D E SIGN R E SEARCH IN THE FA SHIO N SEC T OR : DECI SION- MAKI NG SU PPO RT METHOD S AND I N STRU MENTS IN DE SI GN

The design of these intermediate products highlights an area of strategic research for the development of decision-making support methods and instruments in design, thanks to which it is possible to shift from trend research practices and forecast analyses (probability) to the building of “possible futures” (likelihood), no longer having the objective of looking for trends but having the objective of “creating worlds”. The production of these “research products” – trend books – represents a field of noteworthy interest, not only for the fashion market, but for many other design-oriented sectors that are progressively elaborating similar practices. In these, what takes on a greater value is the planning research project, instead of the finished product, since this becomes the instrument of the company’s strategy, whose potential effects do not regard a simple collection or family of products, but entire generations of products. The objective of this paper is to offer an overall view of these practices as well as to demonstrate the progressive convergence of sectors that are apparently very distant from one another, as for example, fashion and electronics, towards the said practices.