LCF Grad Futures: Testing Your Idea In The Market

LCF Grad Futures: Testing Your Idea In The Market

Join LCF Grad Futures for an inspiring and practical session designed to help you turn your idea into a minimum viable product.

1.4k followers
By LCF Graduate Futures
1.4k followers
Lots of repeat customers 📈

Date and time

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:00 - 12:00 BST

Location

London College of Fashion. EB M01 (Lecture Theatre)

105 Carpenters Road London E20 2AR United Kingdom

About this event

  • Event lasts 1 hour

This session is only for London College of Fashion students and graduates. It is aligned to your Graduate Futures enterprise journey.

How do you know if your idea will work? Before investing time and resources, it’s crucial to validate your concept with real customers. This lecture will guide you through market testing strategies to gather insights, reduce risk, and refine your idea based on real-world feedback.

We’ll cover practical approaches such as rapid prototyping, MVP development, user research, and competitor analysis, helping you test assumptions and adapt your idea for success. Key takeaways:

  • Learn lean methods to test your idea quickly and affordably.
  • Identify your target audience and gather meaningful feedback.
  • Understand the role of prototypes, pilots, and pre-sales.
  • Avoid common pitfalls and refine your value proposition.

Ideal for LCF students and graduates looking to validate a business, product, or creative concept before launch.


Speakers

  • Carla Frith, Graduate Futures Enterprise Consultant: Carla Frith is a Buying and Product development specialist with 17 years of industry experience. Carla has worked with some of the fashion industry’s leading brands; H&M, COS, and Topshop. In her role as Buying Manager at COS, she directed and managed a team of buyers, designers and merchandisers to create forward-thinking collections. Carla now works as a consultant for fashion start-up businesses helping them to take product visions into reality. Her work includes supporting founders with trend research, responsible supply chain sourcing, funding through to range development and production.


Useful resources

In this session, you will develop the key skills of enterprise as defined by the UAL Creative Attributes Framework (My_CAF). Before attending this activity, we suggest you check out our:


If there are any barriers to your participation in this event or you have access requirements you wish to discuss, please contact graduate.futures@fashion.arts.ac.uk in advance, we'd be happy to talk with you. If you can't sign-up as the tickets have run out or expired, please email and see if you are still able to attend.




Image credit: Students at Earth Day: Appetite for Justice event, 2022, Central Saint Martins, UAL | Photograph: Ana Blumenkron

Tickets

Frequently asked questions

When will I receive the event joining information?

For all our events and activities, you will receive a reminder email with joining instructions 1-2 days before the event. If the session is running virtually, you will receive all of the joining links with this reminder and the day before the activity.

This event is in person, how can I find your building in East Bank?

Follow our guide who walks you through the route from Stratford tube station, through Westfields, onto the Park, and to our East Bank campus entrance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWQX2k41YOw

Do I need any specific equipment to participate?

If you are joining our virtual sessions, you will need a device to access the session through Microsoft Teams (online or desktop app). For in-person events we recommend bringing notebooks and pens, as well as a device to be able to access any digital elements of the activity and network.

I don’t go London College of Fashion, can I still attend the event?

Our events are for LCF students, graduates and alumni only. If you are not a student or graduate with London College of Fashion you will be removed from the event access lists. This is because Graduate Futures is a bespoke LCF service department and we only have capacity to support our own students.

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Organised by

LCF Graduate Futures
1.4k followers
Lots of repeat customers

Supporting your professional ambitions

Studying at LCF gives you access to the focused careers and enterprise services, events and resources from the Graduate Futures team. Whatever your career, freelancer or business start-up ambitions, Graduate Futures works to provide current students and alumni with advice direct from industry thought leaders. We provide a safe place to encourage you to be comfortable with risk, ambiguity and experimentation. Graduate Futures supports the whole of your LCF journey and beyond, to enable you to innovate, create and achieve.

Enjoy our events? Check out our podcast, 'Careers in Fashion'.

Our support is free and accessible to all LCF students, graduates and alumni. Most of our opportunities are open to all, but some might be limited to specific groups - we'll make it clear when this is the case.