Table Of Content

The Fashion Business This page intentionally left blank The Fashion Business Theory, Practice, Image Edited by Nicola White and Ian Griffiths Oxford•New York First published in 2000 by Berg Editorial offices: 150 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JJ, UK 838 Broadway, Third Floor, New York, NY 10003-4812, USA © Nicola White and Ian Griffiths 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Berg. Berg is an imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1859733549(Cloth) 185973359X(Paper) Typeset by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants. Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn. Contents Notes on Contributors vii List of Figures xi Introduction: The Fashion Business Theory, Practice, Image Nicola White and Ian Griffiths 1 Part 1 Context 11111 Fashion:Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Valerie Steele 7 Part 2 Theory and Culture 22222 Cultures, Identities, Histories: Fashioning a Cultural Approach to Dress Christopher Breward 23 33333 Fashion and Glamour Réka C.V. Buckley and Stephen Gundle 37 44444 Ethnic Minimalism: A Strand of 1990s British Fashion Identity Explored via a Contextual Analysis of Designs by Shirin Guild Amy de la Haye 55 Part 3 Design for Industry 55555 The Invisible Man Ian Griffiths 69 66666 Connecting Creativity Luigi Maramotti 91 77777 The Chain Store Challenge Brian Godbold 103 Contents Part 4 Image and Marketing 88888 The Hilfiger Factor and the Flexible Commercial World of Couture Lou Taylor 121 99999 John Galliano: Modernity and Spectacle Caroline Evans 143 1111100000 Luxury and Restraint: Minimalism in 1990s Fashion Rebecca Arnold 167 1111111111 Italy:Fashion, Style and National Identity 1945–65 Nicola White 183 Index 205 Notes on Contributors Valerie Steele is Chief Curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and Editor of the quarterly journal Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture. Her numerous published works includeHandbags: A Lexicon of Style (with Laird Borrelli) (Rizzoli); Shoes: A Lexicon of Style (Rizzoli); China Chic, East Meets West (with John S. Major) (Yale University Press); Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now (Yale University Press, Adam Biro); Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power (Oxford University Press); Women of Fashion: 20th Century Designers (Rizzoli); Men and Women: Dressing the Part (with Claudia Kidwell) (Smithsonian Institu- tion Press); Paris Fashion: a Cultural History (Oxford University: revised edition Berg); and Fashion and Eroticism (Oxford University Press). Her books have been reviewed in dozens of periodicals and newspapers as diverse as the Italian fashion magazine Donna and The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and she is a regular contributor of essays to many publications, includingIsabel and Ruben Tolelo:A Marriage of Art & Fashion (Korinsha), Claire McCordell: Redefining Modernism (Abrams) and The Style Engine (Monacelli). Dr Steele has organized several major exhibitions at the Fashion Institution of Technology, often centred on the themes explored in her books. Dr Steele lectures frequently and her articles have been published in periodicals ranging from Aperture and Artforum to Visionnaire, Vogue and of course, Fashion Theory. Caroline Evans is a Senior Lecturer in the Cultural Studies department at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, where she is currently also Senior Research Fellow in Fashion. Additionally she is a visiting Tutor at Goldsmiths College, London, and is on the editorial board of Fashion Theory: the Journal of Dress, Body and Culture. She has taught and written widely on the history and theory of fashion, ranging from exhibition catalogues to academic articles. With Minna Thornton, she is co-author of Women and Fashion: a New Look. She is currently working on a book on contemporary fashion and its historical origins in modernity to be published by Yale University Press. vii Notes on Contributors Christopher Breward is Reader in Historical and Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion, the London Institute. He is the author of The Culture of Fashion and The Hidden Consumer (both Manchester University Press) and joint editor of Material Memories (Berg). He sits on the editorial board of the journal Fashion Theory and has published several articles and chapters on nineteenth- and twentieth-century fashion in its cultural context. His current research focuses on the role played by fashionable clothing in the history and culture of London. Stephen Gundle is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Italian at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Between Hollywood and Moscow: The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943–91 (Duke University Press, 2000) and of many articles on Italian history, politics and popular culture. He is currently completing studies of glamour and of feminine beauty and national identity in Italy. Réika C.V. Buckley is completing a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London on female film stars and popular culture in post-war Italy. Amy de la Haye is a Senior Research Fellow at the London College of Fashion, Creative Consultant to Shirin Guild and Consultant for the forthcoming ‘Fashion and Style’ gallery at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. From 1991 to 1998 she was Curator of Twentieth Century Dress at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Published works includes Fashion Source Book (MacDonald 1989); Chanel: the couturier at work (1994); Surfers, Soulies, Skinheads and Skaters (1996); The Cutting Edge: 50 Years of British Fashion V&A Publications (1997). Recently published titles include (with Valerie Mendes) Concise History of Twentieth Century Fashion (Thames & Hudson, World of Art series, 1999); (with Elizabeth Wilson) Defining Dress: Dress as Object, Meaning and Identity (Manchester University Press, 1999). Luigi Maramotti is Vice-Chairman and CEO of MaxMara Fashion Group. With an annual turnover in excess of £600m and over 1,000 stores worldwide, MaxMara is one of the best known and successful names in fashion. Luigi Maramotti has a specialist interest in the promotion of fashion as an academic subject, has provided funding for the enhancement of the contextual studies element of the fashion course at Kingston University, has initiated the sponsorship of research degrees including Nicola White’s, the MaxMara lecture series, and an annual award of outstanding third-year dissertations. Luigi Maramotti, who holds a degree in Business Administration from the viii Notes on Contributors University of Parma, was awarded an honorary Degree of Doctor of Design by Kingston University in 1997. Professor Ian Griffiths was Head of the well-known School of Fashion at Kingston University for eight years from 1992, and simultaneously a Design Consultant to the MaxMara Group. He was responsible for Kingston University’sPerspectives In Fashion lecture series, which ran for five years, and was the starting point for this book. He relinquished his headship of the School of Fashion in June 2000 to focus on his creative role at MaxMara, but continues to teach on an occasional basis and is currently researching a book dealing with the history and theory of fashion from a practitioner’s perspective. Brian Godbold’s career, culminating in his appointment as Design Director at Marks & Spencer, is documented in detail in the chapter which he has written for this book. His championship of design within the fashion industry has resulted in his appointment as Deputy Chairman of the British Fashion Council, and as a Council Member of the Royal College of Art. In addition to honorary doctorates from the Universities of Southampton and West- minster, he is an Honorary Fellow of the Shenkar College in Israel, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Society of Designers and President of the Royal College of Art Society. Lou Taylor is Professor of Dress & Textile History at the University of Brighton, author of Mourning Dress, a Costume and Social History (Allen & Unwin), the Study of Dress History (Manchester University Press), and co-author (with Elizabeth Wilson) of Through the Looking Glass: History of Dress from 1860 to the Present Day (BBC Book). She is a member of the Editorial Board of Fashion Theory. Rebecca Arnold is a Lecturer in the Cultural Studies department at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art & Design, London. She has written widely on twentieth-century fashion and her first book, Fashion, Desire & Anxiety, Image and Morality in the 20th Century is published by I. B. Tauris in January 2001. Nicola White is a lecturer in History of Art and Design, specializing in Fashion at Kingston University, where she is also a Research Post Graduate. She has also lectures at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design. Her MPhil thesis, sponsored by the MaxMara group was published under the title Reconstructing Italian Fashion (Berg) and she has also published works on Versace and Armani (Carlton Books). ix