A 'Uniform Dress Code' or Cultural Variety in the Global Fashion Industry?

The "fashion industry" can be named as one of the creative industries instituting the creative economy. In this quality, it features many important defining characteristics of the traditional sectors of the cultural industries, which formed the core of the dispute underlying the "culture and trade debate", which – in legal terms – has been translated into an opposition between the laws of the WTO and UNESCO respectively. The present chapter looks at the fashion industry as a practical example for what cultural variety may mean in the practice of international trade with a view of paving the way for a new understanding of the relationship between culture and trade