Fashioning Globalisation
New Zealand Design, Working Women and the Cultural Economy
RGS-IBG Book Series
1. Edition August 2013
216 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Drastic changes in the career aspirations of women in the developed
world have resulted in a new, globalised market for off-the-peg
designer clothes created by independent artisans. This book reports
on a phenomenon that seems to exemplify the twin imperatives
of globalisation and female emancipation.
* A major conceptual contribution to the literatures on
globalisation, fashion and gender, analysing the ways in which
women's entry into the labour force over the past thirty
years in the developed world has underpinned new forms of
aestheticised production and consumption as well as the growth of
'work-style' businesses
* A vital contribution to the burgeoning literature on culture
and creative industries which often ignores the significant roles
taken by women as entrepreneurs and designers rather than mere
consumers
* Introduces fashion scholars and economic geographers to a
paradigmatic example of the new designer fashion industries
emerging in a range of countries not traditionally associated with
fashion
* Takes a fresh perspective on an industry in which Third World
garment workers have been the subject of exhaustive analysis but
first world women have been largely ignored
Preface xi
Series Editors' Preface xiv
Acknowledgements xv
1 What We Saw and Why We Started this Project 1
2 Global Aspirations: Theorising the New Zealand Designer Fashion Industry 19
3 Policy for a New Economy: 'After Neoliberalism' and the Designer Fashion Industry 43
with Richard Le Heron and Nick Lewis
4 Cultivating Urbanity: Fashion in a Not-so-global City 69
with Alison Goodrum
5 Gendering the 'Virtuous Circle': Production, Mediation and Consumption in the Cultural Economy 99
6 Creating Global Subjects: The Pedagogy of Fashionability 125
7 Lifestyle or Workstyle? Female Entrepreneurs in New Zealand Designer Fashion 153
8 Conclusion: An Unlikely Success Story? 179
Index 191
"This is a wonderful and timely contribution to fashion
scholarship and to cultural geography and sociology. The authors
produce a highly original and meticulously researched account of
the entrepreneurial activities of women fashion designer in New
Zealand while also raising many issues about work and employment in
this sector as a whole." -- Angela McRobbie,
Professor of Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London,
UK
"In this path breaking book, Molloy and Larner weave a
theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich account of gender
and globalisation that captures the diverse forms of embodied
subjectivity and work that characterise the global fashion
industry. While previous studies of fashion emphasise first world
consumers and third world workers, Molloy and Larner illustrate how
globalisation has impacted the lives of female fashion designers in
New Zealand, giving rise to new possibilities as well as
constraints. They present a fascinating account of how a
female-dominated creative industry gained a high profile within
neoliberal policy-making circles in New Zealand, a story that
illuminates the impossibility of separating the material and the
symbolic, economy and culture, and production and consumption in an
understanding of globalisation." -- Deborah Leslie,
Professor of Geography, University of Toronto, Canada
University of Auckland. Her work has focused on the relationships
between academic ideas, policy contexts, and popular culture. Her
most recent book is On Creating a Usable Culture: Margaret Mead
and the Origins of American Cosmopolitanism (2008).
Wendy Larner is Professor of Human Geography and
Sociology at the University of Bristol, UK. She is internationally
recognized for her innovative scholarship on globalisation,
neoliberalism and governance, and has published in a wide range of
international journals, and edited books across the social
sciences. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of
New Zealand and an Academician of the UK's Academy of Social
Sciences.
