Local food initiatives and fashion change: comparing food and clothes to better understand fashion localism

As a movement, local food is well developed and its principles and practices widely appreciated. By contrast, the concepts and activity of fashion localism are far less understood. This essay looks to transfer local food experiences to the fashion context by reviewing a number of food-related initiatives and deliberating about ways in which the insights they contain may lead to smaller-scale and more diverse fashion practices. The article starts with a comparison of some of the similarities and differences between food and fashion and concludes with speculations about knowledge transfer about localism for both eating and dressing.