Re-presentation Policies of the Fashion Industry

5The Industrialization of Creativity

Fashion creativity “is a value that is essentially attached to production and economic activity” (Bouquillion et al. 2013, p. 98, author’s translation). Although it regularly or occasionally calls upon artists in the design phase (but also in the promotion phase) of its commercial goods, its creative as well as economic activity cannot be confused with that of the cultural industries, even if “there is indeed a need to bring them closer together” (Bouquillion et al. 2013, p. 101, author’s translation) because the goods produced by the fashion industry “are part of personal heritage and are therefore monetizable and transmissible” (Bouquillion et al. 2013, p. 103, author’s translation). The aforementioned researchers underline that it is at this level that a difference can be noted between luxury goods and cultural products, whose possible patrimonialization cannot give rise to monetization or transmission movements. “From this point of view, luxury goods or mass fashion only resemble semi-reproducible cultural and informational products” (Bouquillion et al. 2013, p. 103, author’s translation). But what happens when luxury fashion ceases to be linked as much from an organizational point of view as from a symbolic point of view to craftsmanship? What happens when it is based on semi-industrial and even industrial production?

There regularly appears an opposition between elitist luxury – in this case fashion from this segment – and mass-produced ...