The design industry is standing on the twin pillars of creativity and commerciality. Product innovation goes through a laborious process of ideation which then leads to a final product that is desirable, feasible, and viable. A product does not only rely on the foundation of aesthetics but on the facet of commercial aspects too. As designers, we often overlook the balance of design and business. However, is it really a successful product if it is not presenting the perfect balance of both? Answering this, we organized a webinar on Design Entrepreneurship that will deal with the question of how important is the balance of design and business in product innovation?

On 19th February, JD Institute Of Fashion Technology organized a webinar on the topic of Dictating the fashion industry: your way to make it big. Our speakers, Mr. Ankur Gulati (HOD Fashion Department) and Ms. Nidhi Bose (Fashion Design Faculty) are masters in the field of fashion. The participants learned the importance of value-centered design from the mavericks themselves which reinforced their creative intelligence with just the right dose of practicality in it.

This insightful session pronounced the dominance of industry-centric skills in design without punctuating the designers’ creative caliber. The participants learned about the skills associated with the retail sector and business domain in the fashion industry. From merchandising to supply-chain management, our speakers shed light on the salient features of fashion entrepreneurship. Making this session truly insightful, our eminent speakers talked about the post-pandemic trends keeping in focus the shift in the consumer mindset. Industry buzzwords such as “sustainability”, “recycling”, “upcycling”, etc. were discussed and adding to that, the rapid growth of thrift culture was also brought into the conversation. To give the audience a better understanding of these terms, Mr. Gulati discussed some sustainable initiatives as well.

Piquing the interest of the participants, our speakers brought into the discussion, the topic of marketing. They raised the profound question of “why is marketing so important?”. Answering this, several marketing instances from brands were discussed and examples were drawn from the real-life marketing campaigns. This data-driven webinar brought the participants face to face with the facts and figures of the industry. They stressed the factor of “having a signature.” As many budding designers were in the audience, our speakers made it a point to discuss the lesser-known facts of the fashion industry.

As the event came to an end, the discussion became more interactive as the students started asking questions to the speakers. The audience was inquisitive and it ranged front the students to the guardians. Making this session a soaring success, the guardians too took part in the discussion wherein they asked several questions about the curriculum, industry insights, and many more. The webinar was finally concluded with a warm message from both Mr. Gulati and Ms. Bose.