of creativity in order to be successful.
Limitations and Recommendations for Further
Research
As an exploratory study, one intended consequence is to initiate dia-
logue and further research. This Typology for Creativity in Fashion
Design and Development provides a foundation from which research-
ers can examine these phenomena in diverse contexts. Because of the
fashion industry segment selected, luxury, the participants interviewed
practiced primarily Leadership Creativity. Additional research explor-
ing the creative process at different levels of creativity in FDD, including
designers who mix Leadership Creativity and Adaptive Creativity as
well as those who focus uniquely on Adaptive Creativity will provide
a well-rounded view of the phenomenon. The participants in this study
were selected following the purposeful sampling method; further explo-
ration of creativity in FDD using discriminative sampling would also
enrich perception of the phenomenon.
This analysis of the creative process for FDD contributes a distinct
perspective that may be applicable to other product types. Extension of
the principles outlined here for creativity in FDD to other design fields
such as functional apparel, interior design or industrial design may
provide a better understanding of creative product design for diverse
applications.

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