The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion: Markets and Value in Clothing and Modelling (Dress, Body, Culture)

I was actually surprised to find that their wasn't any reviews of this book. I read it due to my interest in how you organize and thereby manage the creation of value. The book builds on Callon's concept of performative economics or economy of qualities, and in parts on Bourdieu's concept of habitus. It is based on enthnographic/antropological studies of both modelling and a cutting edge retailer.J. Entwistle careful observations and conceptualization of the creation of value both in models and in the fashion buying, shows how complex these processes are. The key strength of the book is that it ensures we get all the way around the practice, and also down to how the buyers and models come to embody their practice in style and how they dynamically change it - this is where she builds on the concept of habitus. Coming form the business side the her analysis of tacit/codified knowledge and aesthetics practice of "the buyers" underlines what C. Barnard said already in 1938:‘The terms pertinent to [management] are “feeling”, “judgement”, “sense”, “proportion”, “balance”, “appropriateness”. It is a matter of art rather than science, and is aesthetic rather than logical’ (Barnard, 1968 [1938]: 235).The only difference is that business studies very often quote Barnard but largely has ignored the aesthetics of the super "masculine" world of senior management.From an organizational perspectives J. Entwistle succeed in actually following the actors/actants from the buying at suppliers, through the organization and its definitions of trends to the "active" consumers and how they mutually influence each other. Actants also because she describes how material, fitting on bodies, and feel is equally important to a "purely" human experience perspective.Highly recommended