High Fashion Capital

The field of fashion is fast-paced and in constant fluctuation, with fashion intermediaries competing with each other to legitimate value to the products we, as consumers, eventually wear. However, who are the fashion intermediaries, and how are they created? According to Pierre Bourdieu (1993), like any other cultural field, the fashion field is built with hierarchical orders depending on the amount of symbolic capital. However, due to its high pace and ever- changing nature, the field of fashion operates differently than other cultural fields, which asks for a different, revised version of Bourdieu’s field theory (1993) and the concept of capital (1989) in the context of fashion. Using field observations at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, I will demonstrate how fashion capital is formed, acquired and mobilized in the context of higher fashion education. Fashion education is chosen for this research as this is where young individuals are prepared to become the next generation of intermediaries within the field of fashion. This research will lead you through Bourdieu’s theory and concepts and my argumentation on why they ask for a new take to fit the current fashion industry and field. Furthermore, new definitions of embodied, objectified, and institutionalized capital will be formulated and operationalized. Finally, I will present how I used this newly defined concept to measure and observe how fashion capital is formed, acquired and mobilized in higher fashion education and how new intermediaries are prepared to enter the professional field of fashion.