The Transition to DPC in Fashion is Inevitable | Patagonia, Champion | PI Apparel

Thank you for sticking around. This is a topic, the topic that we'll be discussing in this panel that I think, I believe, and we all believe, I think, is not discussed enough, which is the digital skills gap. And I'm in really good company here. I will let each one of the panel members introduce themselves. My name is Sophia Bilaly, and I recently left VF Corporation after 18 years. I was leading the Advanced Digital Creation team and I'm now focusing a lot of my time on education because I believe education is the next strategic imperative for a lot of organizations. Every single organization, you know, VF had, you know, when I left, about 12 brands in the group. Every brand is on a different— well, on the same path but at a different point. On the digital transformation journey. But there's one imperative that every single organization is facing, which is hiring the right talent, upskilling their existing workforce, and thinking ahead about what their needs are going to be when they're at a point where they can scale their digital product creation initiatives. And that's an incredibly important topic. So thank you for sticking around, and thank you for joining us in this conversation. I'm going to let my fellow panel members introduce themselves.

Any particular order? Is that on?

Yeah, it's on. That's on. There we go. Hi everyone, welcome to the last session of today. We survived. Don't know about you, but it's been an awesome couple of days. Thank you to everyone who was displaying their wares.

Can I—

I'm going off topic slightly, but thank you for everyone who shared their wares out in the conference center and to also the great conversation that's happened over the last couple of days. It's been invaluable. My name is Jeanette Cox. I am the Director of Digital Product Creation Global. I like that part, they added that on. I'm not sure what it means yet, but, uh, global for Hanes. And for those who know Hanes, we're not just men's underpants, we're also Champion Sport gear for sport. We sell at bookstores, uh, Bonds Australia, etc. So yes, we're going digital, and the company is incredibly excited about the change in the past that's to come over the coming years. So thank Thank you for having me up front this afternoon.

Hello all, my name is Keala Steffen. I am from Patagonia. I'm leading our digital product creation implementation. I'm also overseeing our size and fit team and our go-to-market calendar work. So a lot of different bodies of work there, but they all cross over in certain ways, as many of you know. And thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me and looking forward to the discussion here.

Hi, my name is Lynn Barady. I'm from The Oklahoma State University. I have been from industry, long-time advocate of working with industry in terms of education and what we offer our students, and came to my first PI in 2016, met the 3DRC group, and I haven't looked back since.

Hi, good afternoon everyone. I'm Anupama Pasricha. I am from St. Catherine University. It's a small public— not public, sorry, yours is public. I'm sorry, a small private university. And the fun part is like it's also one of the largest colleges for women. And within the fashion program, we have over 50% BIPOC, or women of color, as we were discussing yesterday. And my role is not only teaching 3D CAD, a lot of other things, and also advocating for trying to find money and stuff, just like bringing software and new things to the program. Great.

Thank you all. I'm really excited about this group because I think it embodies the work that the 3DRC is doing. How many people in the audience know about the 3DRC? A few hands. Oh, wow. Exciting. OK, great. I hope you're all on a committee. If not, please sign up. I happen to chair the Education Committee, one of three committees that's doing a fantastic job. And the reason why I think it's really important for my fellow panelists to be here is because it's this partnership between the industry and educators that we believe is— is extremely important and will, without a doubt, help bridge that digital skills gap that we've talked about. The challenges that we're facing, and we'll get into the challenges in a little bit, the challenges are much bigger than any single organization, right? And this is why being able to partner not only between industry representatives, brand representatives, but also with educators is the way really to ensure that the workforce that we shape, you know, for tomorrow has the skills that the industry needs ultimately. So we'll go— I think I have to click.

All right.

So, you know, we know that this transition is inevitable. When you think about everyone's effort to transform the way they bring product to market, as we mentioned before, you know, everyone's on a different— at a different point on this journey. But it's the term that I really want to focus on during this conversation is the very last word, scale, right? Given the volume of work that, you know, this transformation entails and the nature of the skills that are involved, it's really important for us to ensure that everyone in the value chain understands and is trained to be able to contribute to this digitized go-to-market process. So let's start about, let's start with maybe talking about some of the more fundamental challenges that each one of your organizations, so whether it's a brand or it's a university, it's an educational program, faces. Maybe we'll start with Jeannette, who just got a brand new microphone.

