Space, place and knowledge: the case of temporary showrooms at Paris Fashion Week

This article discusses the role of space and place in the production and dissemination of fashion knowledge. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography carried out at Paris Fashion Week events in 2017–2018 and in-depth interviews with thirteen wholesale fashion agents, it presents fashion knowledge as at once ‘sticky’ [Bathelt, Harald, Anders Malmberg, and Peter Maskell. 2004. “Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation.” Progress in Human Geography 28 (1): 31–56] and place-bound, while also global and free-flowing. This study analyses the relationship between fashion knowledge, geographic locations – such as the Marais neighborhood in Paris – and interior spaces – such as seasonal showrooms. Ultimately, it argues that spatial literacies are among the key forms of knowledge deployed by fashion wholesale professionals in their work: firstly, they need an intimate familiarity with the ever-shifting geographies of Paris fashion clusters; secondly, they must possess an aesthetic skill set that can enable them to quickly assemble particular atmospheres in temporary locations. Finally, by analysing the heterotopic [Foucault, Michel. 1984. Des Espaces Autres. Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, 5: 46–49], neither-public-nor-private nature of fashion showrooms, this study considers how fashion week events exclude local residents, thus rearticulating the symbolic boundaries around the field of fashion.