Empathy

Growing up as a woman brings new exciting experiences, but you can expect to hear an audible groan from every woman when she talks about puberty. So much change happens quickly, and it is not a “one size fits all” time when this occurs or how the body changes. With this being one of the most awkward times in a girl's life, we were curious about the clothing available to tweens - not a girl, but also relatively not a woman, between the ages of 8 – 13.

There is clothing targeted to women and clothing targeted to girls, but where could a tween find something specifically for her that could feel comfortable and grow with her as she grows?

How could a clothing brand contribute to building confidence and allowing a young girl to develop herself during her most significant adjustment, from childhood to adulthood?

Research: Understanding & Defining

1. Primary Research – Interviews, Focus Groups, & Surveys

Our first stage of research began by conducting focus groups and distributing surveys to both groups of mothers of tween daughters and tweens themselves.

2. Secondary Research: Audit of Studies & Data

Our next phase of research began by understanding what changes occur during puberty. From here, it was natural to start looking into what kind of insecurities and uncertainties these changes could bring and how to alleviate them.

We conducted a visual audit of the top brands marketing to tweens, what content and language are being marketed to tweens, how it’s being sold, and how tweens respond to this content.

Lastly, our research consisted of literature reviews, trend forecasting, color theory prediction casting, brand audits, analysis of garment construction, and psychology journal reviews.

Research Findings

Through these findings, this research shaped the outcome. Both the mothers and tweens agreed across the board that when it came to clothing, style is fit, and the fit is style. The goal was to find a solution that would make the garment's function the form.

Both groups wanted a style that fit well, felt comfortable, and was on trend, but ultimately was functional for tweens with developing bodies.

We found that tweens in the United States consume more commercial media in more varied formats than any generation preceding them and are deeply influenced by it. The marketing we found through our visual audit and research findings that ads targeting girls between the ages of 8 and 12 employ an increasing level of sexuality. Through our research of this age group's psychological and social needs, we found that tweens desire to belong yet simultaneously need to develop a sense of themselves, a “sense of belonging and connectedness” to something outside their family unit. We found that a female’s developing sense of self is “often organized around being able to make and maintain relationships.”

Through audits and literature reviews, an observation we found in puberty defined a priority to make a garment that could adjust horizontally and vertically as a tween grows. We dove deeply into the feature of pockets in clothing that they were created to provide comfort and feelings of independence, with a place to put hands.

Also, through this research, a tween girl may feel self-conscious about any garment on their body in general; we chose to create a garment with as few seams, tags, or adjustments that could irritate the skin and bring negative attention to the body. Research showed that the majority of changes that raise the most insecurities are around the waist and the arms.

Lastly, we took time to consider developmental and hormonal changes to create the garments with breathable and open fabric allowing airflow. These findings pinpointed our primary area of research: fit, comfort, and identity.

Ideation

The ideation phase began by pulling the research together and determining what would help solve our problem:

How could a clothing brand contribute to building confidence and allowing a young girl to develop herself during her most significant adjustment, from childhood to adulthood?

We determined our deliverables would be garments, a brand, a marketing strategy, a social media strategy, and a responsive, e-commerce direct-to-consumer website where these garments could be purchased and drop shipped.

Garment
For the garment, the most appropriate clothes to produce would be shirts and dresses, with the implementation of pockets on both. Shirts primarily and dresses secondary that would follow the pattern of the shirt to give the familiarity and comfort that shirt already provides but in a new variety.

Other focuses would include making the garment production simple to be sensory aware and rethinking how a sleeve could make a girl feel better about new uncontrollable developments.

Lastly, we hoped to introduce a boxy fit that would allow the garment to fit a tween while growing.

Brand & Deliverables

We would need to produce a brand; this would give identity for girls this age to belong to and claim as theirs.

