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Swedish Innovations and High Street Fashion: Past, Present and Future

H&M London Store CREDIT H&M Historical Archives at Centre for Business History in Stockholm

Our second public conference took place at the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Stockholm, on the afternoon of 27 March 2014. The event was organised in collaboration with the Centre for Business History in Stockholm, Sweden.

The event featured talks from fashion business professionals, academics in the fields of business history and archivists, and considered aspects of the fashion industry during the latter half of the twentieth century.

The conference addressed questions such as:

  • How has the fashion industry, particularly fashion retailing, evolved in the past century?
  • How can it be understood historically?
  • What can we expect from the future?

Moderated by Ingrid Giertz Mårtenson, the event included the following speakers:

Regina Lee Blaszcyzyk, School of History, University of Leeds, History on the High Street

Ulrika Berglund, Stockholm University and Carina Gråbacke, Gothenburg University, Swedish fashion industry in the 20th Century

Jakob Östberg, School of Business, Stockholm University, A consumer culture perspective on fashion as taste regimes

Lena Patriksson Keller, founder of Patriksson Communications and Chairman of ASFB, the Association of Swedish Fashion Brands, The Shift in Fashion Communication

Alexander Husebye, CEO, Centre for Business History Stockholm, Why History Marketing

Jörgen Andersson, Global Marketing Director at the Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo (and 25 years in H&M), 'It's not what you do but how you do it'

This free conference was attended by a wide range of people with an interest in the business history of fashion, including business, fashion and history academics, students, curators, archivists, fashion designers, and wider audiences.