An ethnographic study of glocal fashion communication in Hong Kong and Greater China

The rise of fashion businesses in mainland China and Hong Kong and the growth in their brands is attracting the attention of international fashion conglomerates. For this article recent case studies of socio-historical, economic and cultural influences in the Greater China region were revisited applying communication, media and cultural studies theories. Observation and interviews were conducted in an attempt to reveal the nuanced process of fashion communication in Hong Kong’s fashion industry. The primary research data were collected through participant observation at a Hong Kong fashion magazine in 2011 which involved interviews with sixteen senior Asia-Pacific fashion marketers. The interview responses demonstrate the complexity of the interplay with Asian socioeconomic and cultural factors, and confirm that fashion marketing in Hong Kong today involves the appropriation and creolization of cultural meanings through negotiation between global and regional/local fashion marketers. The Hong Kong-based regional fashion marketers now negotiate more often with the brands’ European or American headquarters about how to represent the brands as luxurious and stylish, but also about a more complex creolization of western and Chinese cultures while communicating fashion meanings. This unique ethnographic research provides original insight into the differing impact of globalization across Greater China.