Hi. There's no button.

Hi.

We on? No, yes, am I on? Oh, okay, good. Okay, so the question, what are some of the fundamental challenges in our organization faces? I think probably the same for many of you here. Some companies have been impacted by roles disappearing. Through recent sale challenges, et cetera, and then we're asking our teams to take on more. We're not replacing headcount. So therefore, how do you keep people enthusiastic and then layer on digital on top of it and say your role's going to change, you're now doing 3 jobs instead of 1 job, and by the way, we need to train you to work differently. So I know Erin at Gap did a great talk earlier talking about change management and obviously keeping people enthusiastic. It's hard. I know at Haines, as we start to implement digital, We're looking at employing skilled people to bring in and be a part of that change in that conversation and embed them in part of the process of keeping change going. But we also wanna look to universities and colleges to support that change as well, not just through educating new candidates which are coming through now, but how can universities and colleges support the staff that we have and how can we partner to offer training which is accessible within the workplace and relevant as well. So I think this is just the start of the conversation. 'cause we've certainly been looking as we're looking for interns and how can we bring interns and that be part of that change. So like I said, I think this is a great topic that we should all be, a conversation that we should all be having, particularly with the colleges and universities of how can we upskill current staff and also new people coming through into the industry as well.

I would say the challenges at Patagonia aren't unique to Patagonia. In talking with other brands and people on this DPC journey, we're finding that it is difficult to work in this 2D space while we're moving into a 3D space. And there is going to be this parallel journey for quite some time as we're scaling, as we're upskilling, as we're building that infrastructure that's necessary, onboarding the finished goods facilities, et cetera. So one of the challenges is really that parallel path and asking folks to work in two ways. And that feels like a lot, and it is a lot, and acknowledging that. Meeting people where they are, but also providing the support, the upskilling, the foundational tools for a successful experience is key. So we're working on all of those at the same time, but also just, I think, acknowledging how challenging it is for folks to move into this space, as exciting as it is. We're not leaving 2D. It's not a flip of a switch. It is a transition.

Okay, so everything that they said on steroids, because what we end up doing is that we need to find out from industry what's going on to make sure that our students are updated with the latest skills. So while you're upskilling, we're not only upskilling, but we have to do it fast enough to be able to start teaching it the next semester so that by the time our students graduate, they're ready for the companies. Um, so I'm very lucky to lead a group of 15 faculty who are collaborative and flexible, and so So when I came to them and told them, okay, this is what industry is doing, this is what they want, are we ready for this? They're like, well, no, but we can certainly upskill, learn, and be on the ball. And so we're actually launching a program, a fully revised program this fall that I'll talk a little bit more about.

Well, I have a very different kind of challenge in addition to all these challenges. So being at a small school, Resources are always limited. So it's always, you know, getting the next technology. So there's not enough funding. And if I have to try to find time to find money here and there, it's just super challenging. Besides, you know, having small group of faculty. So it's one faculty, so much overload of teaching, you know, new thing, learning a new thing. And even the IT departments are pretty scant, right? Like they're serving the whole university. So you don't— do not have the support system that you need. So I think, so the biggest challenge for me then becomes like how do I prepare these professionals who will be going, like future professionals to be ready for the industry? And for me, it have to just like try to work 48 hours a day to learn myself, to find money, and that's how I moved from like I had a very old dated software which was very like a mom and pop, you can say, software. Wrote grant to get OptiTex, and now moving on to Browzwear, just like trying to make sure that I'm preparing students who are competing against all these bigger schools who are coming with so many resources behind them. So for smaller schools, I feel if there is more support from both brands and from the provider, solution providers, that's really, really crucial so that, you know, we have enough I would say access for the students of all kinds. Because there's so much power in diversity that you can get if you are inclusive and you're able to support that.

