As Hethorn says at the very beginning, it is not a new concept to sustain people through fashion. However, she’s questioning if the real world fashion practice has really meet the goal of meeting people’s need through fashion. What she realizes is that often time customers are placed at the last of the linear process which essentially reverse the order. Then Hethorn introduces several ways that people can apply to place customers at the central of the designing process which inspires me but also confuses me in some way.
What she writes that inspires me is the ways she describes that can help us identify “individuals’ needs and desires, aesthetic and functional, as a basis for creating a sense of well-being through design”. It reminds me of a design that’s the world’s most sponsored design award within the humanitarian field. It is a plastic water filter that costs 3 dollars to make. Now it is being broadly used in those areas without access to clean water. Though it’s not related to fashion, but the ideas behind them are similar – The design is just based on the needs and wants of users. It is a solution for a selected area/time/group of people.
What Hethorn confuses me is the part she talks about moving from target market to individual consumers. Based on what she says, I feel it is more of the difference between mass production and customized clothes. Since human born differently. There will always have customers dislike the products designed for most of the population. But what if we narrow the target market? Will it be a both sustainable and effective way to produce clothes for right customers and at the same time making money.