Producing 'Britishness' : globalisation and the construction of national identity in British fashion

Abstract

British fashion is poised amidst a clutch of conflicting narratives, representations and \nideologies. Through an examination of these rival encounters and the events that have \ngone to generate them, this thesis gives an insight into the culture of contemporary \nfashion, its dilemmas and the industry it supports. \nIn particular, my discussion looks at the relationship between fashion and national \nidentity. It posits fashion as a site central both to the re-branding of Britain and also to \ncontestations over British identity itself, including the gendering of Britishness and its \nclass relations. \nUsing the cases of two iconic British fashion companies, Paul Smith Ltd and Mulberry \nPlc, I explore how the apparently straightforward and economically driven process of \nthe globalisation of British fashion is, in fact, a far more culturally nuanced and locally \nembedded encounter than has previously been suggested. I unpack the different ways in \nwhich Paul Smith and Mulberry go about negotiating and sometimes even shaping and \nmobilising a sense of nationness in what is a rapidly globalising commercial \nmarketplace. For in spite of their shared iconic national status both companies go about \ngenerating and deploying their self-confessed British character in exceedingly different \nways. \nIt is through an exploration of Paul Smith and Mulberry's contrasting corporate \nstrategies, symbolic production techniques and product profiles that I investigate the \ndifferent meanings afforded by the term Britishness. Indeed the thesis contends that, in \nthe arena of fashion, Britishness is characterised less through some distinct essence or \nby a particular 'look' and more through its 'narratives of ambiguity'. In turn, it suggests \nthat an understanding of these narratives goes some way in problematising and \ndisrupting commonly imagined notions of Britishness borne out of Anglo-centric, \nandrocentric and bourgeois tradition and, still further, it looks at how such notions \nmight be re-worked in more multiple and complex ways.

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