I lock my bike to his and step into his studio. I say ‘bonjour’ to his mum, to his partner and to a few young women focusing on something important on a screen. He brings me coffee and we sit down in his tiny office to talk. When I leave I try to take everything in with my eyes: the clothes on rails and in piles, the Alaïa dress on a mannequin, the images of past collections pinned to a wall. And the focus and friendliness that seems a common trait to everyone who works here.

For me ‘sustainability’ is such a bullshit word. It’s very much a marketing tool today. It’s not about just using organic cotton; it’s about how you act on every level. It’s about respecting everyone you work with – from the person who picks the fibres to the people in your office. We know by now that fashion relies on an unsustainable system that requires us to buy more and more and more. But I don’t believe that fashion is ‘bad.’ It’s complex. Real sustainability is about how you practise it in a respectful way and on a human scale. I’m not saying that we’re succeeding, but we are trying. Atlein has sustainable practises but I would never say that we’re a sustainable brand. The most important thing we do is using dead stock fabrics because the most unsustainable practise is to produce more textiles; the chemical processes involved in dyeing are really harmful. We keep things local by working with a factory in France. But I’d honestly feel like a liar if I went out and advertised the fact that we’re sustainable – and yet we’re more sustainable than most brands who use that term in their marketing. It’s complicated and I’m very conflicted, like most people today.

I’ve worked in fashion houses for such a long time: seven years at Balenciaga, and before that at Givenchy and Louis Vuitton. And there was always something that felt wrong about it, about me being there. A year ago I was feeling so angry and sad about the state of the world. At that time Extinction Rebellion started in France, and I immediately joined them. It was a way for me to actively encourage change. I don’t think the answer is to feel guilty about loving fashion. We have an amazing knowhow and history of fashion in Europe and it needs to be safeguarded, but the challenge is to figure out how to do that in a less destructive way. Moving forward isn’t about saying I’m right and you’re wrong, and I don’t believe in pointing fingers at anyone. It’s our economic system that’s destructive. I mean, who am I to say that fast fashion shouldn’t exist for example? People who don’t have money, why shouldn’t they have access to fashion? I don’t think that we solve anything by saying only high fashion is good and everything else is shit. I’m well aware that I’m making very expensive dresses that very few people can afford. So yes, I’m conflicted. I don’t hold the answer. I try to find a way to work that’s respectful to people and to the environment. That’s all we can do: try, die trying.

In many ways I have my mother to thank for my my environmental consciousness. I remember sweltering hot summers in the car were she’d roll down the windows and tell us that she wasn’t putting the air con on because she was thinking about our future. And this was in the Nineties you know. People didn’t talk about the environment they way we do today. I’ve always felt close to nature, even though I grew up in Paris. I surf. Not as much as I’d like to, but still. I’ve always felt that we’re all connected, all one. When I named my company, I chose ‘Atlein’ as a nod to the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve always been super interested in biology and zoology. I don’t travel as much because I’m mindful of the effect it has on the environment, but I used to travel a lot. I have a big passion for primates, especially big apes. I’ve been to conservation centres all over to see mountain gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees: Sumatra, Laos, Uganda, Costa Rica. Seeing a mountain gorilla is like seeing the god of the mountains: it’s almost mystical. There is so much of us in them, and yet we’re so different.

Today we live in an entertainment society, a media society. You have to be out there. Sometimes I think I’m paying a high price for not being more engaged with Instagram for example. I’m being really unfiltered now, but you understand me don’t you? I can’t help but think that we’d be selling more or be more recognised if I was able to play the game better. I don’t know. I’m not saying those things are the only ones that make you successful in fashion… but they are important. I’ve made so many mistakes since I started. Learning who to listen to is one of the hardest things, in work and in life. Me, I get clarity when I surf. Surfing is a great analogy for life actually. You have to pay attention to how the wind is blowing, you have to analyse the sea in order to catch the best wave. When it comes, you need to be prepared to grab it. You need to intuit: this is going to be the good ride. I’m still learning. Atlein is such a personal project. Everything I have goes into the company: all my time and every cent I make. My mom, my brother, my boyfriend – they all work with me. The name reflects what I care about the most. It couldn’t be more intimate, but then again I wouldn’t know how to do it any other way.

