Sustainable Development in Urban Artisanal Luxury Fashion Networks

Abstract

The United Nations’ (UN) sustainable goals for consumption and production advance the idea of decoupling economic growth from resource use and environmental deterioration by elevating resource efficiencies and simultaneously improving citizens’ well-being. This means that human enterprise and public policies need to create conducive conditions for the enhancement of social and physical infrastructure together with a transformation of business practices in production and consumption networks. Another UN concept, the creative economy has assumed global dimensions as it fosters creativity and innovation which can lead to more up-to-date business models. Networks of production and consumption in regenerated areas within cities become prominent for inclusive growth and sustainable development. In this chapter, we attempt to explore the emergence of an alternative notion to luxury, away from the ubiquitous luxury conglomerates and their dominant luxury brands. This new concept is termed urban artisanal luxury, where fashion designers and crafters operate in a close-knit city network, and produce and sell their products in atmospheric retail environments. An urban artisanal luxury network may lead local progressive micro-fashion businesses toward craft design and production, which can form a set of alternative competitive strategies. This is derived from the original notion of luxury that the crafters co-design with the individual customer. This chapter attempts to understand how progressive fashion designers of micro-businesses manage to remain viable in an urban creative network and contribute to the betterment of the local economy. The theoretical framework includes the resource-based view of the firm, the relational view, production networks, urbanization economies, and creative place-making. Research methodology follows the interpretivist theory integral to the qualitative research tradition. Inferences, including a conceptual framework from two case studies conducted in Taiwan, would seem to indicate that urban artisanal networks represent a small but significant current which lends support to sustainable development and improvement of the city’s quality of life.