Conclusion

This book offers both a deep look into the history of the fashion industry, and a birds-eye-view of the main academic and practical knowledge produced on this industry. In this sense, it is an exercise in “fashionology” at the crossroads of fashion as a significant economic activity, and as an intriguing research topic. It is a sketch of today’s fashion, in all its diversity and complexity, as a “total social fact.” Like its subject, this sketch is multifaceted. It draws from many sources and various academic disciplines: mostly sociology and economics, but also geography and history. A full integration of all these approaches remains to be done, but research on fashion is thriving, and common principles appear throughout the various disciplines interested in this subject. Six principles have been identified in this work.