We forget that people working in the shadows can have the biggest impact. Do you know the designer Patrick van Ommeslaeghe? He’s not famous, but he is so important. He worked at Jil Sander with Raf Simons and at Loewe too. Maybe his name won’t be in books, but to me he’s one of the most important designers of the last decades. His dresses are on every mood board. You don’t have to make millions or be known to everybody to be important or have a lasting impact, and now that fashion is so intertwined with fame we lose sight of that sometimes. I’m the same. I get consumed by the fact that we have only 10 000 followers on Instagram. I know it’s silly but it can keep me awake at night. I’m not going to lie – it’s the way recognition is shown today. I hate how everything is about ratings, but I also realise that I need to partake in that culture. It’s the way the industry works now. Instagram can give you amazing access too of course; it’s brought us lots of good things. I’ve met amazing clients that way: one invited us to do a trunk show at her home in America and it was fantastic. We made money with that.

People expect clarity of vision from a designer; a lot of people come to fashion for reassurance. Sometimes people just don’t know what they want so the role of the designer is to say, ‘This is what’s good for you.’ But I’m a very intuitive designer, I don’t always know why I do what I do so when people rush up to me after the show to get my references, I don’t always know what to say. I don’t work with grand concepts, I’m interested in cutting, sewing, draping, structure and silhouette. I’m a dressmaker. I’m inspired by gestures and movement. The way a woman zips up the back of her dress, the way she rides a bicycle, or talks, or smokes. It takes time for me to digest and conceptualise what I’ve done. But as a designer you get that one moment – the show – which is over in fifteen minutes, and then you have another ten minutes to explain yourself to journalists afterwards. The idea of success in fashion today doesn’t always allow for someone like me: I doubt a lot, I’m not always sure. It’s normal; I think most people are like that. But the system isn’t set up to integrate it.

Why am I here? That’s such an important question. It helps us clarify why we do what we do. I remember this summer, I was on a bridge in Paris with Extinction Rebellion and the police were gassing us and I was scared. I thought to myself: I’m a fashion designer, why am I here? And sometimes when things are tough at Atlein I think I should’ve stayed working at some big fashion house, become the head of design somewhere, made a lot of money and been able to go on holidays. Why am I here? But no. The choices I’ve made for myself are the right ones. This is what I have to do. I can’t really explain it. But asking myself that question again and again helps me define who I am. Doubt is essential to creativity. It’s the point of creation, when all the possibilities open to you start to vibrate and you actively choose where to go, and what to make.

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj’s publisher and editor-in-chief, as well as a Research Fellow at London College of Fashion.

This is trip four out of the twelve markets I will go on this year. Twenty-seven flights. Outside the taxi, the air in Milan is thick and wet so we fold our sheaths of coats, scarves, and bags in order to make a graceful exit. Market is better known as Fashion Week. The online videos and Instagram stories overlook the commercial aspect of what resembles a parade of glamorous product sponsorships and celebrities. Independently of that fanfare (wherever it is) we do our jobs. We are the worker ants bringing the microscopic morsels of food back to the colony. Clothing Accountants. Buyers. We are, more specifically, buyers for a high volume e-commerce luxury retailer. Or actually, I am the buyer’s assistant. This means most things are said to me in this tone:

‘Don’t put my face in it.’

I lower the iPad. Before me my boss Aimee is staring at me intently, thrusting forward a hanger bearing a pair of chartreuse green track-pants with the words ‘Amour’ and ‘Boss’ embroidered in sequins across the knees. We have been taking notes and photos for three-and-a-half hours. The room is quartered by clothing racks, packed tightly by colour story, standing perpendicular to a wall of windows that overlook an overgrown field. It would be a less oppressive space if the walls were not black and the ceiling not so low. We are falling behind, especially because the salesperson we are working with has lost all motivation to help us. She is wearing a showroom uniform: a bottle green cardigan, tired white shirt and bouncy lavalliere bow around her neck. The deliberate sweetness of her uniform throws her bad mood into sharp relief. She keeps asking us if we want more coffee and running to the bathroom. She must not be on commission.

‘Is my face in it?’ Aimee asks. I look at the iPad, and see her scowl pop out just above the drawstring.

‘A little. Just the mouth,’ I reply.

