Rethinking Fashion Design Entrepreneurship: Fostering Sustainable Practices

英国以其成功的创意产业而闻名，其时装设计师被广泛认为是世界舞台上具有创意影响力的人。英国的设计师时尚行业主要由微型和小型企业（MSEs）组成，构成了全球公认的创意引擎，有效地为更广泛的时尚产业提供了研发服务。以设计为主导的时尚企业，虽然经常在财务上挣扎，但却为商业繁荣提供了开创性的另一种愿景。该项目研究了创意创业和设计在时尚中小企业中作为变革潜在驱动力的作用，为研究可持续时尚产业的未来提供了一个有价值的视角。一个多学科的研究团队将直接与一系列以设计为主导的时尚mse合作，作为研究的共同制作人。时装设计师兼企业家以及MSE团队的领导者将成为分析的重点。这项研究将探索可持续发展作为一种创造性的努力，研究四个关键领域：设计和运营；商业网络和生态系统；工作实践;创业和商业模式。这将导致对这些时尚微型企业运作的内部操作和外部环境的新知识和理解。这些知识将被应用于建立和支持新的可持续商业发展模式，重新定位设计师时装中小企业作为英国创意和可持续经济的主要贡献者，并最终为英国未来的创意产业政策提供信息。这项研究将分析现有的和新的商业模式和实践，促进可持续繁荣，这是一个旨在平衡环境、社会、文化和经济因素的概念。我们将确定障碍和干预点，以便开发可持续性的替代业务支持机制，为小型和大型时尚企业提供信息。为了应对这一复杂的挑战，学术团队来自三个领先的研究中心和大学，他们的学术专长互补，将为时尚创新和可持续繁荣的研究提供一种新颖的跨学科方法。该项目由伦敦艺术大学（UAL）伦敦时装学院（LCF）牵头，是UAL可持续时尚中心（CSF）、米德尔塞克斯大学（MU）企业与经济发展研究中心（CEEDR）和开放大学（OU）设计系之间的合作项目。CEEDR是萨里大学可持续繁荣理解中心（CUSP）的重要合作伙伴。为了使项目对时装界的直接影响最大化，研究小组将与时装企业中心（CFE）密切合作，该中心是伦敦时装学院的一个时装企业孵化器（2003年成立）；英国时装协会（BFC），负责促进设计师时装的国际销售的英国行业机构；道德时尚论坛（2005年成立），为致力于可持续发展的国际时尚中小企业提供了另一个采购平台。研究团队还将与20家希望参与可持续发展实践的时尚设计mse合作。四个主要的项目合作伙伴将提供当前不同的商业模式结合可持续发展的例子：Unmade， Christopher Raeburn， Martine Jarlgaard和RizBoardshorts。这四个MSE合作伙伴将在整个项目中与研究团队进行知识交流和评估。产出将包括：案例研究、学术期刊文章、主要发现报告和政策简报。此外，可持续发展的商业支持“工具包”将为新兴和成熟的商业支持和孵化器组织提供新的指导。CFE， BFC，利兹时尚倡议)，以促进更可持续的时尚实践。

The UK is known for its successful creative industries and its fashion designers are widely acknowledged as creative influencers on the world stage. The UK's designer fashion sector, largely made up of micro and small enterprises (MSEs), constitutes a globally recognised creative engine, effectively acting as R&D for the wider fashion industry. Design-led fashion enterprises, whilst often struggling financially themselves, provide pioneering alternative visions of prosperity in business. This project investigates the role of creative entrepreneurship and design in fashion MSEs as a potential driver for change, providing a valuable lens through which to examine the future for a sustainable fashion industry.A multi-disciplinary research team will work directly with a range of design-led fashion MSEs as co-producers of the research. The fashion designer-entrepreneur, and leaders in MSE teams, will be the focus of analysis. The research will explore sustainability as a creative endeavour, examining four key areas: design and operations; business networks and ecosystems; working practices; entrepreneurship and business models. This will lead to new knowledge and understanding of the internal operations and external context within which these fashion MSEs operate. This knowledge will be applied to establish and support new sustainable models of business development, repositioning designer fashion MSEs as major contributors to the UK's creative and sustainable economy, and ultimately informing future UK policy for the creative industries.The research will analyse existing and novel business models and practices that foster sustainable prosperity, a concept aiming to balance environmental, social, cultural and economic considerations. We will identify barriers and points of intervention in order to develop alternative business support mechanisms for sustainability to inform fashion businesses at both small and larger scales. To meet this complex challenge, the academic team is drawn from three leading research centres and universities, whose complementary academic expertise will provide a novel cross-disciplinary approach to research in fashion innovation and sustainable prosperity. Led by London College of Fashion (LCF) at University of the Arts London (UAL), the project is a collaboration between UAL's Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF), Middlesex University's (MU) Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research (CEEDR) and the Open University's (OU) Department of Design. CEEDR is a key partner in Surrey University's Centre for Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). To maximize the impact of the project directly on the fashion sector, the research team will work closely with the Centre for Fashion Enterprise (CFE), a fashion business incubator based at LCF (est. 2003); the British Fashion Council (BFC), the UK industry body responsible for promoting international sales of designer fashion; and the Ethical Fashion Forum (est. 2005), an alternative sourcing platform for international fashion MSEs working with sustainability. The research team will also work with a group of 20 designer fashion MSEs who want to engage with sustainability practices. Four key project partners will provide current examples of different business models incorporating sustainability: Unmade, Christopher Raeburn, Martine Jarlgaard and RizBoardshorts. These four MSE partners will engage with the research team in knowledge exchange and evaluation throughout the entire project. Outputs will include: case studies, academic journal articles, key findings report, and policy briefing note. In addition, a business support for sustainability 'toolkit' will provide new guidance for both emerging and established business support and incubator organisations (eg. CFE, BFC, Fashion in Leeds initiative) to foster more sustainable fashion practices.