Overview

Fashion is bound up with promoting the 'new', concerned with constantly changing aesthetics. The favoured styles or looks of a season arise out of the work of a vast range of different actors who collectively produce, select, distribute and promote the new ideals, before moving on to next season. How, then, are fashionable commodities stabilized long enough for them to be selected, distributed and sold? Since there are few studies that actually examine the work that goes on inside the world of fashion, we know little about these processes. This book addresses this gap in our knowledge by examining how aesthetic products are defined, distributed and valued. It focuses attention on the work of some of the market agents, particularly model agents or 'bookers' and fashion buyers, shaping the aesthetics inside their markets. In analysing their work, Entwistle develops a theoretical framework for understanding the distinctive features of aesthetic marketplaces and the aesthetic calculations within them.

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9781845204723

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Reviews

'This is a major book and a highly significant contribution to our understanding of how specific features of the fashion economy operate. Drawing on fascinating field work in a well-known department store and also in fashion model agencies, Entwistle uses the new sociology of markets and of actor networks to analyse the calculative practices which underpin the production of fashion worlds and their objects. This book has great originality and depth, and will be used across a range of academic disciplines.'Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths, University of London

'This is a major book and a highly significant contribution to our understanding of how specific features of the fashion economy operate. Drawing on fascinating field work in a well-known department store and also in fashion model agencies, Entwistle uses the new sociology of markets and of actor networks to analyse the calculative practices which underpin the production of fashion worlds and their objects. This book has great originality and depth, and will be used across a range of academic disciplines.'Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths, University of London No matter how much Entwistle diverges from a linear approach in her quest for knowledge of the multiple and overlapping practices that constitute fashion (3), she does not lose sight of her fundamental question, nor does she ever lose her footing. -- Veronica Manlow, CUNY Brooklyn * Women's Studies Quarterly *

'This is a major book and a highly significant contribution to our understanding of how specific features of the fashion economy operate. Drawing on fascinating field work in a well-known department store and also in fashion model agencies, Entwistle uses the new sociology of markets and of actor networks to analyse the calculative practices which underpin the production of fashion worlds and their objects. This book has great originality and depth, and will be used across a range of academic disciplines.' Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths, University of London

Author Information

Joanne Entwistle is Senior Research Fellow, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London.

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