Placing fashion: art, space, display and the building of luxury fashion markets through retail design

This paper explores the performative and affective affordances enshrined in contemporary fashion space. Fashion markets need to be placed in a much more serious conceptual way. Whilst much critical attention has been focused on the geographies of fashion production, it is also important to explore the spaces in which fashion is displayed, consumed, exhibited and performed and thus to understand how fashion markets are ordered, regulated and maintained in space and through time. In order to ‘place’ fashion space within the contemporary city the paper focuses on a set of alliances between art and fashion in the making of current consumption space. It is argued that the collaboration between art and fashion opens up a means to critically explore how representational worlds are brought into being and offers new ways to understand how creative activity can be rooted in (and reflective of) broader social, economic and cultural concerns. Such collisions and collusions represent a key means of making and shaping value and reveal the significance of visuality, singularity and judgement in determining commodity and brand meaning and valu

Placing fashion: art, space, display and the building of luxury fashion markets through retail design

This paper explores the performative and affective affordances enshrined in contemporary fashion space. Fashion markets need to be placed in a much more serious conceptual way. Whilst much critical attention has been focused on the geographies of fashion production, it is also important to explore the spaces in which fashion is displayed, consumed, exhibited and performed and thus to understand how fashion markets are ordered, regulated and maintained in space and through time. In order to ‘place’ fashion space within the contemporary city the paper focuses on a set of alliances between art and fashion in the making of current consumption space. It is argued that the collaboration between art and fashion opens up a means to critically explore how representational worlds are brought into being and offers new ways to understand how creative activity can be rooted in (and reflective of) broader social, economic and cultural concerns. Such collisions and collusions represent a key means of making and shaping value and reveal the significance of visuality, singularity and judgement in determining commodity and brand meaning and valu

Sex and the city: branding, gender and the commodification of sex consumption in contemporary retailing

This paper explores the changing spatiality of the sex retail industry in England and Wales, from highly regulated male orientated sex shops, pushed to the legislative margins of the city and social respectability, towards the emergence of unregulated female orientated ‘erotic boutiques’ located visibly in city centres. This is achieved through an exploration of the oppositional binaries of perceptions of sex shops as dark, dirty, male orientated, and ‘seedy’ and erotic boutiques as light, female orientated and stylish, showing how such discourses are embedded in the physical space, design and marketing of the stores and the products sold within them. More specifically, the paper analyses how female orientated sex stores utilise light, colour and design to create an ‘upscaling’ of sexual consumerism and reflects on what the emergence of up-scale female spaces for sexual consumption in the central city might mean in terms of theorisations of the intersectionality between agency, power, gender and class. The paper thus considers how the shifting packaging and presentation of sex-product consumption in the contemporary city alters both its acceptability and visibility

Gender inequalities in the City of London advertising industry

This paper explores gender relations in the City of London advertising industry. It argues that the gender imbalance in the highest ranking positions and the stifled career progression of women in the industry are a result of social, structural and institutional factors rather than individual choice, lack of ‘talent’ or the absence of mentors or appropriate role models. We discuss the organization and spatiality of the advertising industry in London, the significance of social networking within and beyond the firm, and problematise the notion that female childbearing and caring are the primary determinants of women’s truncated career trajectories in advertising. The research reveals that whilst age, gender and domestic divisions of labour combine to reinforce occupational sexual divisions of labour in the advertising industry in London, these inequality regimes (Acker 2006) are amplified by the industry’s precariousness, informality and requirements for flexibility. Attempting to explain away gendered divisions of labour solely on the basis of women’s role in social reproduction deflects attention away from other key determinants of inequality, most notably the pace of advertising work and the geographical concentration of the industry within London. These are further accentuated by deep-rooted forms of homophily and homosociality – those unspeakable inequalities that call into question the dominant post- feminist rhetoric that ‘all the battles have been won’ (Gill, 2008). We analyse the ways in which homosociality has been crucial in maintaining insidious sexism which has made it very difficult for female creatives to obtain the most prestigious roles at work. Taken together, the organisation and geography of the sector, the rhetoric of buzz and egalitarianism, the ‘motherhood myth’ and the homophilic practices at work within advertising combine to create deep and enduring gendered inequalities

Placing fashion: art, space, display and the building of luxury fashion markets through retail design

