IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/indinn/v15y2008i5p475-491.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Fashion to Design: Creative Networks in Industrial Districts

Author

Listed:
  • Tine Aage
  • Fiorenza Belussi

Abstract

Creative industries enjoy a great deal of attention in Western economies these days. Creative industries can be identified in sectors producing new artistic artefacts, such as those occurring in the film industry, or in the performing arts, etc., or in the manufacturing and service sectors, where the implementation of novelties is at the heart of the productive capabilities of firms. Post-modern consumption is strongly characterized by fashion, because it assists the fragmentation and an “aestheticization” of daily life. Fashion goods become symbolic relational goods, status symbols, means of communication of identity and aesthetic satisfaction. Our research topics concern: firstly, a theoretical discussion on the evolution of fashion, which has moved from a top-down model (as envisaged by the class-conscious approach of Simmel) to a bottom-up model, as described in the post-modernist approach by Lipovetsky; secondly, a theoretical reflection on the business model adopted by firms to deal with the issue of designing new products, which is often related to the building of external-to-the-firm creative networks; thirdly, a theoretical discussion on the model of an industrial district, seen here as an efficient organizational tool very efficient to deal with the circulation and external absorption of knowledge and fashion trend information. District firms, using a multiplicity of fashion sources, are able to increase their probability of selecting the winning fashion trends, and to reduce their probability of “not-knowing” the winning fashion trends. We present some empirical evidence showing that a complex governance of several fashion sources is required to intercept fashion trends. Fashion emerges in a chaotic environment, as a bottom-up recursive process, partially controlled by fashion firms that scan external information sources and build some interpretative/creative capability developed together with external-to-the-firm agents. Our work uses some empirical data collected through a survey based in the industrial district of Montebelluna, localized in northern Italy, in Treviso. In Montebelluna, several important international producers of sport shoes and sport items are located. Qualitative interviews were conducted during 2004-2005 involving 13 final firms (some of them are leading firms) and 11 designers.

