Ever since Brexit, fashion pages have beaten the same drum: collapse is nigh because fashion is global. In an earlier post (http://www.ethicsoffashion.com/fashion-and-nation/), I pointed out the very obvious point that this cannot quite be true: heritage brands trade on their nation all the time.
Happily, the well-known Suzy Menkes has made another obvious point: the blandness of internationalism. And this: without quite saying it, she hints that the globalism mantra is a case of crony capitalism because only the biggest, most established brands can in fact compete globally. The world over, most business is local, tied to nations. On both Left and Right, anger at business is provoked by cronyism and the global liberal elite who preach the status quo (from the Left, see this fine-grained criticism: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-supermanagerial-reich/#!).
Refreshingly, Menkes points to a number of designers firmly rooted in national traditions who nonetheless have developed collections that deftly weave in some internationalism (http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/suzy-manish-arora-rahul-mishra-jacquemus-atlein-global-and-local-the-fashion-conundrum?curator=FashionREDEF).
