Fashion's World Cities Book

David Gilbert, "From Paris to Shanghai: The Changing Geographies of Fashion's World Cities," pp.3-32

p.4 - The idea of the fashion city is now a feature of the global competition between cities, and has become a part of broader strategies of metropolitan boosterism that give prominence to what have become known as the "cultural industries."

Permutations of these cities [London, Paris, New York, Milan, and Tokyo] and a few others have been routinely incorporated into the advertising of high fashion, after the name of a designer or brand, or etched into the glass of a shop window. In some cases the name of the fashion capital is incorporated into a brand name itself (as perhaps most famously in the case of DNKY - Donna Karan New York.


Agnès Rocamora, "Paris, Capitale de la Mode: Representing the Fashion City in the Media," pp.43-54

p.46 - Paris becomes the central character of the fashion stories narrated by journalists, a thinking being and the ultimate creator of fashion.

p.47 - Enjoying Paris has become synonymous with enjoying consuming in Paris.


Yuniya Kawamura, "Placing Tokyo on the Fashion Map: From Catwalk to Streetstyle," pp.55-68.

p.57 - Tokyo as a fashion city and Japanese designers gradually began to attract attention vicariously through the emergence of Kenzo Takada in Paris in 1970. He was the very first Japanese designer to take part in the biannual ready-to-wear Paris fashion collections. Kenzo was famous for mixing plaids, flowers, checks and strips, a combination that no Western designers ever imagined.

p.61 - One way to promote a fashion centre is to organize fashion shows on a regular basis. Tokyo has done this but has not been successful. When the Council for Fashion Designers (CFD) was formed in 1985 to systematize all fashion-related events and activities in Tokyo and also to facilitate the relationships among designers, buyers and the media, a French journalist wrote sarcastically: "Is Paris going to have its Oriental rival soon?"

The CFD organization is now rebuilding its internal structure and is collaborating with the Japanese government. Yet they have managed to invite only fifty-two designers and apparel companies for the Tokyo collections in November 2005, which is fewer than half of the participants in the Paris or New York Collections. Thus, the structural weaknesses of fashion production in Japan forces Japanese designers to go overseas, especially to Paris which remains supreme, at least in the minds of the Japanese consumers as well as the designers.

p.67 - Paris as a fashion capital has been successful because its institutions accepted the fusion of the local and the distant, and there was international exchange of clothes, design and designers between Paris and other cities. The Japanese designers who became successful in Paris took advantage of the system in Paris while Japanese teenagers are creating their own fashion with their own force making a major contribution to the construction of Tokyo as a fashion center. Fashion's world cities are determined by the flow of goods, ideas and people. This is what Tokyo needed for a long time, and it is finally happening.


Sonnet Stanfill, "Curating the Fashion City: New York Fashion at the V&A" pp.69-87

p.71 - Another display challenge was the New York's fashion culture - its designers their clients and the city's fashion press - does not represent that of the whole of the United States. An investigation of New York fashion leaves out the counter-cultural movements of San Francisco and the red-carpet influence of Los Angeles. Also excluded from this discourse are other well-dressed cities like Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia, with their own fashion traditions and wealthy, fashion-preoccupied patrons. New York supplanted these important American fashion centers by the mid nineteenth century when steam power made the Hudson River navigable. The city's manufacturers, importers and retailers soon made it America's fashion capital. And although by the end of the twentieth century Los Angeles had the highest concentration of garment production in the United States, New York continues to be the preferred design headquarters for emerging American designers as well as many major fashion brands. Even American high street giants like Gap and Limited Brands, whose head offices are in San Francisco and Cleveland respectively, have separate design offices in New York.


Norma Rantisi, "How New York Stole Modern Fashion," pp.109-122

p.109 - 1973 fashion show at Versailles, an event organized by New York fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert as a benefit for the palace. Five American designers, including Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, Anne Klein, Stephen Burrows and Halston, were brought to France to show alongside French designers Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Hubert de Givenchy, Emanuel Ungaro and Marc Bohan at Christian Dior. What no one expected, however, was that the American designers would outshine the reigning stars of French (and at that time, world) fashion. But the French themselves conceded defeat.

The event marked a symbolic turning point in world fashion history. France's hegemony as a fashion centre, with Paris as its capital, was not only being challenged but slowly reversed by the ascendance of American fashion and the rise of New York as a new fashion world capital. By the late 1990s, New York-based designers Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors were given creative control at French fashion houses Louis Vuitton and Céline. As in the case of Tom Ford at Gucci, the objective was to infuse American sensibility into the European luxury market, at a time when fashion was becoming a more commercialized and global enterprise. New York always had a specialization in mass markets given its origins in ready-to-wear production.

According to Christopher Breward, fashion represents 'clothing designed primarily for its expressive and decorative qualities, related closely to the current short-term dictates of the market, rather than for work or ceremonial functions.' This implies the need to strike a balance between art and industry.

p.117 - These initial efforts to promote local talent were hastened by the onset of the Second World War and the closure of Paris as a result of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Magazines, retail buyers and Seventh Avenue manufacturers could no longer turn to Paris for inspiration or for models. Thus, the focus shifted inward. Necessity demanded that a new source of talent be nurtured to fill the void, so industry elites took on the talk of bolstering this new source.

p.120 - The retail sector has also undergone a process of restructuring to adapt to new competitive pressures. For example, designer boutiques, which house the designer's entire collection and which are now commonplace in major retail stores, were first introduced in the 1970s when Ralph Lauren convinced Bloomingdale's to provide him with his own department so that he could promote a particular lifestyle. This early version of lifestyle merchandising had now been extended through the development of the flagship store, whereby the designer decides on the content and layout of their collections as well the interior and exterior architecture of the space. Since the 1980s, young designers have increasingly opted to locate their retail/design spaces outside of the established retail and garment districts, in sites such as the Lower East Side, where a distinctive atmosphere could play into their efforts to differentiate themselves and their designs.

Another significant image-maker for the industry is the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), an honorary society of high-end designers, which was established in 1962. Since its inception, the CDDA has advocated on behalf of designers and promoted their occupation as an "art," like that of other cultural industries. In their efforts to validate local talent, they also sponsor an annual fashion award.
Hence, with a reorientation of New York's fashion institutions to accommodate the rise of the designer as producer and marketer of fashion, established high-end ready-to-wear lines, such as Donna Karan and Calvin Klein, have now become globally competitive brands.

p.122 - The history of New York fashion illustrates that it was the coming together of industrial and cultural activities that allowed for the dynamism, versatility and innovation of New York designs. Now more than ever, the ability to achieve a balance between art and industry demands the integrity of the District as an industry and a place.