Suggested Citation

  • Tine Aage & Fiorenza Belussi, 2008. "From Fashion to Design: Creative Networks in Industrial Districts," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(5), pages 475-491.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:indinn:v:15:y:2008:i:5:p:475-491
    DOI: 10.1080/13662710802373791
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13662710802373791
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13662710802373791?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandro Malipiero & Federico Munari & Maurizio Sobrero, 2005. "Focal Firms as Technological Gatakeepers within Industrial Districts Knowledge Creation and Dissemination in the Italian Packaging Machinery Industry," DRUID Working Papers 05-05, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Scott, Allen J., 2010. "Cultural economy and the creative field of the city," MPRA Paper 32108, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Brigitte Charles-Pauvers & Nathalie Schieb-Bienfait & Caroline Urbain, 2010. "Unité de lieu / Unité de temps : unité d'action(s) ? De la dynamique de clusterisation : le cas d'une halle regroupant des industries créatives," Post-Print hal-01524294, HAL.
    3. Anne-Laure Saives & Brigitte Charles-Pauvers & Nathalie Schieb-Bienfait & Basile Michel, 2016. "Placeness and Organisational Socialisation: Influences of Place for Employees of Creative and Cultural Micro-Enterprises [Lugar y socialización organizacional: razones de la localización de los tra," Post-Print hal-01649863, HAL.
    4. Mauro Capestro & Elisabetta Tarantino & Fabrizio Morgangni & Eleonora Tricarico & Gianluigi Guido, 2014. "Distretti calzaturieri in crisi: cause del declino e strategie di rinnovamento," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(1), pages 187-212.
    5. Glückler Johannes & Panitz Robert, 2015. "Beobachtung, Begegnung und Beziehung: Die Bildung von Marktintelligenz in der globalen Agenturfotografie," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 59(1), pages 20-33, October.
    6. Hwayoon Seok & Yoonjae Nam, 2022. "A Social Network Analysis of International Creative Goods Flow," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-19, April.
    7. Homero Rodríguez-Insuasti & Néstor Montalván-Burbano & Otto Suárez-Rodríguez & Marcela Yonfá-Medranda & Katherine Parrales-Guerrero, 2022. "Creative Economy: A Worldwide Research in Business, Management and Accounting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-27, November.
    8. Fiorenza Belussi & Silvia R Sedita & Tine Aage & Daniele Porcellato, 2011. "Inward Flows of Information and Knowledge in Low-tech Industrial Districts: Contrasting the ‘Few Firms Gatekeeper’ and ‘Direct Peer’ Models," Chapters, in: Paul L. Robertson & David Jacobson (ed.), Knowledge Transfer and Technology Diffusion, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Burmatova О. P., 2016. "Clusters as a form of local production systems," World of economics and management / Vestnik NSU. Series: Social and Economics Sciences, Socionet, vol. 16(4), pages 93-108.
    10. Cristiano Antonelli & Federico Barbiellini Amidei, 2011. "The Dynamics of Knowledge Externalities," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13292.
    11. Harald Bathelt & John A Cantwell & Ram Mudambi, 2018. "Overcoming frictions in transnational knowledge flows: challenges of connecting, sense-making and integrating," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(5), pages 1001-1022.
    12. Gornostaeva, Galina, 2023. "The development of digital commerce in the fashion industry: The typology of emerging designers in London," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 186(PA).
    13. Jose A. Belso-Martinez, 2010. "Outsourcing Decisions, Product Innovation and the Spatial Dimension: Evidence from the Spanish Footwear Industry," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(14), pages 3057-3077, December.
    14. Ferreira, Fernando A.F., 2018. "Mapping the field of arts-based management: Bibliographic coupling and co-citation analyses," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 348-357.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frederic Rychen & Jean-Benoit Zimmermann, 2008. "Clusters in the Global Knowledge-based Economy: Knowledge Gatekeepers and Temporary Proximity," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(6), pages 767-776.
    2. Huasheng Zhu & Kelly Wanjing Chen & Juncheng Dai, 2016. "Beyond Apprenticeship: Knowledge Brokers and Sustainability of Apprentice-Based Clusters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Gancarczyk, Marta & Gancarczyk, Jacek, 2018. "Proactive international strategies of cluster SMEs," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 59-70.
    4. Dorsa Tajaddod Alizadeh & Andrea Schiffauerova, 2018. "Evaluation Of Effects Of Collaborative Patterns On The Efficiency Of Scientific Networks Using Simulation," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(04), pages 1-28, May.
    5. Yanyan Liu & Ying Cheng & Wei Liu, 2018. "Understanding Gatekeeping Transformation in the Chinese EV Industry: An Exploratory Study of the Focal Firms' Cross-industrial Interactions," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 16(3-B), pages 485-503.
    6. Fiorenza Belussi & Silvia R Sedita & Tine Aage & Daniele Porcellato, 2011. "Inward Flows of Information and Knowledge in Low-tech Industrial Districts: Contrasting the ‘Few Firms Gatekeeper’ and ‘Direct Peer’ Models," Chapters, in: Paul L. Robertson & David Jacobson (ed.), Knowledge Transfer and Technology Diffusion, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Ron Boschma & Anne L. J. ter Wal, 2007. "Knowledge Networks and Innovative Performance in an Industrial District: The Case of a Footwear District in the South of Italy," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 177-199.
    8. Jose-Luis Hervas-Oliver, 2011. "Social Networks across Spatial Agglomerations: the Paradox of High-Tech Clusters. A Critical Revision of Clusters," ERSA conference papers ersa11p779, European Regional Science Association.
    9. S. Auci, 2014. "The role of production chains in Italian industry: A steady connection between Italy's North-West and South," Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 617-658.
    10. Díez-Vial, Isabel & Montoro-Sánchez, Ángeles, 2020. "International gatekeepers: How to integrate domestic networks and international relations," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6).
    11. Camisón, César & Forés, Beatriz, 2011. "Knowledge creation and absorptive capacity: The effect of intra-district shared competences," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 66-86, March.
    12. Kwon, Deuksin & Lee, Ha Young & Cho, Joon Hyung & Sohn, So Young, 2023. "Effect of an open patent pool strategy on technology innovation in terms of creating shared value," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    13. F. Xavier Molina-Morales & Josep Capó-Vicedo & M. Teresa Martínez-Fernández & Manuel Expósito-Langa, 2013. "Social capital in industrial districts: Influence of the strength of ties and density of the network on the sense of belonging to the district," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(4), pages 773-789, November.
    14. Andrea Morrison, 2011. "Innovation and External Knowledge Sources in Industrial Districts: Evidence from an Italian Furniture Cluster," Chapters, in: Paul L. Robertson & David Jacobson (ed.), Knowledge Transfer and Technology Diffusion, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Xavier Molina-Morales, F. & Belso-Martinez, José Antonio & Mas-Verdú, Francisco, 2016. "Interactive effects of internal brokerage activities in clusters: The case of the Spanish Toy Valley," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 1785-1790.
    16. Manuel Exposito-Langa & F. Xavier Molina-Morales & Josep Capo-Vicedo, 2011. "New Product Development and Absorptive Capacity in Industrial Districts: A Multidimensional Approach," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 319-331.
    17. Yoon, Hyungseok & Yun, Sunyoung & Lee, Joosung & Phillips, Fred, 2015. "Entrepreneurship in East Asian Regional Innovation Systems: Role of social capital," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 83-95.
    18. Frédéric Rychen & Jean-Benoît Zimmermann, 2009. "Industrial Clusters and the Knowledge Based Economy : from open to distributed structures ?," Working Papers halshs-00353425, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:indinn:v:15:y:2008:i:5:p:475-491. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIAI20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.