Tenacity and faith!...oh Handbags !

The two of the most important qualities to have when establishing a business is the strength to keep going and to have faith in your own abilities. The communication channels which are open to you between design room & manufacturers are often email. Time zones and language translation are often small details which need to be over come. This can frustratingly slow the whole design & product development process down to a snails pace. For the small designer this can be a hindrance or may be part of the charm...I can't decide. We are currently starting to look into this as part of our PHD research. How can the small independent fashion designer benefit and maximize on new technologies to help speed up the design and product development process? It must be possible, although the problems are endless as it has to be a multi dimensional approach to benefit all stake holders. We have been looking at some software called 'Optitex' which is based around 3D modeling...very exciting. One day we hope that anaphora handbags will be designed and developed using such technologies. We are also aware of IBM's Black dress technology which looks set to revolutionise product development methodologies and the fashion industry. I will keep you posted especially if i need some help from any readers out there who may be able to help or become a case study!