Modern fashion houses have no national borders. For example, an outfit that carries an Italian fashion label might have well been created in Milan, by a team of British, French, and American designers, and manufactured by contractors from countries in China, Korea, and Mexico.
Fashion entered a new era in the 1990s, as the world's buoyant high-tech industries broke the pattern for formal dress codes. Jeans, khakis, and knitwear replaced suits as the new corporate uniform. Seeking higher ground, the high fashion industry could no longer bank on dress-up clothes. Marketers thus found a new hook to captivate consumers: accessories like handbags, shoes, and watches, which could be plastered with showy designer logos and coordinated with casual clothes. Furthermore, accessories delivered higher profit margins than apparel, making them even more attractive to fashion marketers.
Industry experts agree the next frontier is the Internet, which takes globalization to new heights. With the click of a mouse from their laptop computers, the world's consumers can conveniently shop the shelves of Harrods in London, L.L. Bean in Maine, Neiman Marcus in Texas, as well as Ebay, the auction Web site that features fashion merchandise offered by millions of individuals from around the world.
More than anything, the Internet has exposed the world's consumers to an infinite range of choices at all price ranges. It is the ultimate example of globalization, built on the back of rapidly changing media, which has further democratized fashion, shrinking the world into a single, accessible marketplace.
