Industry in Motion: Using Smart Phones to Explore the Spatial Network of the Garment Industry in New York City

Industrial agglomerations have long been thought to offer economic and social benefits to firms and people that are only captured by location within their specified geographies. Using the case study of New York City’s garment industry along with data acquired from cell phones and social media, this study set out to understand the discrete activities underpinning the economic dynamics of an industrial agglomeration. Over a two week period, data was collected by employing the geo-locative capabilities of Foursquare, a social media application, to record every movement of fashion workers employed at fashion design firms located both inside and outside the geographical boundaries of New York City’s Garment District. This unique method of studying worker activity exposed the day-to-day dynamics of an industrial district with a precision thus far undocumented in literature. Our work suggests that having access to the cluster provides almost the same agglomeration economies as residing within its borders.Rockefeller Foundatio

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

Co-branding public place brands: towards an alternative approach to place branding

Contrary to the traditional understanding of place branding inspired by product, service and corporation branding, the present paper adopts place branding interdisciplinary literature in order to develop a conceptual framework that focuses on the constituting features of place brands as a form of public brands. The paper suggests the way place brands are constituted is via a co-branded complex and dynamic process in a constant state of change shaped by the interaction of several public brands in particular time-space frames. The co-branded process allows researchers and practitioners to better understand the conditions under which place brands and place brand efforts are emerging. Despite that, the type of co-branded process described in the paper also points out that the process does not necessarily create a linear positive add-on value for all parts involved. Rather, the co-branded process here is fragmented and based on spatial, political and real meaning contexts. The framework is illustrated empirically from material retrieved from a study of a regional branding process. The article concludes with a note on the political dimension of applying a co-branding lens on the public sphere