The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, ImageHaye provides us with an analysis of the phenomenon which is as useful and
meaningful to the practitioner as it is to academics from any of the fields
which have informed it. Réka C.V. Buckley and Stephen Gundle’s chapter
illustrates the potential for apparently obliquely related academic disciplines
to throw light on issues which lie at the very heart of fashion. In this case,
cultural history helps to develop our ideas about glamour. Importantly, this
chapter does not simply use fashion as a specimen on which the authors’
theories about their discipline can be tested. Rather, the aim is to use the
author’s perspective as a key to unlock the issue.
The second section encompassing design and industry introduces the
practitioner’s perspective, which has been largely ignored in the academic
development of the field of fashion. Redress of this imbalance can do much
to locate fashion practice at the centre of its own academic study, rather
than as a subject incidental to others. We have nevertheless to note the general
reluctance of practitioners to involve themselves in academic work. Ian
Griffiths’ chapter draws on his simultaneous experiences as an academic
lecturer and designer to give a practitioner’s view of the body of discourses
which is generally understood to constitute the academy of fashion. He argues
that a body of work informed more directly by the agencies and activities
which generate fashion would lead to a more complete understanding of the
subject. The contributions of both Luigi Maramotti and Brian Godbold
illustrate how an academic understanding of the theoretical aspects of fashion
may be enhanced by inside information. Luigi Maramotti’s chapter gives an
incisive view of creativity within the industry, a topic about which there is a
good deal of miscomprehension, whilst Brian Godbold offers a wealth of
anecdotal evidence on which to test our theories about fashion, demonstrating
the kind of empirical evidence which will be critical to the development of
an academic study capable of tackling the complexity of contemporary
fashion. Godbold’s testimony might prompt a reappraisal of some of the
perceived tenets of fashion theory, such as the way in which design functions
in relation to the mass market.
The third section, which tackles image and marketing, gives an academic
insight into the means, mechanisms and devices which the fashion industry
uses to present and promote itself. Lou Taylor effectively illustrates how
contemporary fashion uses images to ascribe value to products which goes
beyond their material worth. Caroline Evans examines modernity and
spectacle through contrasting analysis of the later nineteenth-century
department store and world fair, with the 1990s fashion shows of John
Galliano. Rebecca Arnold, in her study of 1990s minimalism, shows how
fashion’s endlessly redefined constructs perpetuate our interest. Nicola White’s
chapter, which investigates the significance of style and national identity in