Thank you all. Those are incredibly insightful contributions. I had the— I would say the privilege, but the unique experience of having a foot in each space. Up until while I was still at VF, I was also teaching. I teach a class on advanced digital creation at ArtCenter College of Design, about 20 minutes from here in Pasadena. And at the same time, I was also part of the original team back in 2010, 2011. At that point, I was at Vans, who was pushing for this digital product creation initiative to take hold. First within our brand and then within the broader VF ecosystem. What we learned along the way is that the expectation that is set for existing teams to learn new tools on top of the day-to-day work that they have is just not realistic. So we had to get extra creative in finding ways to, one, motivate them, inspire them, and incentivize them to want to learn these new skills and create space also for that learning process to take place. Now, with my other foot, realizing that the way students these days are learning is completely different. It's changing. We're dealing, for the most part, with digital natives who know where to find the information. They can find the information. They can teach themselves how to code. Code, you know, maybe even build, you know, assets for gaming and, you know, skins and things like that. What they don't know is what matters in the industry. They don't know what's relevant and they don't know what they can do with the skills and the talent they have. So for me, the biggest challenge has been to try to connect those two spaces. And we've been talking about the industry and academia, but we also have to remember that technology partners play a big role. It's important that this trifecta is really tightly connected because it'll take a partnership, a collaboration between the three entities to make sure that the skills that end up being relevant, well, that the industry knows will be relevant now or in 3 years are the ones that are taught and supported by the technology partners that that, you know, publish the tools that are being used. So I spoke a little bit about new ways of learning, but maybe we can delve a little bit deeper into skills. You know, for instance, skills in the industry. What are the shifts that you have personally seen in your space?

I'm gonna refer to, as we've been recruiting for skills, particularly within the TD community, let's not lose sight of those good old-fashioned skills that have been around for years, like fundamentally pattern making, how to pattern make the old-fashioned way. I still, as we've looked for interns, we've actually focused on recruiting interns that are taught how to old-fashioned pattern make, and then you take that skill and then teach them how to stitch a garment up. Too often as we've been recruiting, looking for TD3D to work in our space, they can say, oh yeah, I can, I can work in 3D. But when it comes to the crux of it, they can stitch something up, but they actually don't know what they're looking at or how then to manipulate it. So what I would like to say, yes, all this technology is a wonderful thing, but I still think those fundamental good old-fashioned skills of pattern making are still key. How to put a garment onto a fit form and actually talk to it and analyze it, and then you take that to 3D. So I'm certainly not by any means saying let's lose sight of all that. If anything, that's what we're looking for to recruit and then teaching 3D. So the basics, please, to the colleges, still absolutely key for us to find because there's still colleges and universities out there that are not doing that. And we're finding they're teaching students how to stitch up in 3D, but the students then don't know what they're looking at or then how to manipulate it. So that's near and dear to our hearts, certainly as we're recruiting anyway.

Similar to that, those basics, I have found it's very important to find folks that understand that product creation process. Usually, that's in the traditional 2D process. But understanding that flow is going to allow that transition to 3D happen much more effectively. And knowing all those points that the product has to move through, yes, it's a bit different in 3D in some cases. But having that foundation, I think, is very key. Separate from that, I think it's important to look at beyond that 3D create space. What are the skill sets necessary to use those assets in other ways for the business, whether that's customer-facing, internal decision-making? That's a completely different skill set in my mind versus the digital product creation skill set. So I think it's important to look across the whole range there.

Lynn?

So we have to do all that in 4 years, and I've been in, I've been in education for 30 years, and my biggest thing with the students in the past 30 years is when I was teaching way back then, students would come with some sewing skills and, and they knew a little bit about, you know, making clothes or doing something with their hands. They don't know that skill now. So we get them knowing zero and have to upskill them in 4 years with everything you've just said. And it's a challenge. I think we've been successful with it, but it certainly is not easy to do. And students who claim to be the digital natives, some really are, some aren't. They're really good at their phones and playing games, but you sit them down in front of a computer and ask them to learn pattern making and they're going, which button? What am I doing? So there is that learning curve that we're seeing still today. They're not native on specific software.

