Innovative methodologies for the didactics of fashion portfolio: a field research experience

The contribution aims to analyse an innovative university didactic experience centred on the fashion portfolio, designed to integrate more consolidated methodologies linked to graphic design with experimentation on the process of constructing the student's identity. The portfolio is a central tool in the definition of the educational and professional path of a fashion designer, but it has so far remained at the margins of academic research. The reasons for this gap are also to be found in a misinterpretation of it, which has led to it being considered only as a tool for summarising and communicating completed experiences, neglecting instead its design power in constructing the identity of the author. As part of a PhD research conducted at Università Iuav di Venezia and developed through fieldwork, a workshop was organised at the Politecnico di Milano in May 2018, involving five third-year students of the BA degree course in Fashion Design. The monodisciplinary course of “Portfolio and project presentation”, within which the didactic experimentation was developed, included an approach linked to the traditional methodologies of visual design. The focus was on the management of the tools of communication design, a complex field of competence that implies extensive knowledge, such as the laws of perception, the methodologies, tools and practices of visual design, the production systems and processes that manage the results. The design of the portfolio was based on the management of colours, images, typography, and layout, applied according to the aesthetic and functional requirements of the visual project, and calibrated to the needs of the material and immaterial channels through which fashion design communication is realised. The didactic experimentation, conducted by the Iuav researcher, was designed as a three meetings workshop to experiment with a different perspective on the fashion portfolio and to observe the results of the intersection between the different methodologies. During the first meeting, students presented an initial version of the portfolio made during the course, developing a reflection on the process followed, the difficulties encountered, and the purposes for which it was made. The second meeting focused on how to create a portfolio through the phases of collection, selection, connection, direction and publication. The choices made by the subjects regarding which images to consider and which to exclude, which key words could summarise the characteristics and methodologies of the project, the perception of the other subjects regarding the action of the individual, and the influence of the point of view of others in the work of constructing their own identity were observed. During the third meeting, the students presented a new version of the portfolio, through which it was possible to analyse the results of the experimentation. The experience analysed makes it possible to observe how a fashion student's portfolio is an expression of the continuous conflict between rule and creativity, between standards and uniqueness, between desire and discipline. The idea proposed is that the portfolio does not limit its action to its author, but conditions all the interlocutors involved during the phases of realisation and presentation of the work. Finally, the close connection between the material dimension and immaterial issues and the relationship between the portfolio project and time emerge.