Markets, Design, and Local Agglomeration: The Role of the Small Independent Retailer in the Workings of the Fashion System

Abstract

The fashion system, as a powerful cultural signifier, offers some important clues into the links between production and consumption change. In this paper, the workings of the fashion system are explored, with a focus on changing consumption patterns and new market trends, which may have the potential to even out the profoundly unequal relationship which exists between high-street multiples and small independent retailers. The suggestion is made that the fashion system is polarising at present, that design-led boutiques are enjoying renewed popularity. Not only is this benefiting local design talent, it is also a means of affording greater autonomy to local manufacturers. The emergence of one particular fashion agglomeration, the Nottingham Lace Market, is traced, with local linkage structures looked at through the interplay of manufacturers, designers, retailers, and local policymakers. In this way, an attempt is made to offer a more expansive investigation of flexible production systems, one which is not grounded exclusively in economic-centred narratives but which recognises that the factors which shape the development of local agglomerations are rooted in production and consumption shifts, and are dependent on multiple political, cultural, and economic discourses.