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The Future of Fashion Tech: The Innovation Lifecycle in Fashion Tech

The journey of fashion technology from idea to market involves a complex process known as the “innovation lifecycle”. This lifecycle is crucial for transforming cutting-edge concepts into viable, market-ready products that can revolutionise the fashion industry.

Credit: Chokniti Khongchum (via Pexels)

3 January 2024

The journey of fashion technology from idea to market involves a complex process known as the “innovation lifecycle”. This lifecycle is crucial for transforming cutting-edge concepts into viable, market-ready products that can revolutionise the fashion industry.

The TRL framework is widely used to measure the progress of innovation from conception through to commercialisation: it’s integral to our approach and helps us gauge the maturity of technologies. It serves as a map to navigate the development stages within the fashion industry.

What are the phases of the Innovation Lifecycle?

  • 1.Fundamental Research: Innovations often begin in academic or research institutions where the primary funding is from grants with high-risk tolerance, typically provided by governments and foundations. This phase is often referred to “R&D”, standing for “Research & Development”.

  • 2.Prototyping Stage: After initial research, technologies that show potential undergo prototyping. Here, a basic version of the product is developed for further testing and evaluation, aiming to prove its feasibility.

  • 3.Pilot Testing and MVP Development: A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is created and tested in pilot settings, which are small-scale and often costly experiments to gauge the technology’s effectiveness in real-world applications.

  • 4.Commercialisation: For a technology to reach commercialisation, it must demonstrate scalability and cost-effectiveness. Achieving sufficient scale to attract commercial interest can take years, involving significant refinement and adaptation.

Each stage of the innovation lifecycle comes with unique challenges, from securing initial funding and navigating complex R&D processes to achieving scale and integrating new technologies into existing supply chains.

The innovation lifecycle is foundational to the evolution of fashion tech. Understanding and navigating this cycle is essential for innovators aiming to bring new technologies to market. The strategic use of the TRL framework plays a critical role in supporting innovators through this complex process, helping to translate groundbreaking ideas into practical, scalable solutions that can lead to substantial industry transformation.

 

Innovation Lifecycle

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