Projetando para autoestima: uma perspectiva do design sobre os dilemas das mulheres no mercado da moda

Abstract

Technological advances, the refinement of the industrial process and the arise of large media conglomerates have brought new meanings and weights to the standard of beauty in our society. The current social structure, which places women at the center of the pressures imposed by the search for a perfect image, begins to be questioned in view of the negative impact of such pressures on people's well-being. Fashion as an expression environment is at the center of a common dilemma experienced by women: the behavioral oscillation between social belonging and the expression of individuality. Through this perspective and the understanding of fashion as a design environment and as a communication process, the present study was developed based on the inversion of the logic of using insecurity as a design input. Self-esteem as an element of well-being, enables the development of more inclusive and representative systems that allow women to find a balance between belonging and distinction. In this context, this research was developed within the scope of strategic design and uses dilemma-driven-design, a methodological approach derived from design for emotions, to answer the following research problem: How a dilemma-centered design approach can help the fashion market to design around towards self-esteem? To answer the same, an empirical practice was proposed, divided into three stages. A survey in with 114 women to capture creative inputs for the following design stages and two workshops, implemented based on the design tools proposed by Ozkaramanli (2017) applied under two different perspectives, of users and of specialists. The workshops were attended by 8 users and 10 specialists. Regarding the research results, it was possible to identify that: dilemma-driven-design can expand the meaning of the application of tools widely disseminated in creative processes and that has as its greatest reflex and gain in the increase of empathy in design processes; the use of socially-based dilemmas intensifies the development of systems-products-services that have the potential to aggregate higher levels of innovation in the conception of ideas with that can cause rupture in pre-established social norms, there is a reframing of the perception of long-term gain in terms of conflict resolution, bearing in mind individual interests and the interests of society as a whole.