https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2058-5985
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ABSTRACT
While the relationship between fashion and cities has been repeatedly discussed, there has been little structural analysis of the geographies of fashion cities across the world. This article presents an exploratory study of the geographical patterns, cultural presentation, and inter-place connections of fashion cities by examining a pivotal event in the fashion industry, fashion weeks. Our study uncovers the unbalanced and shifting power structure of contemporary fashion cities, which indicates the restructuring of the global fashion industry. It also reveals the complex interaction between local, national, and transnational culture in the making of fashion cities. Compared to their economic dimensions, the cultural functions of cities are more deeply embedded in the consumption and production bases of national economies. Therefore, fashion cities are not merely bases for the circulation of transnational fashion capital but also important places for local fashion producers to create and distribute their unique cultural genres.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their highly constructive comments and suggestions. All claims and omissions remain the authors’ responsibility.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Although there are also a few other events (e.g. fashion festivals) in our database, we use the term “fashion week” throughout the paper because it covers the majority of events.
2 We also considered including Twitter as another indicator. However, only a few fashion weeks had Twitter accounts, which could not be compared with the other two social media platforms. So, Twitter was not included into our analysis.
3 Two India fashion weeks were already suspended by 2022.