British Fashion Design: Rag Trade or Image Industry?

British fashion is currently enjoying unprecedented international success, with swinging London’ hailed as a centre for creativity and innovation, and British designers such as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano recruited by renowned fashion houses such as 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 at home. Angela McRobbie traces the careers of young designers, from graduation from art school to entry into the industry, designing for their own labels or serving apprenticeships for established houses in Milan, Paris or New York. She discusses how these designers negotiate the tension between fashion as art form and the demands of a ruthlessly commercial industry, and how designers both come out of and draw their inspiration from youth street culture. In analysing the economic, ideological and artistic working of this pre-eminent cultural industry, British Fashion Design draws on interviews with young fashion designers and with others working in the fash biz’ which surrounds and markets their products - stylists, fashion writers, magazine editors and retailers.