The aim of this research is to sketch out the parameters of the fashion industry. Whilst, without
doubt fashion is a means of personal and cultural expression, it is also an industry. The industrial and
economic aspects have been relatively under-researched. We highlight the fact that the fashion industry
is fast evolving, and growing. Traditional economic analyses have under-examined some of the
crucial drivers of change in this sector but these are all important issues for a number of reasons. First,
the local and global consequences of the transformation of the fashion industry help us to understand
the challenges facing urban and regional economies, particularly in Europe. Second, the fashion industry,
like the cultural industries more generally, is leading a new form of economic development that
blends qualitative elements and quantitative forms, a culturalisation of economic action. In so doing
we also raise three questions, one has already been alluded to: what is the ‘fashion industry’; and following
this, a second: is the fashion industry the same, or different, to other cultural industries? Finally,
in relation to the dynamics of change, we point to the role of situatedness: the importance of place and
institutional embedding
