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How Fashion Week Became an Economy of Attention

From social media and celebrity visibility to tourism and investor signals, Fashion Week creates an economic ripple effect that reaches far beyond the garments presented on the runway.

Every September, the fashion industry performs an economic ritual that can look irrational from the outside. Brands spend enormous sums on venues, sets, models, celebrities, production, public relations and hospitality—and then send a few dozen outfits down a runway. If the objective were simply to sell clothing, much of this would make little sense.

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But Fashion Week is no longer primarily about selling the clothes on the runway. It is about creating something harder to see on a balance sheet: attention that can be converted into future demand. A runway show can function simultaneously as a marketing campaign, cultural signal, investor communication, tourism catalyst and digital-content factory. The economic question is no longer simply, “How many garments will this show sell?” It is, “How much future economic value can this moment create?” The answer depends on something economists increasingly have to take seriously: intangible value.

Fashion’s most important assets are becoming intangible

Traditional retail economics is relatively straightforward. A company produces or purchases inventory, sells it to consumers and earns a margin. Fashion has always been more complicated because consumers do not buy clothing only for functional characteristics. They also buy identity, status, association and meaning. Research on luxury brands has long found that intangible attributes—including brand personality, heritage and perceived identity—can be central to brand equity. Digital technology has made this even more important.

A 2026 special issue of the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management describes fashion retail as moving toward an omnichannel model in which........

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