Fashion is under the spotlight like never before. Activists call for
environmental accountability, and wide-ranging debates highlight
exploitation across global supply chains and the reliance on unpaid
labour. Digital technology undermines traditional fashion companies,
while small-scale independent fashion designers provide radical
innovations in design and work in more socially inclusive ways.
This book contributes to a new sociology of fashion. Focusing on the
working lives of independent designers and based on ethnographic
research and interviews carried out in London, Berlin and Milan, the
authors consider the urban policy regimes in place in these cities. They
analyse how these regimes shape the microenterprises and the emerging
political economy, as well as the structures needed for designers to
flourish. They also develop several key concepts - the 'milieu of
fashion labour', 'social fashion' and 'fashion diversity' - and chart
the new world of digital fashion-tech and e-commerce.
Drawing on lessons from European initiatives and recognizing the
capacity of microenterprises and start-ups to determine fashion's
future, the authors call for the industry to be significantly
decentralized to ensure more diversity and less exclusivity.