Research process so far!

My research process till now includes initial brain storming, mind maps, questions I came up with, and research strategies for them.

First I did mind mapping of what all I need to research in the topic "Is men's fashion restrictive/limited?" The reason why I chose this topic was, I always wondered why men are not as fashionable, and if some of them are, why are they considered gay? I want to carry out this research so that I get to know, what is that men are actually ready to wear, and how can I give it to them. I want to find the gap, and not just do some bizarre fashion collection, which most men wouldn’t even dream of wearing. So in this mapping, I wrote down all the factors, things I need to do to answer this question.

In the second one, I improvised on it, categorizing it into three stages - past, present & future and in the end, find the gap.

Hence I planned my research strategy based on this. I though how I could answer all these questions and came up with the following options.

After that, I did my research, read interviews of famous menswear designers, went through fashion show collections, asked people and came to the conclusion, that actually there has been a lot of development in menswear fashion. So then, I was back to square one. All this while, I knew one thing, I want to know what is missing in menswear fashion as of know, what changes are affecting it , and how can I do something about it. Hence, almost all my new research topics were based on cause-effect relationship.

I read few books on Research strategy, and learnt that to come up with a good research strategy, coming up with correct research question is very important. And so, I wrote all questions I thought could convey what I exactly want to research on. there were 3 ways of doing it -

1. To do the statistical way - starting question with "how many men..." or "What ratio/percentage of men...".

2. To see the depth/consistency in a non numerological way - starting question with "To what extent is..."

3. To find out the cause of the question, hence finding the answer to that cause - starting question with "What factors are mportant/affect".

I followed this and came up with some questions.

While doing this, I came up with question, “To what extent are men receptive of changes in fashion trends?” and decided to do further mind mapping on it. I wrote questions I needed to answer and then again planned my research strategy by seeing which resource is best to answer those questions.

And this was what I finally decided on. (as of now!)