While considering new pathways in design, we envisioned the futuristic aesthetic of fashion in the South African context. Although fashion designers work with complex and multifaceted problems, the cornerstone of good design remains beautiful aesthetics; thus, when imagining the progression of South African design, we start with an investigation of aesthetics.

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.