The globalization of the fashion city. RESPONSE

The genesis of fashion cities is a fascinating story, as the paper by Chris Breward shows. This is not only because from the historical point of view it is interesting to follow the development of the cities which have made their names in this way, identifying geographies and hierarchies, rises and (momentary) falls, power struggles and new aesthetics. This has undoubtedly happened, and still happens. In his introductory essay to Fashion’s World Cities, David Gilbert, for example, underlines that today Asia is the place where aesthetics are most seductive and forms most attractive, with that admixture of kawaii and cynicism which appears so irresistible to us in the West. But it is not only this. What Chris Breward points out to us is the transition, in the current Empire of Fashion, from a phase in which the culture and power of a city made it one of fashion, to another phase, typical of our present, in which it is fashion itself, with its increasingly specific culture, which makes the cities emerge. This is not an insignificant matter. On the contrary, it may modify the very relationship between fashion and urban life.