Manufacturing Fashion in the Post-War Period

doi:10.1017/9781108862349.017

35 - Manufacturing Fashion in the Post-War Period

from Part VI - Fashion Systems and Globalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2023

Véronique Pouillard

Edited by

Christopher Breward ,

Beverly Lemire and

Giorgio Riello

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Christopher Breward: Affiliation:
National Museums Scotland
Beverly Lemire: Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Giorgio Riello: Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence

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Summary

The fashion industry went through profound transformations during the post-war era. Fashion was from the onset a global industry, and yet with the last globalization post-1970, fashion increasingly catered for the masses and production transformed from local or semi-local clusters to global supply chains. The decoupling of two major operations of fashion firms, manufacturing and retail, is central to the economic and social geographies of post-war fashion. Manufacturing increasingly relocated overseas from Western nations. This had important consequences, as former manufacturing centres in the West aimed to rebrand themselves as creative and commercial centres, often with the help of government subventions. The West remained central in producing value in the design, branding, and retail of fashion. The Global South is offering ever new reservoirs of workforce to garment manufacturing, but it remains uncertain whether the manufacturing countries may gain leadership in other areas of value production, notably branding and design.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Global History of Fashion
From the Nineteenth Century to the Present
, pp. 1221 - 1248

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108862349.017 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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