Open innovation in Fashion Design

One of the hallmarks of the Intangible Economy is the shift in the innovation process. Central to that shift is the idea that innovation can come from anywhere -- including users. While standard example of user-generated is mountain bikes, the concept can be found almost anywhere including pipe-hanging fixtures, printed circuit boards and surgical equipment (see Eric Von Hippel's classic study The Sources of Innovation and his more recent Democratizing Innovation).

A new example comes from the fashion industry. Today's New York Times has a story about open innovation in design:

Polyvore is a user-generated fashion magazine filled with user-generated ads. The people who go to it play fashion editor and create collages featuring pictures of clothes, accessories and models from across the Web. Readers view the collages, which the site calls "sets," and if they click on a dress or necklace, they are taken to the Web site that sells it.

It has always struck me that fashion should be a prime area for user-driven innovation. After all, while top designers may dress the models, the day-to-day task assembling a wardrobe and of deciding what to wear is all user driven. Fashion pages (such as that in the Washington Post) often feature what is seen on the street -- put together by the average person (an average person with good taste, of course).

So the business model behind Polyvore makes perfect sense to me. It will be interesting to see how many of those fashion pages copy it. In part, the Washington Post already has, by having readers post their own fashion photos. But such user generated content is still based on a publication model. Polyvore seems to go well beyond that to a retail model.

It is also a data mining model. As the story notes:

Polyvore also plans to sell data on customer preferences it compiles on the site. It could potentially tell a retailer that a type of shoe is more popular in Manhattan than Los Angeles, so it would know where to stock the shoe. Or designers could upload images of new items before deciding to produce them to get input from fashion-savvy users. It could also give buyers information about trends in real-time, faster than monthly magazines, said Jess Lee, Polyvore's product manager. This fall, for example, watch for recent trends bubbling up on the site: exposed zippers, fingerless gloves and butterfly prints.

Like any good user-driven innovation model, the process connects users with producers. Sound like a winner to me.