Hobson’s choice? Constraints on accessing spaces of creative production

Successful creative production is often documented to occur in urban areas that are more likely to be diverse, a source of human capital and the site of dense interactions. These accounts chart how, historically, creative industries have clustered in areas where space was once cheap in the city centre fringe and inner city areas, often leading to the development of a creative milieu, and thereby stimulating further creative production. Historical accounts of the development of creative areas demonstrate the crucial role of accessible low-cost business premises. This article reports on the findings of a case study that investigated the location decisions of firms in selected creative industry sectors in Greater Manchester. The study found that, while creative activity remains highly concentrated in the city centre, creative space there is being squeezed and some creative production is decentralizing in order to access cheaper premises. The article argues that the location choices of creative industry firms are being constrained by the extensive city centre regeneration, with the most vulnerable firms, notably the smallest and youngest, facing a Hobson’s choice of being able to access low-cost premises only in the periphery. This disrupts the delicate balance needed to sustain production and begs the broader question as to how the creative economy fits into the existing urban fabric, alongside the competing demands placed on space within a transforming industrial conurbation

Cultural economy and the creative field of the city

I begin with a rough sketch of the incidence of the cultural economy in US cities today. I then offer a brief review of some theoretical approaches to the question of creativity, with special reference to issues of social and geographic context. The city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity, and an attempt is made to show how this can be understood in terms of a series of localized field effects. The creative field of the city is broken down (relative to the cultural economy) into four major components, namely, (a) intra-urban webs of specialized and complementary producers, (b) the local labor market and the social networks that bind workers together in urban space, (c) the wider urban environment, including various sites of memory, leisure, and social reproduction, and (d) institutions of governance and collective action. I also briefly describe some of the path-dependent dynamics of the creative field. The paper ends with a reference to some issues of geographic scale. Here, I argue that the urban is but one (albeit important) spatial articulation of an overall creative field whose extent is ultimately nothing less than global

The field of fashion in the digital age: Insights from global and ‘not-so-global’ fashion centres

In this chapter, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the field, we examine the system of actors that are involved in creating the aesthetics of fashion. We adopt a dynamic approach that considers the diversity of ‘fields’ associated with different fashion centres and the constellation of sites within each field (including manufacturing, retailing, marketing and consumption). Drawing on case studies from both established and emerging international fashion centres, we investigate how digital technologies are transforming the field of fashion at different scales and in different geographic contexts, and consider implications for structures, power relations and spatialities in and of the industry

The field of fashion in the digital age: Insights from global and ‘not-so-global’ fashion centres

In this chapter, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the field, we examine the system of actors that are involved in creating the aesthetics of fashion. We adopt a dynamic approach that considers the diversity of “fields” associated with different fashion centres and the constellation of sites within each field (including manufacturing, retailing, marketing and consumption). Drawing on case studies from both established and emerging international fashion centres, we investigate how digital technologies are transforming the field of fashion at different scales and in different geographic contexts, and consider implications for structures, power relations and spatialities in and of the industry

Great expectations: The dissonant media portrayals of local independent fashion designers

As fashion dissemination is increasingly globalized and democratized, the growing population of local small-scale independent fashion designers is gaining attention for its distinctive creations and strong convictions. However, in the corresponding worlds of fashion design and fashion communication designers and journalists who are working on their personal branding and their unique selling points, are vying for the attention of the consumer, rendering the relationship between the journalist and designer surprisingly at odds. In the context of increasing communication formats, this study investigates the effectiveness of independent fashion designer portrayals in local print media. Through textual research as well as interviews with designers, this paper looks at fashion communication in the local market. It finds that dissemination through homegrown initiatives benefits independent fashion designers more than diffusion on elite international platforms

When virtual and material worlds collide: democratic fashion in the digital age

This paper explores the impact of the digitally-mediated communications technologies on the fashion sector. It argues that material and virtual fashion worlds are perpetually intersecting social realities that co-exist relationally, simultaneously and in mutual connection. The paper explores these shifting fashion landscapes in three particular ways in order to understand how fashion worlds are being transformed, enhanced and reproduced in space and time. Firstly, the paper argues that emergent digital technologies are remediating and refashioning existing cultural forms of signification such as fashion magazines and photography. Secondly, the article explores the potential disintermediatory effects that the internet is having on fashion markets and consumption, questioning to what extent digital technologies are enabling the devolution of fashion authority from traditional power-brokers such as magazine editors and designers towards a more diversified assemblage of participants, including fashion bloggers and consumers. Finally, the paper explores the transformative effects that digital technology is having on fashion consumption. The internet has opened up new spaces of fashion consumption that are unprecedented in their levels of ubiquity, immersion, fluidity and interactivity. Fashion spaces are increasingly portable, must follow us around, travel with us through time and space. The network effects made possible by the internet are enabling the creation of always-on, always connected consumer communities. Increasingly we are adrift without the internet, not with it. This is generating new ways of being in space where the absence of physical presence becomes second nature. Taken together, the collision between virtual and material fashion spaces requires a fundamental rethink about the role of fashion production, consumption, knowledge and the laws of markets. KEYWORDS Fashion Blogging Consumption Internet Remediation Disintermediation Burberr