‘That’s Look Five,’ she barks. ‘Write it down or we’ll forget… write it on the iPad.’

She’s at a loss for words and gesticulating. This is how we spend our days. Luxury clothing is sold in showrooms, to buyers coming from various stores, who sell it to customers. It’s a Russian nesting doll situation and it can be hard to tell who should be pandering to whom, though, somehow, I always end up feeling it should be me. This salesperson surely agrees since she is correcting all my colour names as I read the descriptions back to Aimee. It’s not bright blue, it’s ‘Turbo.’ It’s not pink, it’s ‘Arousal.’ Arousal is iconic, and they would prefer if we used that expression. Massimo would really prefer that. She gets flustered and runs off.

‘That girl has no sense of urgency,’ Aimee says disapprovingly.

The salesperson re-approaches, grinning widely, dangling a T-shirt with a phallic motif on it. Now we are excited.

‘That’s free money!’ is Aimee’s favourite expression, and she uses it here. It means something we can go deep and wide into. ‘Deep’ means we will buy a lot in quantity, and ‘wide’ means we will buy a lot of colours. For a long time we consider colours for the phallus, and which direction it should point. (Sideways is chic, up or down is crass.)

‘Can we have an exclusive colour?’ I ask. Aimee is pleased, and she gives me a praising look. The salesperson says we have to ask Massimo, but probably the minimum order would be quite deep and they would expect a marketing push from our end. Aimee reminds her that last time we received an ‘exclusive’ it turned up on Farfetch in several different stores, so we would rather they did the marketing push themselves this time. We talk about background colours, while I pull up our most recent sales report by colour. As with the last twenty exclusives, we choose bright pink. It is, after all, what the colour report says we should do. Recent research showed that most orders placed on our site were sent to large, new condo developments in rural areas in the U.S. We think of our customer as an urban creative: an architect or graphic designer for an up-and-coming firm in London or New York. The shared aspiration seems to be beneficial for both us and our real customer: the wealthy suburbanite.

The salesperson steps away to make a phone call and Aimee tells me that this brand is shit. She can’t wait to get out of here and on to the next appointment. She rolls her eyes. I have a flash memory of reading somewhere that brands were supposed to be ‘spaces for dreams.’

We make small-talk with the vendor’s manager, whose Airbnb host is refusing to deliver more toilet paper. Aimee makes sure to hit all the important points: budget, delivery windows, order deadline. She goes to the bathroom and I let the manager know we will not be meeting the deadline. She comes back from the bathroom much more energetic and they use hot words with one another while I finish typing maniacally. Hot words are indoctrinated during branding meetings and they indicate you belong here. We use them much like a mating-call. So Aimee makes sure to say ‘Disrupt,’ ‘SEO’ and ‘We really aren’t calling it a store, it’s more of a creation space’ to the manager, to which she replies, ‘Sustainable’ ‘Emotional pieces’ and ‘Our girl is really growing up with this collection, she’s just becoming so much more sophisticated (not old) and we want to really be responsive to that,’ and then we leave.

In the Uber Aimee texts our manager excitedly about all the free money.

I wanted to be a buyer because it sounded powerful: it indicated both ownership and curation. In reality most of my time is spent retyping product descriptions (‘yellow perfecto in stretch sugared lambskin with tonal top-stitching’) and lending a vague opinion about chic dick colours, carefully avoiding any strong statements. Instead of power what I have is ‘accountability.’ Accountability for the personal taste of strangers. Aimee would say it is the reverse: we only buy what the customer wants, so they are the accountable ones. I suppose we are co-conspirators. Aimee looks up from her phone, seemingly stunned.

‘Do you remember the tiny woman who was stealing everything off our rack at Wang?

With the short hair and the velvet pants? French?’

‘Yes.’

‘She died! She collapsed and died after a showroom appointment! In the bathroom!’

‘No she didn’t…’

I know this will weigh heavily on Aimee, who is a kind soul despite it all. The rumour lingers briefly for me, and I return to my thoughts. I’m thinking about the sleep I will have in a few hours. The other assistant researched that you can get a full REM cycle in ninety minutes and then handed me a large Dexedrine for when I wake up. According to him it’s what they do in the military, although that seems far-fetched.

‘We need to bid higher on Acne Studios on Google AdWords. When I searched it this morning we were the second option after Net-a-Porter.’ I blurt out, having suddenly remembered.

