The period since 1945 has been a transformative era for the fashion industry. Over the course of seventy years, the fashion world has moved from celebrating the craftsmanship of haute couture to revelling in ever-changing fast-fashion. This volume examines the transition from the old system to the new in a series of case studies grouped around three major themes. Part I focuses on Paris as a creative hub, aiming to understand how the birthplace of haute couture adapted to late-twentieth-century developments. Part II considers the retailer’s role in shaping taste, responding to consumer expectations and disseminating fashion merchandise. Part III looks to alternative visions of the European fashion system that have appeared in unexpected places. The volume is highly interdisciplinary, covering design history, cultural anthropology, ethnography, management studies and the cultural history of business.
Table of Content
Foreword by Geoffrey Jones
1 Fashion as enterprise – Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Véronique Pouillard
Part I: Reinventing Paris fashion
2 Recasting Paris fashion: haute couture and design management in the postwar era – Véronique Pouillard
3 LVMH: storytelling and organizing creativity in luxury and fashion – Pierre-Yves Donzé and Ben Wubs
4 Reawakening the ‘sleeping beauties’ of haute couture: the case of Guy and Arnaud de Lummen – Johanna Zanon
Part II: International connections and the role of retailers
5 Buying abroad, selling in Paris: the 1953 Italian fair at Galeries Lafayette – Florence Brachet Champsaur
6 Anonymous tastemakers: the role of American buyers in establishing an Italian fashion industry, 1950–55 – Sonnet Stanfill
7 The rise and fall of European fashion at Filene’s in Boston – Regina Lee Blaszczyk
8 H&M: how Swedish entrepreneurial culture and social values created fashion for everyone – Ingrid Giertz-Mårtenson
Part III: European fashion on the periphery
9 Competitiveness of the Japanese denim and jeans industry: the cases of Kaihara and Japan Blue, 1970-2015 – Rika Fujioka and Ben Wubs
10 Rhythms of production in Scottish textiles and fashion – Shiona Chillas, Melinda Grewar, and Barbara Townley
11 The ‘ethical sell’ in the Indian luxury fashion business – Tereza Kuldova
12 A bag of remembrance: a cultural biography of Red-White-Blue, from Hong Kong to Louis Vuitton – Wessie Ling
Index
About the author
Regina Lee Blaszczyk is Leadership Chair in the History of Business and Society, and Professor of Business History at the University of Leeds
Véronique Pouillard is Associate Professor in the History of Modern Europe at the Institute for Archaeology, Conservation, and History (IAKH) at the University of Oslo
More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
1,520 Ebooks in this category
