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Book Cover
Book
Author Aspers, Patrik, 1970-

Title Orderly fashion : a sociology of markets / Patrik Aspers
Published Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2010]
©2010

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  306.34 Asp/Ofa  AVAILABLE
Description x, 237 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Contents The Aims of the Book -- Order -- Outline of the Book -- Chapter 1. Garment Sellers in Consumer Markets -- Identity -- Market Differentiation -- Types of Sellers -- Competition and Cooperation -- Splitting and Fusing Markets -- Summary -- Chapter 2. Affordable Fashion -- Identities of Branded Garment Retailers -- Retailers' Customers -- Consumption and Identity -- Price and Garments -- Fashion -- Fashion and Power -- Identity Management -- The Culture of the Market -- Status Order -- Summary -- Chapter 3. Entrenching Identities -- Performance Control -- Relations of Identities -- Summary -- Chapter 4. Branded Garment Retailers in the Production Market -- Design and Fashion -- Finding Manufacturers -- Competition among Retailers -- The Product -- Retailers' Identities -- Summary -- Chapter 5. Manufacturing Garments in the Global Market -- The Industry from the Perspective of the Manufacturers -- The Production Process -- Identity Differentiation and Strategies -- Price and Global Competition -- The Market Culture -- Order Out of Standard -- Summary -- Chapter 6. Branded Garment Retailers in the Investment Market -- Approaching Financial Markets -- Retailers' Identities in Investor Markets -- The Stock Market and Its Value -- Trading Fashion Stocks -- Evaluation of Stocks -- Economic Evaluation -- Summary -- Chapter 7. Markets as Partial Orders -- Discussion of the Study -- Partial Orders -- Appendix I. Empirical Material and Methods -- Appendix II. Garment Trade Statistics -- Appendix III. The Garment Industry -- Appendix IV. Economic Sociology -- Appendix V. Fashion Theory and Research
Summary ""Patrik Aspers shines a bright light on how markets come to seem orderly to producers and consumers, so they can strive to enact the script of rational actors. His astute and subtle account of all aspects of branded garment retailing sets a high bar for future studies of industry."---Mark Granovetter, Stanford University" ""This fine book makes an original contribution to our understanding of fashion, markets, and social theory. While there do exist books on each of these topics, none of them tie everything together in such a convincing manner. Orderly Fashion is a fine merger of Aspers' substantive theoretical research interests, and is his best work so far."---Richard Swedberg, author of Principles of Economic Sociology" ""This book delivers on a huge promise to advance our knowledge of both order and markets through sociological concepts and insights. The book demonstrates with lucid reasoning why order in markets is best understood through the social construction of meaning. An impressive accomplishment."---Shyon Baumann, University of Toronto" "For any market to work properly, certain key elements are necessary: competition, pricing, rules, clearly defined offers, and easy access to information. Without these components, there would be chaos. Orderly Fashion examines how order is maintained in the different interconnected consumer, producer, and credit markets of the global fashion industry. From retailers in Sweden and the United Kingdom to producers in India and Turkey, Patrik Aspers focuses on branded garment retailers---chains such as Gap, H&M, Old Navy, Topshop, and Zara. Aspers investigates these retailers' interactions and competition in the consumer market for fashion garments, traces connections between producer and consumer markets, and demonstrates why market order is best understood through an analysis of its different forms of social construction." "Emphasizing consumption rather than production, Aspers considers the larger retailers' roles as buyers in the production market of garments, and as potential objects of investment in financial markets. He shows how markets overlap and intertwine and he defines two types of markets---status markets and standard markets. In status markets, market order is related to the identities of the participating actors more than the quality of the goods, whereas in standard markets the opposite holds true." "Looking at how identities, products, and values create the ordered economic markets of the global fashion business, Orderly Fashion has wide implications for all modern markets, regardless of industry."--BOOK JACKET
Notes Formerly CIP. Uk
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Subject Clothing trade -- Social aspects.
Fashion merchandising -- Social aspects.
Industrial sociology.
LC no. 2009041616
ISBN 0691141576 (hbk. : alk. paper)
9780691141572 (hbk. : alk. paper)