ABSTRACT
Underlying all finance research is the modernist metaphor of the financial services industry as a process in which one set of claims is transformed into a more valuable one. There are other, post-modernist, metaphors that reflect that a lot of “consumption” is mixed in with the so-called “investment”. One of these is fashion. Couture and investment depend upon managed change for their success. Both are industries in which change is desirable and where it is possible to profit from anticipating and/or effecting appropriate amounts of it. However, the reason fashion is an especially telling metaphor for investment is that the couture and investment industries are both interested in profit, but profit is not the main motivation for either. Especially at its high end, haute couture, fashion is about the creation or re-creation of a self-image of power and sex. And at its high end, professional investment, so is finance.