‘So e-mail Paul – he can place a larger bid when he gets into the office.’ Paul’s official title is ‘SEO (‘Search Engine Optimization’) Scrum-master.’ It’s a rugby analogy, meaning he is the organizer of our on-going battle for online presence. I send him a curt e-mail, resentful that I had to call it out.

As we approach the snake-encrusted door to our next appointment at Gucci, Aimee pulls me aside. A gaggle of other buyers who are changing from sneakers to heels with their hands on the brick wall are watching us.

‘I want to talk to you about the last Gucci appointment we had. I was really surprised that you undermined my selection to Sara when she asked you.’ I am caught off-guard by the public shaming and start babbling apologies. Aimee stares at her phone and says we’re late, we have to go in. I am still blushing when the girl from the front desk greets us and sits us at our table in the enormous velvet-upholstered red room. Even the walls and carpet are red velvet: it’s like being inside of an organ. I remember that we will likely be here for nine hours and feel nauseous. There are no windows, just dozens of racks of sparkly and lacey clothing lining the walls in schizophrenic colour stories. Aimee is trying to hand a cough-drop to a passing teenage fit model wearing a green lace full-length gown with an ivory bodice. The fit model, likely an Eastern European, refuses politely. Aimee says we have to make sure that we don’t see any clothes on that girl, since everything will look good on her, and it will throw us off.

While we wait for a salesperson, I pull out the iPad and we go over the analysis on a PDF sent by the merchandisers. What colours and silhouettes do we need?  She counts how many colours and fabrics we need to buy in the Dionysus bag, and notes with relief that price-point is not a determining factor in the bags department. However, we need to stop selecting so many colours of the Kangaroo-lined Princetown loafer. That silhouette is slowing down across the board.

Besides this glorified shopping list, we prepare by asking ourselves what the brand is going to accuse us of. Aimee asks me to pull up the report on off-brand styling to see if we are guilty with Gucci. (It is my favourite report as it compiles our worst online looks into a kind of photo blooper reel, with commentary from our manager to the stylists such as ‘STOP STYLING DRIES TROUSERS WITH LOUBOUTIN HEELS,’ ‘VETEMENTS SWEATSHIRTS ARE NOT DRESSES,’ ‘WHERE ARE HER PANTS?!’)

‘Wait no, I saw that this morning – show me the relevancy figures so I have them fresh in my mind.’ She gasps at the figure: only twelve percent above average likes on our Instagram for this season. Gucci has dropped several points within the brand relevancy matrix since I checked yesterday.

‘Ugh. Does that mean it’s going to become another markdown brand soon?’ Aimee asks herself. ‘I can’t deal with another one.’ We don’t control the Instagram. We recently hired an underground magazine from Copenhagen to run the social media content and make it look like we know things about music and culture. I heard they don’t print the magazine anymore, and instead work as a content factory for several brands. I liked the last presentation the editor gave when he said that our focus was now going to be on the daily life of the ‘Cool Everyman,’ giving up the polished ‘unnatural’ editorials of the past. We will, of course, continue to style the models in luxury clothing, only now they will be doing what is ‘natural’ to them: skate-boarding and participating in art installations in Miami.

I am hit with a wave of exhaustion as I stare at the massive wall of meticulously organized Dionysus bags. In the corner of my eye I can see our salesperson, Amanda, coming towards us with aggressive friendliness. My heart is palpitating off-rhythm again. How do we pull off these racks and shelves the two hundred styles that will appeal to the maximum number of affluent people for the maximum number of reasons?

How deep can we go into this collective space for dreams?   

Later, back at the hotel after an awkward and rushed dinner with a supplier, I take out the bottle of German energy drink I have stashed in the mini-bar. Everything still has a green fog over it, which is what happens when your eyes adjust to bright red for ten hours. After weighing entering orders against my ninety minutes of sleep, I decide to delay gratification and return to my laptop. Aimee is texting me from her room asking what orders are ready for her to review, and telling me that I should prioritize Versace. The order entry begins.

‘Large Black Prometheus Backpack in Varnished Goatskin.’ Style code. Colour code.

