Fabrix and CRAFT-IT4SD are organizing the Special Session “SS46. Fashion economies in transition: Urban and place-based dynamics” at the 2026 Annual Conference of the Regional Studies Association in Gothenburg!
Fashion and textile industries have long been deeply embedded in urban economies. Historically, cities have functioned as key sites of garment production, labour organisation, and industrial clustering, while also hosting fashion shows, trade fairs, retail districts, and creative scenes that shape consumption, branding, and symbolic value (Lavanga, 2020; Wubs et al., 2020). From manufacturing districts to luxury quarters and fast-fashion logistics hubs, the relationship between fashion and cities has been both economically significant and spatially distinctive (Casadei et al., 2020).
At the same time, the fashion sector is undergoing rapid and profound transformations. Digital technologies, platform-based retailing, and influencer economies have reconfigured production networks, cultural intermediation, and consumption practices, exemplified by the rise of ultra-fast fashion firms (Brydges et al., 2018; Kim et al., 2024). In parallel, mounting sustainability pressures, regulatory interventions, and social movements are challenging established business models and prompting experimentation with circularity, and a variety of alternative forms of production, distribution, and consumption (Buchel et al., 2022; Kim, 2024; Lavanga, 2019; Murzyn-Kupisz, 2025; Pugh et al., 2024). For example, circular consumption practices characterized by personalization, such as swap shops or repair and reuse spaces, are now being revalorized through infrastructures that supports initiatives once considered marginalized (Crewe and Beaverstock,1998; Henninger et al., 2019; Bahers and Rutherford, 2025).
Despite the strong interconnections between fashion and urban development, the spatial and urban dimensions of these sectoral transitions remain underexplored. How do fashion-related activities re-organise within cities under conditions of digitalisation and sustainability transitions? In what ways do urban contexts enable, constrain, or shape experimentation and transformation in the fashion and textile industries? Conversely, how do changing fashion economies reshape urban spaces, labour markets, and socio-spatial inequalities?