Impact of an Imagination Exercise on Creativity for Fashion Design Students

Research has found that creativity and imagination are highly correlated. In practice, educators may ask themselves, “How far can the imagination push creativity?” The purpose of this study was to use an imagination activity for fashion design students to increase creativity when sketching a garment. It was hypothesized that students who received an imagination activity would produce more creative products than those who did not receive this kind of activity. Two major findings were found. First, the relationship between GPA and technical goodness and aesthetics was moderate and strong, respectively. However, the relationship between GPA and creativity was weak. Canonical correlation further confirmed this relationship. Second, students who received an imagination activity excelled their counterparts in terms of creativity, and this effect was large. For students in the field of fashion design creativity is critical. And the major findings of this study support the notion of encouraging creativity development in fashion design curricula.