Hawaii International Conference on Education, USA, 5-8 Jan, 2012
Abstract [en]
"-We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants”, John of Salisbury’s famous quote, later made even more famous by Newton, is often used to explain how researchers, artists, or whoever, uses previous knowledge to build upon when exploring the new. Those impressive giants of fashion, Poiret, Vionnet, Balenciaga, Yamamoto, just to mention a few, how do we get up on their shoulders and how can we be able to see what they saw and possibly even further? This paper will highlight that educating designers only differs slightly from training athletes. When teaching new techniques the area of training is broken down to graspable components and focus is on one muscle or move at a time. One first needs to get every individual step right, then our performance might improve. Copying is needed for developing creativity, repeating the past is one of the corner stones within fashion design. If I would need to put forward one formula for making a successful fashion collection I would say that the collection should be perceived as totally new and groundbreaking while at the same time being familiar and recognizable to the viewer. To achieving this one will need to bring in aspects already familiar to the audience but we need to bring copying further than that. I will show that imitation is not only a fundamental activity when learning practical skills but also has an essential part in teaching creativity.