European fashion: The creation of a global industry

'This book does a superb job of showing European fashion as a creative industry that connects design, purchasing and retail on a global scale. It puts fashion at the centre of a new understanding of innovation processes at large.' Patrick Fridenson, Professor of International Business History, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris This volume embodies a new approach to the study of fashion history. Highly interdisciplinary, it is informed by design history, cultural anthropology, ethnography, management studies on creativity and the new cultural history of business. It shifts the debate on fashion to the internal culture of the trade, moving beyond the idea of the designer as a lone creative genius and examining the contributions of other figures: trendsetters, retail buyers, stylists, art directors, merchandise managers, brand managers and entrepreneurs. These intermediaries - Giovanni Battista Giorgini, Maurice Rentner, Jean d'Allens and Erling Persson, among others - may be lesser-known outside the industry, but they represent a constellation of important actors characterised by a cosmopolitan outlook, an openness to new modes of operation and the recognition that women have something to say about fashion, not simply as consumers, but as trend forecasters and executives. The postwar world saw the decline of the old hierarchical fashion system, leading one prominent American journalist to declare 'the end of fashion'. This volume argues that, on the contrary, the resulting shakeup created an ever-powerful and increasingly global fashion industry, as the hegemony of Paris and prescriptive modes of dress were replaced by an international network of trendsetters and 'fashion for everyone'. Distinguished contributors include Regina Lee Blaszczyk (University of Leeds), Véronique Pouillard (University of Oslo), Sonnet Stanfill (Victoria & Albert Museum) and Barbara Townley (Saint Andrews). Preface by Geoffrey Jones (Harvard Business School).