This document discusses the Fashion Designer Economy and relationships between manufacturers and designers. It introduces the Designer-Manufacturer Innovation Support Centre (DISC) which supports fashion manufacturers, designers, and jewelers through programs that deliver innovation in product, process, and business models. Several projects are described where DISC has connected designers with manufacturers to collaborate on new products, materials, and production processes in order to drive innovation.

1. The Fashion Designer Economy:
New Relationships Between
Manufacturers and Designers
Demelza Galica DISC Global Sourcing Manager
Wendy Malem MBA FRSA FCSD
Dean of the Graduate School
Director Centre for Fashion Enterprise,
Director Designer-Manufacturer Innovation and Support Centre (DISC)
London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London

2. How do we get manufacturers, engineers,
technologists and product/fashion designers to
work together?

3. Where is the innovation in manufacturing
coming from?
Is it in adding value somehow to manufacturing to elevate the purpose of a
factory in Europe?
Should we be looking at new processes?

4. Craft and Industry
Can craft be industrialised?

5. Product Development
Do we break down the value chain enough?
What about innovation in processes like tanning, finishing, weaving, engineering,
craft processes, supported by an entrepreneurial platform and experience from
IFM and CFE who have a track record in bringing innovation to market?

6. Crafting Social Change
Product design through collaboration

7. Designer-Manufacturer Innovation
Support Centre (DISC)
DISC supports fashion
manufacturers, designers
and jewellers within all
areas of the production
processes. Through our
programmes we deliver
innovation in product,
process and business
models.
www.fashion-
manufacturing.com
@DISCfashion

8. Projects

10. Claire Barrow
Originally buying leather jackets
and hand painting them, Claire was
spotted by a luxury retailer and was
worried that she could not produce
the order.
Result of DISC support:
DISC introduced Claire to a leather
manufacture and worked with her
to get them produced. The
collection has now been launched
with huge interest from the press.

12. Agi and Sam
Wherever possible Agi and Sam
include a humorous element to
their designs. For their SS14
collection the duo wanted to
produce garments which included
elements of materials used on the
tube seats.
Result of DISC support:
DISC introduced the designers to
the fabric supplier Camira,
suppliers to Transport for London,
who sponsored their collection.

14. Lily Kamper
Jewellery designer with no real
metalworking experience wanted to
increase her offer of shapes
Result of DISC support:
Help to create some pieces in CAD
and the connected Lily to a
goldsmith who has developed
metal pieces and has undertaken
some production (including 3D
printing the waxes of the CAD files)

15. Making connections and crossing borders
with design, craft and manufacturers
across Europe

16. Projects

18. Emma J Shipley
Emma J Shipley produces luxury printed
scarves with designs from her own intricate
graphic artworks, made in Italy.
Through WORTH Emma will introduce a new
product category: unique bags based on
Emma’s hand drawn pencil artworks. These
will utilise innovative leatherworking
processes which the business cannot currently
access - translating the artworks through
digital print, weave, laser etching and
embossing.

20. James Long
James Long was the winner of the very first NEWGEN Men
sponsorship initiative which launched the label, the brand
also became the first-ever menswear recipient of the
British Fashion Council's Fashion Forward sponsorship
prize in 2012 and was nominated for the Menswear
Emerging Talent at the British Fashion Awards in 2012.
James Long is committed to establishing a greater
European footprint and developing innovative casual
luxury clothing with versatile appeal for an international
customer.
James Long will combine leather and hardware, producing
a new product to the luxury Menswear market. This would
be realised as a collection of branded accessories including
Rucksack, Duffle, Tote, Holdall, iPad Case and purse. The
innovative methodology will use bonded and inflatable
leather with cutting edge 3D printed branded hardware.
This will accentuate signature details with the new
technology showing a new use and approach to
traditionally separate materials.

22. Oliver Ruuger
Oliver Ruuger was set up in order to offer
avant garde luxury products for the
intelligent fashion consumer. We believe a
luxury product should be risky, scarce, highly
developed and hold investment value as an
artistic design achievement. Studio Ruuger
designs, develops and manufactures in
house.
Eyewear is a product category which fills a
very specific role for most fashion brands. A
formulaic process is often applied in the
design and manufacture stages which
inhibits creativity and innovation other than
allowing for altering basic function, form
and aesthetic.
The Oliver Ruuger project will combine
their process-embracing design approach
and know-how of unexpected materials
with the expertise of a traditional
eyewear manufacturer - with the aim to
create new and exciting eyewear of value.
We are aiming for “collaborative
production”.

23. STUDIO TOOGOOD

24. 24
Studio Toogood
Studio Toogood designs, directs and executes interiors and
environments from concept through to creation. Offering a
full creative direction and interior design service, the studio’s
projects range from the two-dimensional page to the three-
dimensional space, and from the real to the conceptual.
Studio Toogood also produce a range of unisex outerwear
and high-end furniture.
The project will be to introduce a range of hats to our
existing unisex collection of outerwear pieces, developing a
new process around shapes we’ve previously designed in our
furniture collections.
Studio Toogood will develop the product in Norway with
their traditional techniques ranging from hat making, to
felting and ribbon weaving. This would then be followed by a
commercial translation together with a Czech headwear
manufacturer.

26. Teatum Jones
Catherine Teatum and Rob Jones are the designers behind
the label Teatum Jones.
The designers are conceptual in their approach to design
whilst remaining loyal to an ethos of authenticity,
desirability and quality British craftsmanship, hailed as
‘textile pioneers’ by Afsun Qureshi style.com. Teatum and
Jones’ signature is within their anthropological approach
to design and fashion.
Through WORTH, they will push boundaries with fabric
development and add in non fashion fabrics into the
collection. The idea is to use new, non traditional fabrics
like woods and plastics in their main collection. The aim is
for this to be on outerwear and separates and show
pieces. This new technology will then be used to add in
exciting new products into the collection like shoes and
eyewear.