This paper explores the performative and affective affordances enshrined in contemporary fashion space. Fashion markets need to be placed in a much more serious conceptual way. Whilst much critical attention has been focused on the geographies of fashion production, it is also important to explore the spaces in which fashion is displayed, consumed, exhibited and performed and thus to understand how fashion markets are ordered, regulated and maintained in space and through time. In order to ‘place’ fashion space within the contemporary city the paper focuses on a set of alliances between art and fashion in the making of current consumption space. It is argued that the collaboration between art and fashion opens up a means to critically explore how representational worlds are brought into being and offers new ways to understand how creative activity can be rooted in (and reflective of) broader social, economic and cultural concerns. Such collisions and collusions represent a key means of making and shaping value and reveal the significance of visuality, singularity and judgement in determining commodity and brand meaning and valu

Working class women's psychogeography in experimental poetry: the work of Geraldine Monk and Maggie O'Sullivan & floss

This thesis aims to examine the poetry of the aforementioned writers in the context of both social class and the locations that arise from this demograph. Due attention is given to Monk's Interregnum and Noctivagations, and O'Sullivan's Waterfalls and Divisions of Labour, through the lens of the authors as working class women. The accompanying creative sequence aims to apply the same principles of working class women's psychogeography to my own work, through both Monk and O'Sullivan's methods of giving voice to the "unsaid" and "unseen" in innovative poetry

Gender inequalities in the City of London advertising industry

This paper explores gender relations in the City of London advertising industry. It argues that the gender imbalance in the highest ranking positions and the stifled career progression of women in the industry are a result of social, structural and institutional factors rather than individual choice, lack of ‘talent’ or the absence of mentors or appropriate role models. We discuss the organization and spatiality of the advertising industry in London, the significance of social networking within and beyond the firm, and problematise the notion that female childbearing and caring are the primary determinants of women’s truncated career trajectories in advertising. The research reveals that whilst age, gender and domestic divisions of labour combine to reinforce occupational sexual divisions of labour in the advertising industry in London, these inequality regimes (Acker 2006) are amplified by the industry’s precariousness, informality and requirements for flexibility. Attempting to explain away gendered divisions of labour solely on the basis of women’s role in social reproduction deflects attention away from other key determinants of inequality, most notably the pace of advertising work and the geographical concentration of the industry within London. These are further accentuated by deep-rooted forms of homophily and homosociality – those unspeakable inequalities that call into question the dominant post- feminist rhetoric that ‘all the battles have been won’ (Gill, 2008). We analyse the ways in which homosociality has been crucial in maintaining insidious sexism which has made it very difficult for female creatives to obtain the most prestigious roles at work. Taken together, the organisation and geography of the sector, the rhetoric of buzz and egalitarianism, the ‘motherhood myth’ and the homophilic practices at work within advertising combine to create deep and enduring gendered inequalities

Leveraging affect: mobilizing enthusiasm and the co-production of the musical economy

This chapter considers the promises and problems of fandom and enthusiasm within capitalism, with particular reference to rise of crowdsourcing as a means of mobilising fan enthusiasm to fund new creative projects, with a particular focus on the music industry. Crowdfunding has emerged as an alternative way of funding projects caused by the more cautious investments of record companies, and is the latest development here firms and companies have sought to harness the affect and emotions of fans. However, although crowdfunding may tap new sources of money, the process is not without its costs, both in terms of the demands placed on its users and of being able to navigate a system that requires reserves of social, cultural and financial capital

Sex and the city: branding, gender and the commodification of sex consumption in contemporary retailing

This paper explores the changing spatiality of the sex retail industry in England and Wales, from highly regulated male orientated sex shops, pushed to the legislative margins of the city and social respectability, towards the emergence of unregulated female orientated ‘erotic boutiques’ located visibly in city centres. This is achieved through an exploration of the oppositional binaries of perceptions of sex shops as dark, dirty, male orientated, and ‘seedy’ and erotic boutiques as light, female orientated and stylish, showing how such discourses are embedded in the physical space, design and marketing of the stores and the products sold within them. More specifically, the paper analyses how female orientated sex stores utilise light, colour and design to create an ‘upscaling’ of sexual consumerism and reflects on what the emergence of up-scale female spaces for sexual consumption in the central city might mean in terms of theorisations of the intersectionality between agency, power, gender and class. The paper thus considers how the shifting packaging and presentation of sex-product consumption in the contemporary city alters both its acceptability and visibility

Leveraging affect: mobilizing enthusiasm and the co-production of the musical economy

This chapter considers the promises and problems of fandom and enthusiasm within capitalism, with particular reference to rise of crowdsourcing as a means of mobilising fan enthusiasm to fund new creative projects, with a particular focus on the music industry. Crowdfunding has emerged as an alternative way of funding projects caused by the more cautious investments of record companies, and is the latest development here firms and companies have sought to harness the affect and emotions of fans. However, although crowdfunding may tap new sources of money, the process is not without its costs, both in terms of the demands placed on its users and of being able to navigate a system that requires reserves of social, cultural and financial capital