The Enterprise of Culture: International Structures and Connections in the Fashion Industry has announced that its next event will be a conference entitled "Entrepreneurship in Fashion: Student, Academic and Industry Perspectives." The one-day meeting will be held in Edinburgh on March 5, 2015. Financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme, the conference has been organized by Enterprise of Culture team members based at the School of Management and Languages at Heriot-Watt University, Andrew MacLaren and Robert MacIntosh.
The conference will explore the changing structure of the European fashion business, with reference to the fashion intermediaries who work behind the scenes to run the fashion system. According to the organizers, the conference will take the idea of fashion entrepreneurship and consider it in two novel ways:
The conference will explore the changing structure of the European fashion business, with reference to the fashion intermediaries who work behind the scenes to run the fashion system. According to the organizers, the conference will take the idea of fashion entrepreneurship and consider it in two novel ways:
First, the day will give a platform for students, researching academics and active industry practitioners to offer their respective voices on what they consider to be the areas that deserve attention when it comes to academia. The second area of novelty relates to those voices: they will not necessarily be rejoicing in the heroism of individual fashion designers and large companies, as is so often portrayed. Instead this conference will present some of the essential yet more rarely considered areas such as merchandising, buying, blogging, store design, digital innovation and more. As is the mission of the Enterprise of Culture project, there will also be an historical flavour to the day which complements these contemporary ideas. . . . The principal aim of this conference is to engage multiple perspectives around the exciting concept of entrepreneurship in fashion and welcome thoughts, ideas and debate from the public, the industry and the research world.
Open to anyone with an interest in the business history of fashion, the conference will bring together academics, fashion industry practitioners, students, archivists, museum curators, and wider public audiences. The conference is free but registration is essential as places are limited. See here for booking information.
Further details are available on the project website. To obtain a copy of the full program via email once it is available, please email enterpriseofculture@leeds.ac.