Rethinking city transformation: Florence from art city to creative fashion city

ABSTRACT

The paper aims to contribute to the debate of the economic transformation on cities discussing the case of Florence and its evolution from ‘art city’ to ‘creative fashion city’. According to the evolutionary vision of the path dependence model, the paper analyses the birth, development and establishment of the fashion industry within the city. This analysis seeks to understand if cultural and creative resources may contribute to the emergence of new trajectories or to the renewal – or decline – of existing ones. Results show that the existence of an endowment of cultural and creative assets and a base of knowledge and competences historically related to the artisanal tradition foster the creation of a fashion cluster. Despite the specificities of the case, the paper may give some insights of risks and opportunities related to rethinking the local economic transformation following a cultural-led and creativity-oriented approach.

KEYWORDS:

• City transformation
• path dependence
• art city
• creative city
• fashion industry

JEL classifications:

• R11

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Professor Phil Cooke for his precious insights and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Luciana Lazzeretti http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9759-2289

Stefania Oliva http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2933-4795