RAGCITY
a regionalized fashion discovery platform.
Marko Tandefelt
Sabine Seymour
Writing and ResearchLoretta Joelle Wolozin
Edward C. Jefferson
RAGCITY, a platform to discover and connect with contemporary local fashion designers around the world, catalogs fashion designers into the fashion scene they are a part of and exposes their collections to the world. It provides a space for designers to promote themselves and connect with other designers in the highly commercialized fashion industry. RAGCITY celebrates local culture, values, and ideals through fashion design, establishes a network solely for the local brands of the world, and transmits the commercial facet of the fashion industry to local designers.
In recent years, globalization has catalyzed the growth of the fashion industry by increasing commonalities in consumer behavior across countries. It has removed virtually all barriers to the discovery of commercial fashion brands by enabling international marketing campaigns only the affluent could take part in. Those powerful brands are often owned by larger companies that hold billions in equity and leverage their brands in order to transcend local domestic markets, and make it on the global scale. Their starting point, however, is almost always in one of the traditional ‘Big Four’ fashion capitals of the world: Paris, London, Milan and New York. Many cities have started to undergo major reforms in that discipline by launching smaller fashion weeks in different parts of the world, giving local designers a chance to show their wares to global buyers. Local developments are particularly important since new fashion centers typically find it impossible to sustain international attention. With the rapid democratization of the fashion industry through modern technology comes a brand new way for designers to get exposure and recognition on a global scale. As fashion designers around the world surge and more attention is placed on local fashion scenes than ever, a need to collocate them starts to emerge.