The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion Markets and Value in Clothing and Modelling [Hardcover]

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.

1. Introduction * Part One: Understanding aesthetic markets * 2. An aesthetic marketplace: assembling 'economy' and 'culture' * 3. The aesthetic economy: the production of value in the field of fashion modelling * Part Two: Fashion buying: a case study * 4. A brief introduction to the fieldwork and Selfridges but its not really a chapter  too short - could it stand alone? * 5. Understanding high fashion clothing: retailing and buying in the UK * 6. The materialities of fashion and fashion knowledge * 7. Tacit aesthetic knowledge: the fashion sense and sensibility of fashion buyers * 8. Examining the interfaces: fashion buying encounters and the relationships between products, buyers, suppliers and customers *

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. Verls+