While boating might appear to be a male-dominated sport, research shows it’s women who often drive buying decisions for watercraft purchases and upgrades. With that information in hand, Glen Raven recently sponsored a Marine Design Challenge, inviting fashion design students at North Carolina State University to create boating designs with female consumers in mind.

“We selected fashion design students for two reasons—they are in close contact with the latest trends in fashion, and they are for the most part new to boating so they started with a blank slate,” said Paige Mullis, director of the Concept Gallery at Glen Raven, a leading supplier of performance fabrics. “The students were given full access to all of the products available through Glen Raven and challenged to develop new ways of using these products to make the boating experience more appealing to women.”

The students detailed a broad array of innovative ideas for boating, including movie screens above and below deck, trampolines for diving off of a boat into the water, modular deck seating, changeable wall panels, collapsible storage boxes, and more. Each team focused on features that would appeal to female consumers and their families in enhancing their enjoyment of the boating lifestyle.

Glen Raven, a global design, marketing and manufacturing company focused on innovative fabric-based solutions, is producing a video documentary of the Marine Design Challenge and will make the work of the students broadly available to the industry through upcoming trade shows. Similar partnerships are anticipated with
other colleges and universities.