Social Media and Visual Analysis - Part of the Research Process behind my MA

As part of my own personal MA Research, in which I'm investigating the gap within the fashion industry's market, in terms of more appealing (pretty, feminine, detailed) lingerie and clothes, when considering the underwear as outerwear trend, I'm undertaking various different types of research which I believe will help me best to understand more about this particular fashion market, e.g. what's already out there and what it is exactly that the consumer, who falls into this gap, wants.

My differing types of research include, questionnaires, interviews both with people who work within the industry and consumers once again effected by the gap, focus groups, research trips including one to the corset achieves in Leicester to see how the silhouette of lingerie has developed over time & to discover if it was better suited to bigger busted women then or now and finally Social and Visual Analysis of social media, which is primarily undertaken to uncover my potential consumers shopping habits and their likes and dislikes etc.

So this blogpost, as the title states, will look further into one of my five research methods listed above which is Social and Visual Media Analysis. The way that I have conducted this research, firstly started off by putting together a basic questionnaire, with women of all ages being able to partake. One of the questions within the questionnaire, specifically asked which brands the consumer shopped at most and why, I then took this information and combined it with the correlation of the women's age, to fit my consumer age range of 18-30, whilst also considering their bust and clothing size, and shortlisted the brands which were deemed most popular.

I then researched each of these brands and their various different types of posts on varying platforms of social media including Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, specifically looking for the images and posts which either included lingerie, items of clothing which could be suitable for the underwear as outerwear trend and any items made out of sheer fabric as this is basically what my own MA project is going to be all about.

After gathering a handful of posts from the different brands social media outlets, which had been shortlisted from my questionnaire analysis of which included, Topshop, Debenhams and New Look to name just a few, I then compared how many likes one particular post got in comparison to others on that brands social media sites such as Instagram say, to see how popular it was with the brands followers, and then delved even deeper into my chosen posts by analysing the comments which had been left on the said posts some of which included how much they loved the lingerie or garment in question or how they loved it but they wished the brand stocked bigger sizes, specifically when regarding pretty lingerie. A few example pages from my Social and Visual Analysis Research mini- book can be seen below.

This style of research, has ultimately helped me to not only understand what is already out there for my consumer, but also what isn't out there and what they want to be out there. By taking the information on board that I have gained from undertaking this social and visual media analysis, I honestly believe I'll be able to create a collection which truly mimics exactly what my consumer wants but can't get because her boobs are either too big or too small. I'll achieve this by taking inspiration from the various different silhouettes, styles and detailing techniques you see within my social and visual media analysis mini book and moving them forward into my design development packs which will ultimately be where I will pick my three final outfit designs from within term 3 to go forward and manufacture.

For me, this type of research has been really interesting and vital in regard to being able to achieve what I want to achieve within my final major project and MA in general.

Jess xo