When it comes to innovation management in the fashion industry, adoption and constant technological developments are critical. That’s because both technology and fashion are future-driven and consumer-focused. As such, the adoption happens naturally.
Note that idea management is a key aspect of innovation management. Innovation management is a vast encompassing strategy. As for the idea management process, it’s just one wheel in this process that drives innovation.
Innovation management can be likened to a vehicle for driving business growth, and idea software is the engine that provides the force that drives the vehicle.
In the idea management process, the focus is usually on how to stimulate, stir, and generate new ideas. These ideas are then used to impact and improve the already existing fashion models and products.
On the other hand, innovation management focuses on the strategies employed for the development of new products and business processes.
The Role Innovation Management Plays in the Fashion Industry
The fashion industry has always been at the forefront of innovation management. Right from the invention of the sewing machine to the rise of e-commerce. Just like technology, the fashion industry is forward-looking and cyclical.
Fashion technology has been growing at a faster pace over the past few years. We now have robots that sew and cut fabrics and artificial intelligence algorithms that predict style trends. There are also innovations that show how technology is automatically personalizing and speeding up the fashion space.
In this article, we tell you the role innovation plays in the fashion industry.
3D Printing
With the rise of 3D printing in the fashion industry, we can see how innovation and technology merge in helping brands become more sustainable. 3D printing is a manufacturing process. This is where real products are created from digital designs.
With 3D printing in textiles, experts can explore the benefits that innovation management has in the fashion industry. They’re able to explore how 3D printed clothing leads to significantly less textile wastage compared to traditional designing.
Fashion experts can also explain how 3D printing results in reduced water use, reduced air pollution, and water contamination.
Note that with 3D printing, designer’s options are also unlimited. There are very few constraints when it comes to clothing structure, fabric, and creativity. This way, 3D printing is able to bring about more innovative and exciting fashion designs than ever before.
Novel Fabrics and Material Innovation
The critical part in fashion creation is what material should be used. In today’s fashion model, synthetic and non-biodegradable fibers are used in at least 72 percent of the garments. This is a concerning statistic, and novel fabrics which are brand new materials could be the answer to this problem.
Novel fabrics are an exciting way for designers to get creative and innovative. They also provide a lot of possibilities when it comes to creating sustainable materials. It would seem as though anything is possible, from lab-grown leather to fibers made from seaweed that designers can knit together.
Some companies even create vegan leather from apple pectin, which is a waste product from apples. The consequences of this are far reaching, but by creating more sustainable fabrics, we’ll hopefully see a reduction in materials made of plastics and non-biodegradable fibers.
Moreover, we’ll also save animals’ lives due to innovation management that will allow us to create eco-friendly leather, fur, and silk without animals.
Bio-packaging
Online shopping plays a significant role in the fashion industry. In fact, it accounts for one-fifth of the total fashion sales in the United Kingdom alone. With such statistics, there’s no doubt that packaging is something that must be discussed.
A lot of online shopping packaging is done in plastics which are discarded after use. That is not ideal though and bio-packaging can solve this issue. In the open step on bioplastics and biodegradability, they have broken down what this means.
Basically, bio-packaging is either produced from renewable resources or it’s biodegradable. Already there are some companies such as Maggie Marilyn that are making use of bio-packaging. They package their garments using complast, a cassava-based compostable bag.
Blockchain in the Fashion Supply Chain
Blockchain technology has a transformative potential in a lot of industries including fashion. By giving commercially produced products a unique ID on a decentralized, distributed ledger, fashion industries can develop end-to-end digital histories for their inventories.
As materials and garments go through the global supply chain, blockchain tracking helps to create accurate transaction records. This is done based on their location data, content, and time stamps. You can track the digital IDs using RFID tags or QR codes.
Fashion brands are exploring how blockchain tracking can be used to inject more transparency into the garment creation process. They are also exploring how this innovation management can be used in the easy verification of products.
In 2019, Nike, for instance, patented “cryptokicks” shoes. These shoes would be tracked and authenticated via blockchain technology. The patent envisions that the shoes would be linked to the owners using ethereum blockchain once created. Every client will be provided with a non-fungible token (NFT).
NFTs are unique digital assets that can be tracked and verified using blockchain technology and it will represent the ownership of the shoe. The NFT will also contain shoe details such as the design, colors, and attributes of the shoe.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is one of the biggest technologies today, even in the fashion industry. Recently, fashion trends have been using it for a variety of purposes.
The utilization of AI in the fashion industry includes the ability to enhance customer experiences. It also includes the ability to analyze and predict trends, understand buying patterns, and knowing the fashion aesthetics.
A good example is the touchscreen in retail stores. The touchscreen provides customized products to customers using the AI chat technology. In such cases, AI is trained to understand aesthetics like color, textures, and style preferences.
Conclusion
Innovation management in the fashion industry is paramount to the commercial value and longevity. It is important to how the industry gets shaped beyond any crisis.
Innovation management helps to replace wasteful materials with sustainable alternatives. It also allows us to function and interact in the digital world.
Written by Sam Darwin.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Fashinnovation’s columnists are their own, not those of Fashinnovation.
Like this topic? Then don’t forget to check this article out: Nft: The Technology That is Changing the Art and Intriguing the Fashion Market
