Luxury, Creativity and the UK Fashion Industry

Most of us are starting to understand why we shouldn't buy fakes but we don't really understand why we should or shouldn't buy luxury goods. We don't really know any more what makes a luxury item really luxurious. I have never bought a fake luxury item, but I don't own many luxury items I have a few Prada bags but nothing too extraordinary. This might be because I love new designers, I like vintage but not 70's, 60's more like 30's and 1900's. I don't want to write a book review for you as there are already so many good ones out there but I think it's worthwhile to read Dana Thomas' book Deluxe How luxury Lost its Lustre. This book got me thinking...Fashion is very intuitive, it's visual, tactile, it's fun and it's social, but it's also a business. In 2005, the UK clothing and footwear industry was worth £44.45 billion and employed more than 165,000 people - which doesn't seem like a lot when there are 60 million people in the UK.I'm trying to find stats that shows how many people work in every aspect of the fashion business in the UK from shop assistants, garment workers, designers to make up artist - anyone who makes a living from the fashion industry. There seems to be a lack of data on the fashion industry as a whole, it's broken down into sectors and it seems a bit dis jointed. I guess what I'm thinking about, is that fashion can be so many things - but it's still business and I've noticed that London fashionistas don't like the business of fashion. London is an epic centre of creativity, it breeds it - there is a unique style in every area of London. London style is that there is no one style; it's known & admired for it's creativity and but not for it's business - which I understand - but some how that means we don't know how important the fashion economy is to the UK and it's not appreciated. Last year when I was at Danish Fashion Week everyone was telling me the fashion was the 5th largest export and how proud people were of that. Even thought we have the British Fashion Council, there is no single organisation representing the whole industry, supporting its development and lobbying for policy support.I have no idea how much the fashion industry is worth in the UK but once I find out I'll let you know!