Managing Many Designs in Fashion Store

Hi! I’ve tried scouring the internet, but either due to the rarity of this issue or the commonality of the keywords, I’ve come up empty.

I’m building a site for an art/fashion store, and each product type (t-shirt, leggings, etc.) comes in multiple designs. Instead of creating just one product with 8 (or more) different design variations (plus size variation), it made more sense to create a different product for each design/type variation.

My question is: what’s the best way (or what are my options) to allow users to see all products of a single design? Should I create a Category of Design, then subcategories for each design (there will be over 30 initially, with more likely added later)? I feel like this isn’t what the categories are meant to be used for, but it may be the best option. I could also create a tag for each design instead. I also considered using a Custom Field for the design number, but to display and sort by those I’d need to write some custom code (which I’m capable of doing but would rather go with the simplest/quickest solution).

Am I overlooking a more elegant solution? Any input is valued! Thank you in advance!

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