Find examples of peer-produced design

This is the first thing I've contributed, so forgive me but let me know if I'm doing anything wrong.

I have a bee in my bonnet. Three years ago, I moved to Norwich, UK from New York City where I was a textile designer with a small fashion house. Through an AA2A mini-residency at Norwich School of Art and Design in their textile department, I learned that none of the students expected to be able to earn a living via what they were learning, at least not without leaving the area for London. Over time, I also found that there were no local employers for my textile design skills. Considering that textiles play a very large part in Norwich's history, this seems a shame to me.

However, also over time, I have met many other locals aspiring to work in textiles. I learned of a local business Woad, Inc. reviving the historic indigo source and other traditional dyes. I saw sheep being raised locally, met spinners, weavers, knitters, designers, pattern makers, and locals who have amongst them all the skills needed for a fashion house. I became interested in slow fashion as a way of counteracting the vast waste of prevailing fashion production. I learned about Catwalk Genius, a crowdfunding site for fashion designers, and Beer Bankroll, a UK brewing company using crowd sourcing and funding to develop the business, and Blank, an ultralocal fashion company in Canada.

Altogether, these various threads have woven themselves together in my head and convinced me that, although I have very little money to start a fashion company with, it can be done.

Here is an outline of my present idea of how the company would work.

1) I recruit and interview each prospective member to form a database of skills, knowledge, and experience, (and what the members would charge the group for those) that will be distributed to all members.

2) We gather for introductions and to chose our color pallette collbaratively. It will be no more than 6 colors to start and will include a woad-based blue and the historic Norwich red. There are public trend sources to help us with the rest. We go away with the aim of locally sourcing fabrics, yarns, and local recruits needed to fill any skill, knowledge, or experience gaps.

3. We meet to discuss fabrics. Fabrics will be sourced as locally, and as fair trade as possible, East Anglian sources being first priority, the UK second, and the greater EU as a last resort. For our first collection, we will use no more than four fabrics. A member with expertise in appropriate fabric choices for design types gives a presentation. We go away with the aim of bringing appropriate designs to the next meeting. Appropriate designs must be in the chosen colors and fabrics with the types of pattern pieces that require as few cuts and seams as possible, the types of patterns handweavers and reenactors use so as to minimize waste and sewing labor. Knits must me easily made on home knitting machines. Scraps are to be made available to others as materials for appliques and other embellishments.

4. We gather with out designs and choose no more designs than we have members, perhaps less if members wish to work in a group on a single design. Each member chooses the one design they will work on and be responsible for. An initial collection can be as few as 4 pieces. We leave with the aim of producing one sample garment of each design in a chosen size. A presentation is given on the types of records that will need to be kept in order to make it possible to reproduce the items. Costs of producing the items are shared among the members. Each person in charge of a particular item is encouraged to call on the skills, knowledge, and experience of other members via the database as needed to produce that one item.

5. We gather to view and discuss the items produced, choosing which will be put on Catwalk Genius to crowdsource the market and for crowdfunding. We talk about styling for photographs, publicity, pricing, and what is needed for a package to approach local boutiques with the items. Groups are reformed to deal with particular aspects of this stage. All sales besides at Catwalk Genius will be local.

6. We gather to review the feedback from our various sales efforts. Our labels will include contact information and an invitation to buyers to feedback comments, particularly comments regarding fit. And we leave with our plan for locally producing items to fulfill our sales. Money made will also be split among the group.

7. We gather to review the entire experience. Will we go ahead with another collection? What changes will we make in the process? Will we go ahead as several separate companies, having learned a lot from the process? Will we take our gained experiences and try to join existing companies? Will we never speak to each other again?

I am fully aware that the whole thing is not likely to move along nearly as smoothly as I envision it. My first recruitment is planned through a local volunteer fashion show project of Oxfam, a local producers organization called Produced in Norfolk, and a local Grameen Bank-like organization involved in helping women start businesses.

I propose that I make a continuing report on the progress of this project to Assignment Zero perhaps via a column or blog, and I welcome feedback.

I found another example website:

http://co.labr8.com

shows peer production, collaborative design, community design across multiple markets. New.