The drive and appeal of luxury designer products has fuelled consumer desire for luxury designer brands and their counterfeit versions. Some women value luxury designer handbags just the way men value their cars. The luxury designer handbag market has witnessed a surge of counterfeit handbag versions. The study focused on women in London, which has been ranked at number one in relation to demand levels of fashion handbags. Several antecedents were investigated for the purpose of this research, which are as follows: •Social consumption factors which incorporates an investigation into brand meaning and social meaning; •Attitudinal factors; •Individual factors which looks at the BLI (brand luxury index) and materialism; and •Post consumption emotions; Several research gaps were identified: firstly, there are no studies available on investigating identical antecedents in both luxury designer and counterfeit commodities, or even to a specific product category. Secondly, a number of researchers have examined consumers’ evaluative criteria in clothing, yet few have focused on the mentioned antecedents as part of the evaluative criteria of luxury designer handbags and counterfeit handbag versions. The investigation was carried out via quantitative data collection and was cross-analysed. The highlighted antecedents are important domains in the discipline of consumer choice behaviour. The research included two phases; a pilot survey study which pre-tested the acknowledged scales and a main survey incorporating the most important adapted constructs influencing consumer choice behaviours. The main analysis was based on data collected from a sample of 353 respondents in London. The conceptual model is unique in its specifications presenting a new behaviour orientated model which highlights integral factors in consumer behaviour. The research identified contemporary associations and discrepancies among women in London. The result of this research provides general support in understanding consumer decision-making and offers a comprehensive understanding of the effect of consumer evaluation and attitudes towards luxury designer handbags and counterfeit handbag versions. The differences and similarities across the antecedents are used to propose strategies to luxury designer companies thereby improving their marketing activities and achieving a competitive edge.

Bloodline: An Experiment in Knit and Proximity is research by practice that has its origin in an affective encounter experienced during the performance of two women knitting together, a mother and daughter – who simultaneously knit a conjoined red line, Bloodline – initiated by the daughter, who is, in this context, both artist and writer. The research responds to this question: how might I account for a moment of affect, to explain its manifestation in association with knitting and the knitted thing, and to substantiate my hypothesis that the knitted object, and knitting as process, have a unique capacity to explore the issues of proximity and distance that are encountered and negotiated in Bloodline? This research adopts an auto ethnographic and mixed methodology approach to investigate the context, practice and outcomes of hand knitting as illuminating the experience and meanings of attachment, separation and loss – the problematic of being in relation with and to another. It seeks to contribute, through a process of ‘close looking’ and the production of evocative objects (Turkle, 2011), to a language of textile practice that is as much concerned with the sticky, unpleasant and unknown as it might be with the sensuous and warm.

This work started with a shape and a technique. Finding a method in developing volumes with the material in focus has been a theme throughout the project. The boundary between material and form has been investigated, just as the transition from sketch into ready garment. The result is a colourful and expressive collection of garments for women. The composition of the collection has been put together much as when making a collage, adding one interesting piece to another. The final collection ranges from one-off crafted pieces to more commercial or reproducible garments. / Program: Modedesignutbildningen

The purpose of this study is to explore remanufacturing as a sustainable waste management strategy for discarded clothing that may otherwise be directed to landfill. The central notion is that this is a response to the EU Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC which encourages the application of the 'waste hierarchy' - preference to eliminate waste at source, then, to reduce, reuse or recycle waste, and if impossible or impracticable, disposal in a responsible manner. Remanufacturing retrieves a product's inherent value when the product no longer fulfils the user's desired needs. The use of discarded clothes in a remanufacturing process could decrease clothing waste and contribute to resource conservation. Despite this, there has been little research into what is actually involved in the fashion remanufacturing process and how the process could be up-scalable to the mass market in order to have bigger environmental impact. A conceptual network consisting of textile sorters and recyclers, fashion remanufacturers and fashion retailers is examined through qualitative research. Experiential research and in-depth interviews were used to understand the process of fashion remanufacturing and the relationships that needed to be developed to up-scale the process in to mass market level. The fashion design process, as experienced by the designer, was described and the process models for individual processes were constructed and compared. The results of the comparison indicated a generic design process in fashion remanufacturing, showing the key phases. The generic remanufacturing process was compared with the mass market fashion design process to identify issues inherent when considering developing the process for mass market level and the potential for developing the conceptual framework was also examined. The originality of the investigation is that it identified the relationships between three key players in the conceptual network. A key factor that could account for business growth is the collaboration among key players along the reverse supply chain. The extent of business growth is dependent on the commitment and involvement of large fashion retailers.