Research showed that the most effective marketing to young girls is through social media like Instagram, Youtube, & TikTok. When purchasing garments, we marketed primarily to mothers, the purchasers, and tweens themselves. This led to the development of mobile and desktop-friendly websites, making them easily accessible to diverse audiences. The ideation phase gave us the framework from which to base our project.

Gathering References & Moodboarding

We compiled a massive library of photo references - a giant to help us visualize the essence of the brand and the message we were trying to communicate. We gathered images with strong, bold, clean lines and simple shapes and complied with a list of essence action verbs & adjectives that we thought expressed our vision. Those verbs and adjectives included: able, growing, confidently, achieving, comfortable, independent, private, and fearless.

Sketching / Naming

We sketched and developed concepts with different names of what the brand could be— the sketching and simultaneously naming helped us keep our message authentic and transparent.

04. Prototyping

The prototypes began by sewing pockets, cutting the sleeves and collars, and bringing in the sides and the length of pre-made shirts to implement a lighter, quicker, and cheaper way of prototyping. The actual garment construction came a little later but was heavily influenced by the pre-made shirts cut and sewn together to demonstrate how these needs could be met.

The first satisfying prototype was a cropped red shirt, sleeves trimmed, collar rounded, and pockets wrapped from the front to the back of the shirt. From here the rest of the prototypes were based around a similar pattern but with many changes made to the pocket sizes, sleeve types, length and collar shape. All of the varieties were thrown into testing.

The name Pocket and the brand came from our research, as well as in the prototype phase. While working, we began to research the history of pockets, which led to our solution to create both a constructed garment and a brand centered around the idea of a pocket. Through our research, pockets give feelings of both independence and a sense of privacy. During this age in a young girl’s life, one of the most significant social and esteem needs is a tension between needing to belong and finding one’s own identity. We centered our construction and brand around the concept of the simple pocket, which would create a sense of belonging through shape and fit and give a feeling of independence yet belonging.

05. Testing

Testing brought positive and negative feedback, revisions, and our final products. Each round of testing was conducted with the six same tweens.

The first method used was wireframing combined with storyboard and sketching, which allowed us to diagram each design rationale while visualizing our ideas. This helped produce ideas and helped us determine if they were worth pursuing further in the implementation process. This also allowed us to eliminate ideas not worth testing and funnel a few solid ideas before production testing. We next moved into alpha testing.

We took three prototype garments to six girls in our target audience. Each of them tried on the garments and was asked to critique their experience with them. This gave a clear insight into what was working and needed to change. During this testing, we also allowed them to provide any fashion insight they had to consider with our work. The final round of testing expanded outside of just those six young girls, allowing anyone who came into contact with the garment to critique it to ensure it allowed for a smooth transition from puberty to a young woman.

The method used was beta testing. This method allows the outside voice to critique and fine-tune of the garment. To test our brand and deliverables, we compared and contrasted the messages we were communicating against a list of competitors we had gathered through the beginning of our research.

06. Results

We had tween models wearing the garments in the studio for a photoshoot. Each of them raved about the comfort the shirts provided and utilized the pockets to hold their hands and the donuts we offered them to munch on during the shoot.

We chose these girls to demonstrate the variety of ages that can benefit from this garment and a smooth transition into womanhood with the aid of the garment.

We received overwhelming praise and support for the product and the brand. The brand allowed for the development to function by showcasing the garment's qualities and communicating the empowerment of tweens. The brand created an intentional, unique experience directly targeted to our target. Many females and some males of all ages asked if there was an opportunity to purchase the garments.

We also had the chance to visit with our models, who asked if they could keep the shirts they modeled. This was our most significant success. We are so thankful for the overwhelmingly positive responses we have received and hope to be able to produce Pocket clothing for all who are interested eventually.

This collaboration in branding, making, and executing all collateral for this gives this project a truthful voice. This project is designed for girls by girls. Through this collective project, we hope to make girls feel confident and comfortable in what they wear — that internally, they can become less focused, sensing discomfort, and distracted by their development but can build confidence and grow as they transition from childhood to adulthood.