ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 provides the reader with an overview of the clothing and textile industries, revealing the enormous changes in sources of global garment production. Chapter 2 develops a more commonly documented aspect of fashion, examining how the subject may be llllderstood from social and cultural perspectives. Chapter 3 explores historical aspects of fashion design and provides insights to the significant trade fairs and shows which inform the process of designing fashion clothing. Chapter 4 provides a detailed analysis of global luxury brands, documenting and discussing data and views from within the industry that are rarely accessible within the public domain. Chapter 5 delivers a flllldamental understanding of the processes involved in garment manufacture, as clothing represents the building blocks of most fashion collections. Chapter 6 reviews the significance of fashion retailing to the modem fashion industry and charts significant events and changes within the field. Chapter 7 is concerned with buying and merchandising, one of the important vocational areas of fashion that is narrowly represented in academic or trade literature, and reveals the nature and workings of modem buying and merchandising fllllctions. Chapter 8 explains how the vocational subject of fashion journalism impacts on the wider industry. Chapter 9 offers a rare insight into the often misrepresented roles of fashion PR and styling through a very experienced industry contributor. Chapter 10 examines careers in fashion retailing with significant input from the Arcadia Group and Retail Human Resources, both of which provide expert and balanced perspectives on a major area of employment within the fashion industry. The final chapter looks towards the future through the eyes of one of the world's leading fashion trend research consultants, Matthew leatt - director of Promostyl. In Matthew's view,
Fashion has changed dramatically in recent years and will continue to do so. Today's consumer is very well informed and sometimes difficult to please. We can now see the incredible impact of both the 'vigilante consumer' and the 'brand evangelist' as a direct consequence of today's 'wired world' in which an individual can utilise teclmology and network as never before. Fashion and teclmology both have to come to terms with the aspirations and needs (both physical and emotional) of today's consumer. They both have to adapt to the human body and soul instead of expecting humans to adapt to them as they have in the past.
