Chapter 8: The Economics of Exclusion: Why Inclusion Doesn't Fit Fashion's Business Model

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of

Inclusion has become a major topic of discussion for the fashion industry, moving from the margins into the mainstream over the last decade as fashion brands and publications were caught in gaffs by a digitally connected public in a time of swiftly changing cultural norms (Kent, 2019). What does inclusion mean for the fashion industry? The fashion industry is a $2.5 trillion USD global industry (The Economic Impact of the Fashion Industry, 2019), built upon exclusion (Kent, 2019). Since the birth of both the concept of fashion and the fashion industry, fashion has prioritised White, elite, Eurocentrism (Jansen, 2020; Lee, 2020). These identities have formed the basis of fashion’s most fundamental ingroup, with anyone outside of those identities marked as an outgroup. Those within fashion’s ingroup have the power to define who or what is in fashion and influence cultural preferences including beauty standards. This ingroup–outgroup dynamic is central to the very definition of fashion and has shaped the formation and guided the behaviours of the fashion industry over the last several centuries.