This project was commissioned by Labl Fashion Group B.V. (Labl), a company which focuses on helping small fashion brands gain access to a social and sustainable supply chain, by connecting these brands to their (future) private factory in Kenya. During the first pilots Labl perfo
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This project was commissioned by Labl Fashion Group B.V. (Labl), a company which focuses on helping small fashion brands gain access to a social and sustainable supply chain, by connecting these brands to their (future) private factory in Kenya. During the first pilots Labl performed with other fashion suppliers in Kenya, the company stumbled upon some issues: the quality of the garments was not up to their expectations and the communication with the factory demanded a lot of time, effort and frustration. Labl wanted to know how to improve this course of events so that, by design, the process of ordering fashion can be improved. The aim of this graduation project was to design an intervention that would facilitate communication between brand and supplier in the fashion industry, in a way that leads to mutual understanding and will result in production of better-quality fashion over time. Therefore, interviews and context research were performed with Dutch brand owners, Kenyan artisans and factory owners to become aware of the issues that led to dissatisfaction in this collaboration. A cultural analysis was performed to find out how to bridge the Kenyan and Dutch culture, and come up with practices that are suitable for all stakeholders. Two creative sessions were performed to come up with solutions that could tackle this problem. The design intervention that was created was a digital platform design which is unique in the industry. It offers a solution that is aimed at: 1) enabling clear communication of instructions and feedback, 2) Creating transparency in the supply chain, and 3) Building trustworthy relationships between factory and brand. A prototype of the interface was developed and tested with Kenyan artisans. Afterwards, iterations were made, and a final concept of the digital platform is presented. Finally, the project closes with conclusions and recommendations for future development.