‘Medusa Head Necklace in Plated Stainless Steel.’ Style code. Colour code. ‘Medusa ring.’ ‘Medusa Bracelet.’ What is it with Italian brands and Greek mythology? My head crashes into my keyboard while typing up the list of Versace Medusa jewellery. I get up and pour the viscous yellow liquid into a plastic cup to continue my night of describing. Tomorrow, the order will get quantified. The next day it will get approved by the merchandisers. The day after it will get approved by the editors, who may suggest to add a runway piece. Then it will get sent to the brand who will ensure that we represented them well. Finally, the product will get made somewhere very far from where we go on market, and our customer will like it on Instagram having seen it on the Cool Everyman, and will buy it on sale at the end of the season.

As I get the kick from the Club-Mate, I remember reading about a parasite that moves through a remarkable number of hosts: a worm, a blade of grass, a bird, a cat, and its final host is a human person, transmitted while they pet their cat. The writer was impressed by the parasite’s amazing purposeful journey, in spite of having no consciousness. I’m still thinking about the parasite when Aimee texts me again to ask if the order is ready yet.

Lily Smith is the pen name of an assistant buyer based in New York. She has worked in the lower echelons of mass luxury retail for seven years.

THERE IS A TENDENCY, across fashion exhibitions and publishing, to portray the fashion designer as a creative genius. The ‘Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty’ exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 2015, for example, emphasised its demonstration of ‘the extraordinary talent of one of the most innovative designers of recent times.’¹ Such a depiction positions the designer outside the realities of the fashion system, as a uniquely autonomous figure of otherworldly measure: as god, or king. While this mode of representation may be customary, even habitual, it is deeply misrepresentative of the designer, and the contemporary fashion system in which their work resides.

Curators of the 2014 Dries Van Noten exhibition ‘Inspirations,’ held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, asserted that the show would reveal the creative fashion design process by way of an exploration of Van Noten’s many individual inspirations – the garments were accompanied by images, sculptures, fabrics, music and found objects that spoke of Van Noten’s inspiration gathering. In both this exhibition and its second iteration, at Antwerp’s Mode Museum in 2015, visitors were invited to partake in ‘an intimate journey into [Van Noten’s] artistic universe [which would reveal] the singularity of his creative process.’² Reviewing the exhibition for Vogue, Hamish Bowles wrote that the show was a ‘magical tour to unwrap the mysteries of Dries’ passion, process, creativity, and singular talent.’³ Thus, this exhibition, like ‘Savage Beauty,’ constructed a deep sense of worship to the creative talent of the individual fashion designer. This curatorial approach, beginning, fashion historian Valerie Steele suggests, with the seminal 1992 exhibition devoted to the talent of Gianni Versace at the Design Laboratory at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, has become ‘the most immediately accessible and popular type of fashion exhibition.’⁴

Recent publications, such as Dana Thomas’ 2015 book Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano and Andrew Wilson’s 2015 biography Alexander McQueen: The Blood Beneath the Skin, have sought to reveal a more personal, human side of the fashion designer and debunk this status as otherworldly creative genius. However, such texts are regularly met with critical response. In reaction to Thomas’ publication, fashion reporter Alexander Fury wrote for the Independent that it was a mere ‘exercise in muck-racking.’⁵ Sarah Mower also declared in The Guardian that it was ‘calculated to fire hatred.’⁶ And Cathy Horyn claimed in The New York Times that Thomas presented ‘her subjects one-dimensionally, as a kind of British double act of talent destroyed.’⁷ This criticism was in large part, according to Horyn, due to its lack of recognition of the subjects as ‘special cases, as true artists.’ If Thomas’ text trivialised the talent of these two designers, Wilson’s text made far more of McQueen’s extraordinary talent. However, Wilson also exposed a childhood of abuse that McQueen was careful to conceal, the result of which, Mower wrote, being the sense of ‘raw wounds ripped open.’ What is true of both publications is that they similarly employ the romantic notion of fashion designer as sole creative genius as their point of departure for exploring the lives of their subjects. The construction, in these texts as in exhibitions, of the designer as creative celebrity relies upon the myth of solitary design genius in order to garner audience curiosity.

