Paris Capitale de la Mode: Representing Fashion in the Media

Paris has long been established as a dominant player in the field of fashion. Yet one of its most important institutions, the fashion press, has been given little attention, which reflects the wider neglect of the fashion media in academic studies. Moreover, a central object of discourse of the fashion media is the city, with many images and words devoted to key locations such as Paris. However, while the cities of literature and the visual arts have been a popular topic of enquiry, scholars have failed to approach the cities of the fashion press. They have thus neglected a rich platform for an interrogation of a theme central to the literature on fashion: fashion and the metropolis.

This paper attends to these gaps. Based on an original analysis of the French fashion press since the 1980s, it analyses the discursive production of the French capital to comment on the way such media have contributed to the reproduction of the Paris myth.

The paper brings together four significant areas of research in cultural theory: fashion, the city, the contemporary media and French culture. It illuminates both the role of the fashion press in the construction of the city, and the way fashion and urban life are connected in such media. It contributes not only to knowledge on the theme of fashion and urban life but also adds to studies of Paris fashion and French culture.

An early version of the paper was presented at the Fashion’s World Cities conference (LCF, 2005, Shopping Routes project), and another at the ‘Paraître et Apparences en Europe occidentale du Moyen Age à nos jours’ conference (Lille, 2006). It will appear in French in Paresys (éd.), Paraître et Apparences en Europe occidentale du Moyen Age à nos jours, Presses universitaires du Septentrion (November 2007).