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An analysis of the role played by trade fairs in fashion production is presented, investigating the changing function of fairs as buyer-supplier relations have become routinized throughout the year, and the development from export fairs that represent regionally based industries to a highly globalized condition. As the regional base of industries is eroding, fairs increasingly redefine themselves as global sourcing hubs with a number of added functions and services.

'The Young Fashion Designers' Contest is the biggest annual event in Hong Kong fashion.' This was repeatedly said to me when, during my fieldwork, I asked Hong Kong fashion people [...]

The rise, fall and return of the fur coat are analyzed from an economic sociology framework. The different vertical frameworks for mapping and analyzing the relationship between consumption and production, primarily the global commodity chain approach associated with the work of Gary Gereffi and the systems of provision approach developed primarily by Ben Fine, is discussed.

The working experiences and career developments of Hong Kong fashion designers are traced, which are based on an ethnographic study of Hong Kong's fashion world.

With their association to enterprise and innovation, creative industries have emerged as a legitimate concern in national cultural and economical policy in many countries across the world. In Denmark, the fashion business, in particular, has been hailed as a model for successful (post)industrial transformation. In this paper, we explore the birth of Danish fashion from the ashes of the country's clothing manufacturing industry, suggesting that the very notion of Danish fashion is indicative of -- and enabled by -- a development towards a polycentric fashion system. The intriguing idea that fashion could emanate from Denmark and secure growth, jobs and exports even outside the fashion business has taken hold among policymakers, and compelled the government to embrace fashion as a national project. In investigating the emergence and rising stature of Danish fashion, particular at home, we first establish a theoretical frame for understanding the cultural economic policy and the motives, principles and strategies behind it. Then -- drawing inspiration from Michel Callon's "sociology of translation" with its moments of translation: problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization -- we identify the actors and analyze their strategic roles and interrelationship through various phases of the development of Danish fashion. Callon's actor network theory (ANT) is based on the principle of "generalized symmetry" -- originally using a single repertoire to analyze both society and nature. We adapt this principle to study the realms of market, culture and politics within a common analytical framework. In our analysis, the state responds to industry transformation, interprets it and develops its own agenda. But it can hardly be said to develop policies for the industry. On the contrary, we suggest, fashion is mobilized to lend its luster to the nation, its institutions and politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]