This practice-led research examines how the emerging role of the ‘material designer’ can enrich the design process in Human Computer Interaction. It advocates embodiment as a design methodology by employing tacit knowledge; focusing on a subjective, affective and visceral engagement with computational materials. This theoretical premise is explored by drawing on the fields of soft robotics, as well as transitive and programmable materials. With the advancement and democratisation of physical computing and digital fabrication, it is now possible for designers to process, or even invent and composite new programmable materials, merging both their physical and digital capabilities. This study questions how the notion of soft can develop a distinct space for the design of novel user interfaces. This premise is applied through a phenomenological understanding of technology development—as opposed to generating data which is solely reliant on observable and measurable evidence. Bio-engineered technologies such as electroactive polymer, pneumatic and hydraulic actuator systems are deployed to explore a new type of responsive, sensual and organic materiality. Here, traditional medical diagnostic applications such as microfluidics are transferred into the experimental contexts of textiles and wearable technology. Therefore, by thinking through physical prototyping, a bodily engagement with materials and the interpretation of the elements of water, air and steam; a designer can create a fertile ground for a polyvalent imagination. Together, this methodology is used as a qualitative system for collecting and evaluating data on the significance of design-led thinking in soft robotic materials. This research concludes that there are insights to be gained from the creative practice and exploratory methods of material-led thinking in HCI that can contribute to the commercial research and development fields of wearable technology. Outputs include a prototype box of ‘Invention Tools’ for textile designers and the identification and creation of the role 04 of embodied making in relation to the imagination. Further, soft composite hybrids, incorporating elastomers, have potential applications in colour, texture and shape changing surfaces. Thus, this thesis argues that it is within the creative soft sciences that the next advancements in soft robotics may emerge.

This thesis explores themes of authenticity in the Aerie REAL branding campaign. In it, I explore how Aerie links notions of authenticity, expressed as a vocal denunciation of photo-editing techniques, with the ideal female body. To do this, I analyze Aerie’s branding materials (including social media posts on two different websites, as well as Aerie product photography) in context of its lack of photo-editing and other branding choices, including its choice of brand spokesperson. I consider these materials within a semiotic framework developed from the French school of semiotics, and analyze them both through this framework and a content analysis. I also consider concepts of Aerie’s brand personality. In this study I illuminate many of the tensions between Aerie’s explicit goals in its REAL campaign and what it has presented within the campaign. This has implications for future representations of women in advertising, as well as the use of authenticity as a brand position.

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This thesis explores the problem of wasteful fashion consumption in light of the current need for individuals to develop a sustainable way of living. The Agenda 21 report from the Rio Earth Summit (1992) determined that sustainable consumption is an issue to be addressed in terms of resource conservation, waste reduction and a reduction of production pollutants. To date, in Australia, there are no policies or strategies in place to reduce wasteful consumption from the consumer's perspective and it is this research and policy deficit that this thesis research addresses. According to a recent national study of wasteful consumption, Australians spent approximately 1.7 billion dollars in 2004 on fashion garments and accessories that they did not wear (Hamilton et al. 2005). However, landfill statistics revealed that only a small proportion of textile waste (of which clothing is a subsidiary category) contributes to landfill (ABS, 1998). This discrepancy between the annual expenditure and the contribution of clothing to landfill informed the research hypothesis; that the greater majority of these inactive fashion garments are hoarded in wardrobes rather than disposed of. This hypothesis was tested through an action research case study in the form of a clothing exchange event and related data collection and analysis (part 2 of the thesis). The additional objectives of the clothing exchange event were to activate

The rationale behind the research presented in this thesis grew from a perception that, historically, work that was seen to be