Marketing Fashion

Fashion as a societal phenomenon has fascinated scholars in different disciplines such as history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and marketing often from an interdisciplinary perspective. Fashion mirrors societal changes, cultural norms, and values over time. It can be interpreted as mundane everyday practices, constructions of identity and status as well as being associated with the art world. In this book, the focus lies on marketing and the role of marketers when fashion permeates society in deliberate and subtle ways.

This edited collection critically reflects upon the power of fashion in contemporary society and the role marketing and marketers play in the process of defining, creating, and preserving fashion, but also in divesting fashion that is no longer up to date. It expands on existing knowledge to better understand the role marketers play as cultural agents in determining fashion and its markets. Contributors to the book are international, advanced scholars from a variety of disciplines such as anthropology, marketing, psychology and sociology, who challenge traditional ways of thinking about marketing. In a society where problems with overproduction and excessive consumption represent major challenges, the critical perspective of the role fashion plays in contemporary society and what influence marketing has for shaping fashion are not merely relevant, but necessary.

This cutting-edge, interdisciplinary book will appeal to scholars across a broad range of fields including fashion marketing, fashion studies, and consumer culture research. It will also be valuable for students in advanced courses of study in a variety of disciplines besides marketing.

Karin M. Ekström is Professor in Marketing at the Department of Business Administration and Textile Management, University of Borås, Sweden, where she heads the Marketing, Fashion and Sustainable Consumption Research Group. She has been involved in research on consumption for many years, frequently in multidisciplinary projects. Her research focuses on consumer culture, with a particular focus on the meaning(s) of consumption and sustainable consumption of food, clothing, and wood. She has recently edited Museum Marketization: Cultural Institutions in the Neoliberal Era (2020). Examples of other edited volumes related to consumption and sustainability are Waste Management and Sustainable Consumption: Reflections on Consumer Waste (2015), Beyond the Consumption Bubble (2011, coedited with Kay Glans) and Elusive Consumption (2004, coedited with Helene Brembeck).