New Product the Clothing Industry

New Product

The clothing industry is a broad swath that encompasses every conceivable income level, gender and age. At its highest, most creative levels, the bounds of creativity are near endless. For clothing as a business, it is best to consider a portion of the industry that can generate consistent sales. To develop this new product, it is important that the broad categories within this industry be narrowed down. To achieve this end, three different creativity tools will be used.

The first used will be attribute listing. The attributes of the product will help to shape the final determination of clothing line, by identifying the features of the product (Mind Tools, 2009). The first attribute of the clothing is that it provides cover for the body. All clothing performs this function, some items more than others. So it must be considered how much of the body is covered and what parts of the body are covered. The type of climate in which the clothing is expected to function is also a consideration and will dictate many of the decisions with regard to design and material.

Clothing also serves as a statement of fashion. Clothing reveals not only the fashion tastes of the wearer, or lack thereof, but it also reveals much about the wearer's social groupings and is a mechanism for personal expression. People express themselves through their choices of fashion, so the clothing line developed must be able to suitable express the personality of the chosen market.

Clothing can also serve a functional purpose. Footwear is highly specialized in this regard, but other forms of clothing also are designed to meet specific purposes. Maternity clothes, work clothes, athletic clothes and other types all are designed to allow the wearer to perform specific functions.

A morphological analysis describes the product in terms of the characteristics above. The product is thus described. For example, if we believed that active women do not wish to cease being active when they become pregnant, we could describe the properties of high-end, stylish maternity active wear.

The morphology of this product would include the materials, which would be sophisticated sweat-absorbing synthetics. The line would cover the torso area, since that is most affected by maternity. The level of coverage would be total. Being activewear, the clothing would be designed to handle multiple climate situations, including wind, rain and intense sun.

The clothing will be of simple but stylish design. There will not be too much flourish, but the styling will be timeless. The clothing will be styled in such a manner as to reduce the visual impact of swollen bellies. The sizes will be the full range of women's sizes, but with maternity sizing. The clothes will be fun and bright, expressing the joy of motherhood. This will be evident in the colors in which the clothes are available and in the subtle stylish touches on the clothing.

There will be a variety of functional purposes expressed by this line. These will be focused on the low impact exercises most likely to be engaged in by pregnant women. These will include hiking, kayaking/canoeing, snowshoeing/cross-country skiing and walking.

Another creativity tool is reverse brainstorming. This technique involves asking how you can create a problem, rather than solve a problem (MindTools, 2009). The first step is to identify the problem or challenge. In this case, the challenge is to create a line of activewear that meets the unique needs of pregnant women. Then the problem is reversed -- so we ask "how can we make clothing more difficult for active, pregnant women?"

The third step is to brainstorm ways to answer the question. The first way in which we could complicate the issue is to make the clothing tighter. By constricting the midsection, the clothes begun unwearable within days of purchase. The second way in which we could complicate the issue is to make the clothes unfashionable. If they do not look good, the wearer will not feel good about herself. Further to this, the belly should be accentuated to heighten the discomfort with the image projected.

There are other ways to make it more difficult. We can use poor materials. If the clothes do not breathe, do not absorb sweat, and do not defend against the cold, then the wearer will be very uncomfortable. It is also important to utilize poor stitching and seams, so that the clothes fall apart quickly. Another great way to make the clothes not meet the needs of our target market is to make sure that they shrink in the wash, and that the colors bleed.

In addition, the clothes should be in a very limited selection in terms of design. Our customers want choice so we should make sure not to give them that. Ideally, the clothes will be priced at a very high price point. Pregnant women need to adjust their clothes as they get larger, so the customer should have to replace their clothing every month at high cost.

The objective of reverse brainstorming is to determine the characteristics of the product that the consumer specifically will not want. This helps to avoid pitfalls that can occur in the design and development process. By defining what the product should not be, it helps the creative process by focusing better on what it should be.

SCAMPER is another tool, specifically designed for product creation purposes. The acronym stands for substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, and reverse (MindTools, 2009). Taking the basic concept of maternity clothing, we can generate the following.

Substitute can result in a myriad of decisions with regards to different fabrics, different colors and different designs. Each of these represents a specific decision that must be made, and a different solution to the problems that are faced. The types of fabric options should be identified and their relative merits outlined.

Combining elements is in part how this product idea emerged in the first place. The combination of maternity wear and activewear was the genesis of the product. The process was a simple examination of different types of clothing that could be combined to find a niche that is perhaps underserved.

The line could be derived as an adaptation of an existing product line, either an activewear line or a maternity line. In this case, it is worth considering the key factors that will determine the success of the line. Given the attention to materials and design, an adaptation of an activewear line is more appropriate.

Put to another use takes an existing product and finds a new use for it. A new product is not created, but the new use gives the company a de facto new product. Viagra is a good example of this type of product development. In our case, there is little "new use" to be derived. The unique shape of maternity clothing rules out using other products for this purpose.