McRobbie A. British Fashion Design: Rag Trade or Image Industry?

London and New York: Routledge, 1998. — 224 p. — ISBN10: 0415057817, ISBN13: 978-0415057813.British Fashion Design explores the tensions between fashion as art form, and the demands of a ruthlessly commercial industry. Based on interviews and research conducted over a number of years, Angela McRobbie charts the flow of art school fashion graduates into the industry; their attempts to reconcile training with practice, and their precarious position between the twin supports of the education system and the commercial sector. Stressing the social context of cultural production, McRobbie focuses on British fashion and its graduate designers as products of youth street culture, and analyses how designers from diverse backgrounds have created a labour market for themselves, remodelling `enterprise culture` to suit their own careers.British fashion is currently enjoying unpreeedented international success, with London being hailed as a centre for creativity and innovation and British designers such as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano being recruited by renowned fashion houses, Givenchy and Dior. British Fashion Design is an insightful and informative investigation of the British fashion industry, focusing on the young
designers whose work is rapturously received in the international market, but who often struggle at the brink of bankruptcy.Fashion design and cultural production.
Great debates in art and design education.
The fashion girls and the painting boys.
Fashion education, trade and industry.
What kind of industry? From getting started to going bust.
A mixed economy of fashion design.
The art and craft of fashion design.
Manufacture, money and markets in fashion design.
A new kind of rag trade?
Fashion and the image industries.
Livelihoods in fashion.