Authors: Iria Pérez Gestal
Abstract
Very few would dispute the fact that we live in a global world, where local economy, politics and culture do not longer belong to and influence their immediate surroundings alone, but a large extent of the rest of the globe. This context of merging borders has entailed drastic changes in the way goods and services are produced and distributed and in how information and ideas are transmitted. Fashion, both a business and a cultural good, has not been impervious to that: on the one hand, fashion is a multi-billion dollar industry that has to survive in a more and more competitive global market and produce for a trans-continental audience; and, on the other hand, it is also an immaterial good and the way it is transmitted, shared and created changes along with society. Both fashion and globalization are complex and multidimensional phenomena, and the analysis of their connection can be approached by a wide variety of disciplines. Throughout this essay I will analyse what and how has changed in fashion with globalization, focusing on the influence economical[1] and cultural[2] globalization have had in the transmission of trends and the structure and behaviour of the industry. Firstly, fashion is one of the few cultural goods that we carry with us every day and have a role in our daily life, so the way trends are created and transmitted is affected both by changes in the diffusion of culture –as it happened with cultural globalization- and by changes in society. Secondly, fashion industry has, as every other, been affected by economic globalization. However, unlike any other industry, fashion produces ephemeral cultural goods, and so the production of clothes has also been affected by the new model of transmission of trends with cultural globalization.
Keywords: Fashion, Globalization, Influencers and Marketing
