Students present creative concepts to retailers of Next Fashion Retail (NFR)

Clouds of eco-cotton with LED lighting, product information on a clothes hanger with a mini-digiscreen and mannequins floating into space. These are just a few examples of the creative concepts that students presented to nine NFR retailers on 11 April.

During the peer feedback session, retailers were pleasantly surprised by the creativity of the students, but also by the care and love with which they made the presentations. For example, retailers liked the fact that the students created atmosphere through imagery, without being judgmental towards specific products or brands. The ideas were mainly focused on physical shops, specifically zooming in on the shop windows and customer journey in the shop.

Healthy discussions

Interestingly, some concepts received the opposite feedback. For example, the clothes hangers with digiscreens or the interactive mirror were mainly considered in terms of (justified) practical obstacles: How do you ensure reliable data? Or a change of clothes? One retailer also wondered what value the physical shop still has if customers could be helped digitally.

Others see these digital solutions as the future: unlocking knowledge on the shop floor without being dependent on the working knowledge of the staff members. It is nice to see that the creativity of the students gets the retailers thinking.

Enthusiastic reactions

After the session, students said they were extremely happy with the timing and content of the feedback: ‘By talking to retailers, we get feedback and critical questions from the users themselves. Very direct and not sugar coated. Now we can focus on working on applicable concepts that have support as well.’

About Next Fashion Retail

The aim of Next Fashion Retail is to make practical tools available to SME multi-brand fashion retailers to better sell their range of sustainable fashion. For although consumers indicate that they consider sustainable aspects of clothing important, in practice this does not translate directly into the purchase of more sustainable clothing. 

Want to know more about Next Fashion Retail? View the project page.