Making Fashion Markets: Intermediaries amidst the Production and Consumption of Global Fashion in Asia

• In Event: 118 - Section on Economic Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 21. Theorizing Production

Abstract

As a case illustrating the operation of globally-integrated yet locally distinct systems of contemporary consumption, this paper investigates production and consumption of global fashion in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan and the organizational roles played by intermediary market actors mediating between the two spheres. Most conventional analyses of consumer goods focus on either the spheres of production or consumption, while bypassing the analysis of their interrelatedness. However, this paper demonstrates the ever-increasing intermediary influence over consumer and production market processes, and thus the necessity to conceptualize market operations as exchange relationships that materialize not only as industry participants devise their strategies vis-à-vis competitors and industry participants but more importantly, also their exchange partners—the consumers. In the case of East Asian fashion markets, a set of locally embedded yet globally responsive intermediaries have emerged to incorporate strategies to bridge the disjointed spheres of production and consumption while reciprocally influencing both. This entails the industry participants’ active utilization and manipulation of the gap between the local meanings of brands and the local linkage to global production of fashion products.

Author

• Solee Irene Shin, National University of Singapore