So I can add to that, even when they're coming out of high school, some of them don't even know how to read a ruler. That's like, you know, what is 1 inch or what is 1/8 inch and things like that. And then you have to teach that foundation. I fully agree with that. Because without that foundation they cannot do a good rendering for 3D, because then they don't know what the body is, where the curve is, and everything. And then the other piece is like they are also learning in very small bits and pieces, so you have to like rework your curriculum every year to make sure that they are understanding what's happening there. So like everything has to be in small bits. And as far as I think the learning curve, I have found that if they have strong foundation skills, they are not as good at being a digital native, and if they're digital native, they are not so good at the foundational. Somehow their brain or how it functions, I think, kind of works differently in those two spheres. So, out of the whole class, I'll find like one or two students who can do, mix both of those very well. So, those are like the rising stars who can do that. But others would think very differently, you know, hands-on or the computer on, basically. So that has been hard. And as far as— should I address the new ways of learning too? So, again, when we all saw COVID and we saw that things had to move digitally, online, so, you know, like remote learning became important. So, again, especially the 3D softwares that were able to quickly adapt and give access to when they were— students were at home and they were not in the lab, then that became like really important at that point. But every technology company did not do that. So that was really hard at that point, you know, because— and now these are— so some students are learning in classroom, some are in the hybrid, and some are fully online. So we have to kind of think of 3 different ways of delivering the same thing, and it is a lot of pressure on educators from that perspective.

Can I add one more thing? Because you talk here about new ways of learning, because some of my old team at Gap and my current team, they were teasing me this afternoon— well, I think it was this afternoon— because I, as I try and learn 3D technology, let's not forget those who are a little bit longer in the tooth at learning and is not as fast as a new generation coming through. And we talk about upskilling our current workforce And I'm trying my hardest to do digital, but I'm a bit slower and I'm figuring out where the files— and my team were teasing and saying, how often does she ring you and ask you where to put the avatar? You know, so— but that's a real thing, right? And it's a different generation and we learn differently and we need more time. And I don't know how much white space will my company give me to learn how to use digital. But that is another issue that we need to consider as we upskill our workforce. We all learn differently. And we all learn at a different pace. If we're not used to using some of these skills, it is naturally scary for some people. We've got to consider that. And people always jump to the worst, that I'm going to lose my job if I, if I can't do this. And that's part of the change management, right? That it's exciting and some people just need a bit more time to, to get there, but they'll get there eventually.

Um, yeah, great points. Um, there, there are a couple of 2 skills, I would say 2 skills that I remember us really hiring against or at least looking for in candidates, but also, you know, in the team members who are currently at the organization so we could promote them into the right positions, which was— the first one is curiosity. Maintain a constant sense of curiosity and openness to learn. Because, you know, things— even those who are really good at a specific tool will be in a position, you know, it could be next week, it could be 6 months from now, where they have to learn something new. And if you're not curious, you will not— you will be left behind. So that's one thing. It's hard to teach that, right? But you can at least inspire or incentivize that. And the other one is a certain degree of agility, knowing that, you know, the tools that we use today will most likely not be the tools we use 3 years from now. So having this, you know, being comfortable with a certain, you know, degree of, or having a certain sense of agility and having, being comfortable You know, learning new tools, identifying the tools that might help you in your process, onboarding them, and then letting go of them when they don't help you in your creative process anymore or in your day-to-day work. Those are things, those are new types of skills that, you know, you can't find in a book or in a course, but, you know, that individuals really have to work on themselves. We're going to have one more question about what your specific organizations have done. Maybe we can, we can breeze through this a little bit faster so we can get to the meat of the conversation.

Well, for Haines, we've just really kicked off digital product creation within the organization. So, the first protocol is we don't have the right tools. To train everybody. The nice to have would be to have the right computers to start with. So that's a whole conversation that's ongoing, and it's a real conversation for probably many organizations and also for our IT partners and the business to understand how to service the software. So that's probably, I would say, that's where we're at. Yes, we've got, I'm employing talent to bring in digital, but in terms of starting to plan and organize the shift, that's very much in its infancy and something that we'll identify and develop and partner hopefully with more colleges and universities over the coming months and years.

