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This paper describes the novel approach taken in a collaborative research project that aimed to investigate new ways of understanding the customer, for Derby‐based fibre manufacturer, Tencel Limited. The overall aim of the research described in this paper, was to help identify and establish a significant retail programme with a major UK store group for Tencel limited.

In an iterative process, the target customer for the focus groups was identified, the main aims of the process were discussed, the test garments were identified and the empathic design tools were adapted. The team developed a programme of activities that would capture customer focused information on these critical issues.

Using the Grove techniques helped to make the project transparent and inclusive, and enabled the whole team to be involved in the decision‐making process. Using these techniques have provided Tencel with a non‐scientific way of understanding how their end customer perceives their fibre, providing unequivocal evidence of the customer true feelings recorded as “raw” video based evidence.

The Tencel/IF project has also led to a number of additional advantages for the company, such as the development of new relationships within the supply chain, the development of new relationships within Tencel and the enhancement of multi‐disciplinary team working and concurrent engineering.

This paper has presented the novel approach that the combined Tencel/IF team took to develop a better understanding of the end customer and illustrates how techniques which were developed for one industry can be successfully adapted and applied to a quite different industry with excellent results.