Introducing Irrelevant Information in the Creative Process: the DIMAI model for Fashion Design

Creativity is a very fascinating realm, thanks to the available degrees of freedom in interpreting its complex nature. There is growing agreement today about the fact that creative thinking is not a mysterious and inexplicable process, but rather the consequence of the proper use of a set of cognitive and conative abilities and strategies that can be defined, measured, and developed starting from natural endowments. What is however still open for investigation is the fundamental question about which of these abilities and strategies can be considered to be domain specific (i.e., peculiar of a particular segment of knowledge and practice), and what is the consequent space left for domain general components (i.e., common to any and all applications of creative thinking). In other words, if we focus our attention on the application of creativity to the domain of design for fashion, we should try to understand if a general model for the creative thinking process can be of use, and how it can be specifically applied. In our opinion the answer is positive, as detailed in the body of the article.