IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/117531.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Material and symbolic production of fashion in a global creative city. Industry’s perception of the 21st century London

Author

Listed:
  • Casadei, Patrizia
  • Gilbert, David

Abstract

In response to globalization of traditional manufacturing and the growing significance of a symbolic economy, fashion cities are now formed by different mixings of material, design/creative and symbolic forms of production. The intersection between these elements is particularly evident in the global fashion cities, which have experienced a profound process of deindustrialization and a shift between manufacturing and symbolic economies. This paper explores London’s relationship with fashion through the perspectives of key industry actors. We draw upon 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews undertaken between 2016 and 2018 to explore the interplay between material, creative and symbolic forms of fashion production in the city. Interview material is supported by the analysis of data collected from the Office for National Statistics and the Higher Education Statistics Agency. London’s fashion ecosystem is seen as having strong focus on creativity, artistic values and forms of symbolism, which are however regarded as in tension with a viable fashion design industry, an effective business culture and manufacturing system. The paper contributes to the literature on the fashion’s positioning in urban economies by shedding light on the interaction between production, creative and symbolic elements in a global creative city.

Suggested Citation

  • Casadei, Patrizia & Gilbert, David, 2024. "Material and symbolic production of fashion in a global creative city. Industry’s perception of the 21st century London," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117531, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:117531
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117531/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen John Scott, 2014. "Beyond the Creative City: Cognitive--Cultural Capitalism and the New Urbanism," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 565-578, April.
    2. Allen J. Scott, 2002. "Competitive Dynamics of Southern California's Clothing Industry: The Widening Global Connection and its Local Ramifications," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(8), pages 1287-1306, July.
    3. Pamela K. Robinson & Linda Hsieh, 2016. "Reshoring: a strategic renewal of luxury clothing supply chains," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 89-101, December.
    4. Norma M. Rantisi, 2004. "The Ascendance of New York Fashion," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 86-106, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Patrizia Casadei & David Gilbert & Luciana Lazzeretti, 2021. "Urban Fashion Formations in the Twenty‐First Century: Weberian Ideal Types as a Heuristic Device to Unravel the Fashion City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 879-896, September.
    2. Patrizia Casadei & Neil Lee, 2020. "Global cities, creative industries and their representation on social media: A micro-data analysis of Twitter data on the fashion industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(6), pages 1195-1220, September.
    3. Deborah Leslie & Shauna Brail & Mia Hunt, 2014. "Crafting an Antidote to Fast Fashion: The Case of Toronto's Independent Fashion Design Sector," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 222-239, June.
    4. Rik Wenting & Oedzge Atzema & Koen Frenken, 2011. "Urban Amenities and Agglomeration Economies? The Locational Behaviour and Economic Success of Dutch Fashion Design Entrepreneurs," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(7), pages 1333-1352, May.
    5. Tetsuo Kidokoro & Ryo Fukuda & Kojiro Sho, 2022. "GENTRIFICATION IN TOKYO: Formation of the Tokyo West Creative Industry Cluster," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(6), pages 1055-1077, November.
    6. Nina Edh Mirzaei & Per Hilletofth & Rudrajeet Pal, 2021. "Challenges to competitive manufacturing in high-cost environments: checklist and insights from Swedish manufacturing firms," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 272-292, December.
    7. Wentao Yu & Xiaolan Tan, 2022. "The creative class in China: Heterogeneity and its regional determinants," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(8), pages 3466-3478, December.
    8. Gordon L. Clark, 2016. "The Components of Talent: Company Size and Financial Centres in the European Investment Management Industry," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 168-181, January.
    9. Thomas Borén & Patrycja Grzyś & Craig Young, 2021. "Spatializing authoritarian neoliberalism by way of cultural politics: City, nation and the European Union in Gdańsk’s politics of cultural policy formation," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(6), pages 1211-1230, September.
    10. Sami Moisio & Ugo Rossi, 2020. "The start-up state: Governing urbanised capitalism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(3), pages 532-552, May.
    11. Stefania Fiorentino, 2019. "The Maker Faire of Rome as a window of observation on the new perspectives for local economic development and the new urban entrepreneurial ecosystems," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 34(4), pages 364-381, June.
    12. Paolo Barbieri & Albachiara Boffelli & Stefano Elia & Luciano Fratocchi & Matteo Kalchschmidt & Danny Samson, 2020. "What can we learn about reshoring after Covid-19?," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 131-136, December.
    13. McIvor, Ronan & Bals, Lydia, 2021. "A multi-theory framework for understanding the reshoring decision," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6).
    14. Patrizia Casadei & Simona Iammarino, 2021. "Trade policy shocks in the UK textile and apparel value chain: Firm perceptions of Brexit uncertainty," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(2), pages 262-285, June.
    15. Christoph Stich & Emmanouil Tranos & Max Nathan, 2023. "Modeling clusters from the ground up: A web data approach," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(1), pages 244-267, January.
    16. Gregory James J. & Rogerson Christian M., 2018. "Suburban creativity: The geography of creative industriesin Johannesburg," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 39(39), pages 31-52, March.
    17. Filippo Berti Mecocci & Amir Maghssudipour & Marco Bellandi, 2022. "The effect of cultural and creative production on human capital: Evidence from European regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(6), pages 1263-1287, December.
    18. Henkel, Malin & Boffelli, Albachiara & Olhager, Jan & Kalchschmidt, Matteo, 2022. "A case survey of offshoring–backshoring cases: The influence of contingency factors," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    19. Jane Zheng, 2021. "STRUCTURING ARTISTIC CREATIVITY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF A ‘CREATIVE CITY’: Urban Sculpture Planning in Shanghai," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 795-813, September.
    20. Max Nathan, 2016. "Ethnic diversity and business performance: Which firms? Which cities?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(12), pages 2462-2483, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    creativity; fashion industry; London; manufacturing; semi-structured interviews; symbolism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ehl:lserod:117531. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.