Journal of Cultural Economy

Findlay, Rosie

doi: 10.1080/17530350.2025.2465555pmid: N/A

In the two decades since fashion blogging emerged as a distinct sub-genre, a generation of early fashion bloggers has risen to prominence as writers and editors in the media industries, despite not starting their blogs – as many later did – as a route to a fashion-related career. This study traces the career histories of one such networked group of writers. All participated in early fashion blogging and now work in media, mostly in New York and Toronto. Drawing on nine interviews with individuals from the early North American fashion blogipelago, this article argues that their professional success is not simply attributable to personal skill or the visibility of digital communications. Rather, an interplay of several factors gave rise to the opportunities leading to their established media careers: the affordances of blogging to develop professional skills and confidence; participation in networks of ‘blogfriends’, and proximity to one of North America’s media centres. This aspect, dubbed ‘proximity privilege’ by one participant (Mlotek 2019), demonstrates how enduringly geographically embedded the cultural industries are. By inhabiting one of these fashion media centres, even temporarily, the interviewees benefitted from proximity to existing networks and opportunities that consolidated the visibility and skills afforded by fashion blogging.

Melkumova-Reynolds, Jana

doi: 10.1080/17530350.2024.2436846pmid: N/A

This article discusses the role of space and place in the production and dissemination of fashion knowledge. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography carried out at Paris Fashion Week events in 2017–2018 and in-depth interviews with thirteen wholesale fashion agents, it presents fashion knowledge as at once ‘sticky’ [Bathelt, Harald, Anders Malmberg, and Peter Maskell. 2004. “Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation.” Progress in Human Geography 28 (1): 31–56] and place-bound, while also global and free-flowing. This study analyses the relationship between fashion knowledge, geographic locations – such as the Marais neighborhood in Paris – and interior spaces – such as seasonal showrooms. Ultimately, it argues that spatial literacies are among the key forms of knowledge deployed by fashion wholesale professionals in their work: firstly, they need an intimate familiarity with the ever-shifting geographies of Paris fashion clusters; secondly, they must possess an aesthetic skill set that can enable them to quickly assemble particular atmospheres in temporary locations. Finally, by analysing the heterotopic [Foucault, Michel. 1984. Des Espaces Autres. Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, 5: 46–49], neither-public-nor-private nature of fashion showrooms, this study considers how fashion week events exclude local residents, thus rearticulating the symbolic boundaries around the field of fashion.