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ABSTRACT:
This article asks you to think geographically about fashion. We all wear clothes, but how often do we reflect on who makes our clothes, where and under what conditions? Why do we buy and wear the clothes we do and how often do we think about where the value lies in a garment? Why do the phrases 'Made in Italy' and 'Made in China' have such different connotations? How can a child in Cambodia working in a denim factory have any geographical connection to a Prada store on Bond Street? The following article argues for a relational approach to the study of fashion, one that brings these complex connections between production, branding, retailing and wearing into simultaneous and mutually constitutive view. The article shows how the global maps of clothing supply and retailing expose our complicity as consumers in the production of deeply unequal geographies of fashion.
Introduction
'In 1997 Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong died in Vietnam while making Nike trainers. She was struck in the heart by a piece of shrapnel that flew out of a sewing machine' (Mclntyre, 2006).
In August 2006 a 22 year old Uruguayan model died of heart failure, allegedly as a result of starvation, while participating in a fashion show during Fashion Week (BBC News, 2006).
In August 2008 the summer Olympic Games will be hosted by Beijing, China. The Olympic Games are the most effective international corporate marketing platform in the world (Playfair, 2008).
In September 2008, international Fashion Weeks will take place in Milan, Paris, New York and London.
What unites these seemingly unconnected events that span continents and decades, and speak of both death and celebration, the individual and the crowd, labour and leisure? The answer is the global significance of the fashion industry and the contradictions that lie at its heart. These events reveal how the geographies of fashion connect people, places, practices and objects in ways that are scarcely imaginable. Think for a moment about some of these connections. From the sweatshop worker making premium branded sportswear for the Beijing Olympics, to the clotheshanger models on the catwalk prepared to die for their careers, to the unemployed young designer fresh from college who dreams of a highly paid job in the...