Fashion systems and global fashion research: from divisions to connections

The histories of fashion and fashion studies alike are ridden with inequalities and Eurocentric biases. Even well-meaning scholars are sometimes prone to use divisive concepts, such as ‘non-Western fashion’, in their attempts to rethink the meanings and geographies of fashion. Less divisive, more inclusive conceptual and analytical tools are urgently needed. In this paper, I consider the potential for change of an analytical focus on three crucial elements: garments themselves, connections through garments, and the spaces the garments travel through and shape. I argue that such a focus as this allows us to recognise both the globality of dress and fashion, as well as their specificities in particular (geographical) locations. Moreover, this kind of an approach helps the analyst over another well-known problem of fashion studies: a division between studies of production, and consumption studies. Fashion and dress are more than production and consumption – they are everyday phenomena that influence individuals at many intertwined levels, whether those individuals make, design, transport or sell garments, or simply wear them without participating in their creation. Creating a sociologically informed framework for analysis, dress and fashion scholarship can move forward, recognising that the geographical divisions that shape fashion systems are socio-politically constructed, and therefore should be analysed rather than re-enforced by scholars, as has often been the case in the history of the field of research