Table Of ContentFashion as Creative Economy
Fashion as
Creative Economy
Microenterprises in London,
Berlin and Milan
Angela McRobbie,
Daniel Strutt and
Carolina Bandinelli
polity
Copyright © Angela McRobbie, Daniel Strutt and Carolina Bandinelli 2023
The right of Angela McRobbie, Daniel Strutt and Carolina Bandinelli to be
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First published in 2023 by Polity Press
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1 Critical Fashion Studies: Paradigms for Creative
Industries Research 17
2 London: Independent Fashion and ‘Monopoly Rent’ 41
3 Berlin: Microenterprises and the Social Face of
Fashion 69
4 Milan: Fashion Microenterprises and Female-led
Artisanship 94
5 Click and Collect: Fashion’s New Political Economy 123
6 Conclusion 146
Appendix 153
Notes 156
References 171
Further Reading 182
Index 185
Acknowledgements
To describe this book as a team effort would be a major
understatement, not only because it is co-authored, but
because over the course of the research and across the cities
of London, Berlin, Milan and Glasgow, we were joined by
a lively group of design professionals, artists and cultural
policymakers as well as by keen and radical students spanning
many subject areas. We also accumulated various experts
on the way, including advocates of independent fashion,
consultants, environmental campaigners and activists. At the
end of the conclusion, we list the designers who took part
and whom we interviewed for the study. Here we offer our
profound thanks to the others; for the sake of space, we do
not include their various titles.
We offer thanks to the two principal investigators, Martin
Kretschmer and Philip Schlesinger, for their academic
leadership throughout the course of the CREATe research
project, of which this study was a part. CREATe (Creativity,
Regulation, Enterprise and Technology), formally launched in
2013, is the UK Copyright and Creative Economy Centre at
Glasgow University, an interdisciplinary research programme
jointly funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research
Council), the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council) and ESRC (Economic and Social Research
Council). We also thank Chris Breward of the National
Acknowledgements vii
Museums Scotland for taking part in the May 2016 event
hosted by the Glasgow School of Art.
In London, we thank Orsola de Castro of Fashion
Revolution for taking part in the event we hosted in 2015 at
the Royal Society for the Arts. We also thank Zowie Broach
from the Royal College of Art, designer Bethany Williams
and Lola Young from the House of Lords for joining us at
Goldsmiths, University of London, in June 2020 for our
Fashion’s Futures event, which marked the end-point of the
study. Various colleagues at Goldsmiths participated in and
supported this work, including Sarah Kember, Janis Jefferies,
Lisa Blackman, Joanna Zylinska, Sian Prime and Nicola
Searle. The artist and photographer Pau Delgado Iglesias
joined us from Uruguay for the trips to Glasgow and Berlin;
she created a wonderful set of images from the events. Tania
Phipps-Rufus provided great insight on fashion law in the
earlier stages of the work.
In Berlin, we were guided through the fashion system by
Oliver MacConnell, Ares Kalandides, Alexandra Manske,
Bastian Lange, Timo Pape, Martina Loew, Bettina Springer,
Agnes Zelei, Hannah Curran-Troop, Marina Nikitina and
Clara Brandenburg. We would also like to thank Elke Ritt
from the British Council, Berlin, who provided us with
the marvellous space at Alexanderplatz for an afternoon
conference.
In Milan, our team included Giannino Malossi, Zoe
Romano and Adam Arvidsson. In Paris (Parsons Paris), we
were invited to share the findings by Giulia Mensitieri, and
she in turn joined us in London at the Royal Society for the
Arts. And from the newly created Critical Fashion Studies
Seminar, we offer thanks to Jo Entwistle, Agnès Rocamora
and Jane Tynan.
Finally, we would like to thank Polity Press, and especially
Mary Savigar for her enthusiasm for this project.
Introduction
Fashion studies
The speed at which the fashion system has been moving
over the past several years is faster than ever before, but it is
doing so, unexpectedly, as a counter-movement. Fashion is
no longer running ahead of itself. Instead, it is undergoing
an internal revolution, one that extends to every nook and
cranny of its operations. We might even go so far as to say
that the fashion system is unravelling. Many will see this
moment of self-reckoning as welcome and long overdue
(Hoskins 2014). What it seems to signal is, indeed, a process
that is responding, by necessity, to the loud clamour of voices
from outside as well as from inside, insisting that this sector
has for too long relied on its own charisma, and that this will
no longer suffice. If noisy campaigners, including key figures
from inside the fashion system, argue that people have to
‘buy less’ in order to begin to undo the damage done to the
environment by overproduction, and if there is awareness
that saying ‘buy better’ is no solution if it means only the
wealthy few can afford high-quality nontoxic items, then
we can begin to see the nature of the kinds of arguments
that are taking place. We are confronted by a rising tide
of high-charged debate. Brexit and the pandemic have also
necessitated substantial adjustment and change. Currently