At Patagonia, we've really been fortunate to have the support of leadership to do the hard skill set training in the tools, but combining that, once there's a level of confidence in the tool, combining that with the how-to at Patagonia specifically. So what does that workflow look like? What are the roles and responsibilities? And kind of bringing it full circle for folks so that they're comfortable in the tool and now they know how to use it day to day. And we're not there yet. We're still getting there. Folks, some are more comfortable than others, of course, but really trying to close that gap of, okay, now I know how to use it, but how do I do that in my job? And how do my colleagues do that in their jobs? And what does that look like as we get through that workflow? So, that's how it's been going for us.

It's really not my organization as much as it is my faculty, because I have to ask them to do extra work if they need to redo entire courses, or in my case, we developed all new courses to speak to the demand from industry. And luckily, I have a very curious and agile faculty member who was willing to take on that task and move the program light years ahead of where we were in order to get this done.

Yeah, same thing. So like, it's basically me doing all this work of 3D and everything. Yeah, so just quickly trying to be agile, be flexible, and be flexible for students as well because they are learning. So you have to work around and also trying to give them more real-life kind of examples so that they know that they are in that situation. So how would they use it in specific situation.

So, as we can see, as we see here, and, you know, as we've, we listened to your, your personal and organizational stories, the challenges are for the most part very similar, and the, the opportunities for some degree of, of collaboration across industry, so across brands, but also between, um, that the members of that triad that we mentioned before, uh, the, you know, industry representatives, the technology partners, and the educators, um, is what prompted us to embark on this, this journey with the 3DRC Education Committee. Um, over the past, I would say, year and a half, 2 years, even longer than that, I think, um, We've set out, so, you know, shout out to the team of volunteers that put in a lot of work, a lot of their personal time. We set out to create what we ended up calling the certification matrix, which is basically an educational framework, certification framework that allows the creation of some kind of a standard to not only define but also assess 3D skills and competencies and really aligning on a way to describe what it is that we accept the workforce, you know, the current workforce or the workforce of tomorrow to be able to do in very specific roles. So we had, you know, we went, we analyzed the different possible roles. 3 artists, technical designer, 3D designer, and materials designer. And the idea was to get to a point where we could agree in principle that these are the skills that the industry is looking for so that education— our educational partners could— align their strategies and their efforts to make sure that those were the skills that the students left when they graduate, when they graduate from a long program or through a shorter certificate-based program. And really understand that we're speaking the same language, and it's basically we're shaking hands on this. And this partnership, I think, has— has the potential of really getting us to a point where we're at least embarked on the same journey and are able to close that digital skills gap. That's been a real challenge for everyone. So we've gotten to a point where we've put together this certification matrix, this framework. We are looking for— input from brand partners because that's really what's going to drive this. You know, it's not the educational partners who are going to dictate what it is, what it is that the students need to know. So we are looking to have these conversations with industry representatives, with brand representatives to be able to identify those skills and basically validate those. And, you know, the next step for this is to present the updated— so the updated framework based on the feedback that we receive to the Textile and Apparel Accreditation Commission later this year. In the meantime, there have been some pilots underway. So taking everything that we've learned along the way and really initiating specific pilots to help us better understand what works, what doesn't, and what roadblocks we might find along the way. And Lynn will have an opportunity right now to let us know about the pilot that she's leading.

Okay, thank you.

So, I guess I first want to start this out is that I hope everyone in this room is working with a college or university near them. Most of us tend to hire from places that are close to us or places that we know and understand what their education and the skills that they learn afterwards. What I've found though is that when you say digital product creation, that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. And I know a lot of educational institutions are doing it in different ways. Knowing that, and then taking a look at the certification matrixes that were put together by industry for all 4 different positions. So the artist, the designer, the technical design, and the material specialist. We completely turned our curriculum on end and we created— and this is, this is actually Oklahoma State's response to the skills certification matrix that you see here, where we've got a series of classes that leads up into certification in each one of these areas. So my faculty went through, we decided what it was, we looked at the skills, we ranked them in terms of a hierarchical order. We decided that you can't do this in one class, so we did two classes, and then we realized you can't do that in two classes, you need more. And so what we really did is we've created something that we believe it doesn't touch on the superficial, it doesn't touch on the just being pretty or just putting it out on the internet. That really hones in on the actual skills and the knowledge base that you need underneath the framework of knowing the software in order to be industry ready when they graduate. So we are launching that this fall. We've got almost done. You know, you're ready to launch, but you don't have it all in order yet, so you're a little bit nervous. We're ready to launch this fall. Also, in reply to the industry, we've decided that not only are we doing this for our students, but we are doing it online, asynchronous, for anybody who wants to take it at cost that's less than taking it for credit. We can hold classes if we have a group of people who would like a class. Basically, I'm dedicating one faculty member to this this 4 classes, 4 series of 4 classes in order to get this right. And so there's somebody who is dedicated to answering questions, to working on glitches, and moving the program forward.

