The Ask
My assigned team was tasked with creating a line development project on a mass market brand focusing on aged denim by utilizing Cotton Incorporated’s technology. We decided to focus on the theme of craftsmanship in a collaboration between Uniqlo and Diesel, creating a fusion of both iconic brands.
Meet the Team
Cameron Thierer
Madison Evola
Megan Piston
Jonah Smith
Julia Sweeney
Kelsey Claros
Dyanna Gamarro
THE PROCESS 🪡
THE PROCESS 🪡
We first began by creating 30 sketches for the collection by using the precise, Italian details of Diesel onto Uniqlo’s timeless, Japanese silhouettes to represent Perenne: An Italian word encapsulating eternal, everlasting, and undying. After narrowing down to 8 final sketches, we recreated them as flats in Adobe Illustrator to showcase the details, followed by finalizing our looks into CLO 3D.
Design
The next step was the specification pack, where we created line sheets, cost sheets, and tech packs. Our plan was to sell in Uniqlo stores, sticking with their affordable price range for their target consumers, while still paying attention to Diesel’s quality and details.
Specification Pack
The marketing of our collection was an integral step in our line development, as it was the deciding factor for the success of the collaboration. We came up with concepts for packaging, articles, social media, emails, apps, celebrity endorsers, collaborations, and billboards. The main focus was to convince the public why our theme, collection, and collaborations made sense for the consumers wants and needs.
Marketing
Store and Pop Up Render
In addition to marketing, visual merchandising is key to drawing in your consumers attention. We 3D mapped Soho’s Uniqlo Flagship store and a Pop Up Shop in New York City to display our Perenne Collection.
Outcome
This semester long line development project was a cultivation of all my skills taught in my major of Fashion Merchandising. I learned how to build a line step by step with my team by setting goals every week, and presenting our work to the judges, teachers, and classmates every Monday; being critiqued on what to fix, and move forward with the next challenge. For our final presentation, we delivered a 20 minute long presentation with 46 slides to Cotton Works Senior Vice President, Mark Messura, and Guess’s former Head of Design, Epitacio Arganza. This course helped me gain valuable assets of oral and visual presenting, team work, research, problem solving, and communication.
