This paper identifies the desired design outcomes and problem domains of experienced Johannesburg fashion designers, to provide recommendations for fashion design practice and education. Traditional fashion design education often emphasises aesthetics and technical construction before strategically deciding on where the design effort needs to be focused within complex integrated systems. However, within the context of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), complex integrated systemic thinking is becoming increasingly important. As such, this paper provides an overview of the design outcomes of practising fashion designers and explores the correlation between the problems they manage and Buchanan’s (1998) seminal proposition of problem framing and placement domains.

For decades, studio-based pedagogy, grounded in socially-engaged, constructivist learning spaces dominated design education (Crowther 2013; Shreeve, 2015). However, the global pandemic forced design education to align with the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and move towards interactive digital technologies and online teaching and learning methodologies. Positioned in the space of 4IR, the move to digital technologies is required to digitally streamline and integrate human-centred opportunities for inclusivity guided by technological advancements (Chuo 2019, pp. 107).

Fashion design entrepreneurs (FDEs) are compelled to embrace digitalisation to create a competitive advantage and provide the Web 2.0 (participative and social web) smart customer with the service they require. The purpose of this research was to determine how social media facilitates custom-made apparel design decisions in the FDE context. This study sets out to apply the third-generation activity theory to show the role social media plays in the activity system's result between a customer and FDE during the design process. Qualitative data from three independent exploratory studies conducted in Gauteng, South Africa, were used.

Traditionally, design-based research (DBR) unifies research, design and evaluation of interventions aimed at improving educational practice. Shifts elucidate DBR as a novelty to bridge the gap between knowledge generated from research with that of design practice. DBR, therefore, locates itself in both educational and design practice contexts. This paper considers DBR in the educational context hence aimed at the affordance for improving fashion design educational practice. The DBR phases in educational disciplines may well act as guidelines to develop scholarship around research on and through design.

Two fundamental shifts are currently evident in design. Firstly, a growing call to integrate research and praxis is evident. Secondly, a call to move fashion design praxis to more relevant and value-adding environmental sustainable and user-centred design approaches is emerging. As such, fashion education should align itself to such shifts.

Visual literacy is a core competency required to express and reinforce cultural identity through clothing in the realm of fashion, and is therefore important within the context of decolonising fashion design education. Traditionally, curricula focused on the Euro-centric concept of fashion and accordingly, teaching methods and design products expected from students were mostly applicable within this context. Nevertheless, in South Africa, due to political and educational reform, the demographics of students in fashion design programs in Universities have changed radically over the past two decades to include diverse African and South African cultures.