Over the last few years, social media platforms have become increasingly involved in the fashion field. Social media fashion opinion leaders (SMFOL) proved to be drivers of different aspects in the fashion field. This lead us that (SMFOL) are leading fashion consumption between the customers. In addition, COVID-19 pandemic has affected the fashion industry due to changes in consumer taste and behavior and selling channels. These changes impacted the volume of products as well as the types of designs. Therefore, institutions for fashion design education should update their teaching established constants to confront the recent challenges facing the fashion field.
The study aims to examine the importance of using (SMFOL) as an inspiration source in fashion design educational subjects; to raise the fashion undergraduates' creativity due to recent challenges by designing innovative designs that fulfil consumers' needs.
The project for the study was applied with 39 students in the third grade (semesters seven and eight) during the academic year 2020-2021 at the Apparel Design Management and Technology Dept., Faculty of App. Arts, Helwan University- Cairo, Egypt.
Three questionnaires were designed, A pre-questionnaire and a post-questionnaire for 39 students and a questionnaire for 21 specialists in the fashion education field and the fashion design industry and a statistical analysis was conducted. Results proved that inspiring by (SMFOL) is a stimulating source for the development of students' design creative capabilities in fashion design education due to recent challenges.