Media coverage of fashion designers therefore presents two paradoxical figures: on the one hand, that of the designer as genius, and on the other, the designer as flawed human figure. This tension evident in both fashion biography and in the numerous exhibitions of recent years, is a point of much contention. Of course, the notion of ‘creative genius’ is not solely reserved for fashion designers. All manner of creative individuals have long been elevated to genius status by authors, curators and marketing managers as a story-telling and audience-gathering technique. What is interesting about this notion of fashion designer (or artist, or musician) as genius – as god or king – is the way in which it is promoted for commercial ends, in not only in the publishing industry but also in the museum and art gallery setting. Fashion continues to hold a somewhat precarious position in the gallery space, and in relation to art, and by presenting designers in this way, fashion seeks the status of high art to legitimise itself in the sanctified realm of the museum. As such, the genius mantle is used as both justification and vindication.

This genre of fashion exhibition, in evidence not only in ‘Inspirations’ and ‘Savage Beauty,’ but in other recent shows including ‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion’ at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute in 2014, ‘Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love’ at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2014 and ‘RED Comme des Garçons: innovation, provocation’ at London’s Live Archives in 2015, is a lucrative template for major galleries, attracting record-breaking punters and delivering substantial financial return. This return is not only directed to the institutions by way of audience numbers, but also towards the design houses involved. However, as fashion journalist Suzy Menkes points out, despite great economic return, ‘almost no fashion exhibition could take place without some external investment.’⁸ This investment, Menkes continues, frequently comes by way of brand sponsorship. Arts journalist Ellen Gamerman suggests that ‘for luxury companies, museum exhibits are becoming an important new tool in their marketing arsenals.’⁹ Thus, art institutions exhibiting fashion regularly become caught between the ethics of commercial and creative imperatives, as well as the demands of designers in terms of exhibition content, structure and promotion. These ethical conundrums undoubtedly effect the tone of the final exhibition, often rendering it more a press gesture than a critically curated exhibition of the designer’s work.

While the production of an exhibition that touts the fashion designer as individual artistic genius may be of great economic benefit to the institution putting on the show, or to the author selling the book, it unfortunately also perpetuates a disconnect from fashion designers that, as Steele notes, indicates ‘a profound misunderstanding of the fashion process.’¹⁰ The fashion designer does not stand outside of the fashion system as a lone ranger. Rather, the designer is but one participant in the vast network of social relations that make up the fashion process. Fashion theorist Yuniya Kawamura suggests that to focus on the individual designer as unique creator ‘writes out of the account the numerous other people involved in the production of any work, and also draws attention away from the various socially constituting and determining processes involved.’¹¹ Indeed, the construction of the myth of the fashion designer as genius offers little in terms of a reflection of the workings of the contemporary fashion system, particularly in the context of today’s industry constantly in flux, with fashion designers ever more pliable to the whims and desires of conglomerate brand directors.

Deconstructing the myth of the fashion designer as a solitary creative genius need not belittle a designer’s extraordinary talent and vision. Rather, in recognising the role of the fashion designer within the multifaceted fashion system it is possible to acknowledge this talent without resorting to the extremes of either worship or ‘muck-racking.’

Harriette Richards is Melbourne-based Kiwi currently undertaking a PhD in cultural studies at Western Sydney University.

Silvie Deutsch is an American artist, all images shown here are from her 2010 series ‘Seam Drawings.’

1. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-alexander-mcqueen-savage-beauty/ ↩

2. http://www.momu.be/en/tentoonstelling/dries-van-noten.html ↩

3. http://www.vogue.com/866584/dries-van-noten-inspirations-exhibition/ ↩

4. V Steele, ‘Museum Quality: The Rise of the Fashion Exhibition,’ in Fashion Theory, 2008, 12:1, p.15. ↩

5. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/gods-and-kings-by-dana-thomas-book-review-exposing-the-seams-cruelly-10011203.html ↩

6. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/22/gods-and-kings-alexander-mcqueen-john-galliano-dana-thomas-beneath-the-skin-andrew-wilson-brutal-bio ↩

7. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/books/review/gods-and-kings-by-dana-thomas.html?_r=0 ↩

8. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/fashion/is-fashion-really-museum-art.html?_r=0 ↩

9. http://www.wsj.com/articles/are-museums-selling-out-1402617631 ↩

10. V Steele, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988, p.9. ↩

11. Y Kawamura, Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies, Berg, New York, 2005. ↩