This is absolutely amazing. Um, you know, there's a lot of work that goes into that, and I think having the, the courage and the initiative, taking the initiative to pilot something like that is what we need.

And I don't think I'm allowed to give a shout out. I wish I had talked to my industry partner before. But we have an industry partner who literally looked over every single class lecture to make sure that we were doing this right. And I have never worked that closely with industry before. And so I—

They're here in the room.

Pardon me?

They're here in the room.

They're here in the room. And I cannot thank them. From the bottom of my heart for this because that to me has really validated that what we're doing hopefully will be valued by industry. And I want people to know that we're the pilot for it. We're hoping to get this out to other educational institutions as fast as possible. The skills matrix is not proprietary— thank you— information. And I'm gonna be taking this to my professional organization for educators and telling them all about this and what industry wants so that all the schools could be doing this. And I would love to see it go on to different topics, different areas that the industry needs.

That's great. The importance also, understanding the importance of continuing this conversation and maintaining this collaboration is really, really important. We had, you know, I was fortunate enough to be able to to host a relatively large number of designers and creatives in Morocco 2 weeks ago, where we had this kind of the very same conversation about the big shifts that are happening in their space. This was covering fashion, but also other spaces like automotive product design and adjacent industries, and really aligning on our understanding of what those big shifts are and what that means for the skills and competencies we're expecting, you know, new or students, graduating students to have. And we're also able to connect with students from the region, you know, knowing that Africa is a continent with incredible opportunity, incredible potential, but very little access or opportunity. And looking to create an educational program pilot in Morocco and hopefully being able to extend that to other places in Africa. As an example of what happens when, you know, those conversations happen and, you know, this understanding can lead to opportunity for otherwise underserved communities. So, you know, a lot of work is being done, not enough, but it's really, for me, inspiring to see that these conversations are happening, these partnerships, these alliances are yielding pilots and hopefully longstanding programs. I did want to acknowledge the team that has put a lot of work into into the certification matrix and all the content and all the conversations that we've had. Everyone's volunteering their time. Everyone has really put in a lot of time and effort to communicate, consolidate, really discuss what's really meaningful. And to me, this is a sign that we can, if we want to, we can work together to tackle this really important topic of the skills gap, digital skills gap. So thanks to everyone who was involved. And in case you're looking to volunteer, you're interested in joining the 3DRC and specifically the Education Committee, feel free to to email our project manager, Cynthia Bailey, at Calypso. And we are looking forward to welcoming you in our group. Thank you. All right. Do we have time for questions?

Is that it?

There are.

Oh, wow.

And there actually aren't any. OK. Ah, no questions?

We said it all.

And I just want to add, again, thank you for the committee that, you know, I'm part of. So I feel privileged to be part of this committee, uh, with the Education Committee and the matrix that has been put together. I'm using that as a guideline for me that I want to make sure that students go out with those skills because that's listed there. And I would really request all the industry to please validate those because it's really important. Like, we are looking out for your guidance from you to make sure that we are doing the right thing.

So we need your help.

Yeah, the more of you that give us input, the better it's going to be for you.

So please, thank you all. Thank you very much. Oh, question?

We have a question.

Um, I had a question about the certification.

Are you certifying—

are you planning that it's going to certify like the program that they're going through, or certifying the actual individual?

They're the— so the Textile and Apparel Program Accreditation Committee, the programs can be fully accredited, but this skill— this skills matrix would probably be certified, that it meets the skills and has the outcomes that we require. It's a whole conversation of how that happens. But yeah, we can talk later.

All right. Thank you. Thank you again so much.