Dr Alison Goodrum
Alison studied for her PhD on fashion and national identity in the Geography
and Environmental Management Research Unit at the University of Gloucestershire,
England. Her research comprised an ethnographic study of the British fashion
industry, based on her fieldwork as an employee at several high profile British
fashion organisations. Some of this research is published in texts by Berg and
Routledge. Alison is currently employed as a postdoctoral research fellow on
the University of Auckland's Fashion Project. She is also Vice President of
the Costume and Textile Section of the Auckland Museum Institute.
Taking on the Material World: The Globalisation of New Zealand Designer Fashion
This paper examines the globalisation of New Zealand designer fashion. It does this via a discussion of the increased (and increasing) global profile and international reputation of New Zealand fashion designers. In particular, this paper unpacks the professional career stories and personal life histories of individual New Zealand designers who have achieved, and are achieving, global recognition as the vanguard to a burgeoning national industry. In so doing, the paper informs understandings of the changing state and character of contemporary commercial markets and the producers and consumers who inhabit them. For the unprecedented success of New Zealand designer fashion signals a new development in the shape, form and politics of global business and global business citizenry - of what it is, and requires, to exist, 'make it' and compete on the global fashion stage. Through its emphasis on the relationship between the professional and personal, the paper examines informal networking and friendship ties. It explores critically the emerging claim that globally extensive fashion business is governed less by purely economic rationales and more by culturally nuanced, and place specific, lores of friendship, emotion and chance - of being deeply intuitive, locally informed and 'in the right place at the right time'.
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