Fashion’s diplomatic role: an instrument of French prestige-based commercial diplomacy, 1960s–1970s
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221123506 |
| Author | Vincent Dubé-Senécal |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221123506
International Relations
2024, Vol. 38(4) 567 –588
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178221123506
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Fashion’s diplomatic role:
an instrument of French
prestige-based commercial
diplomacy, 1960s–1970s
Vincent Dubé-Senécal
University of Oslo
Abstract
This article re-examines the aid-to-couture plans enacted by France at the end of the 1960s from
both historical and diplomatic perspectives. In so doing, it assesses the decision-making process
of French public authorities, couturiers and textile manufacturers by cross-referencing archives
from multi-stakeholder meetings with diplomatic archives. By building on the current literature
in Fashion Studies that stands at the confluence of cultural and business perspectives, this article
adds to it a diplomatic perspective to re-evaluate the role of fashion for diplomacy. It argues that
contrary to the traditional narrative on the role of fashion in favour of textile exports, haute
couture and fashion instead became a fixture of France’s post-war prestige-based commercial
diplomacy through a mix of nation branding avant la lettre and export branding.
Keywords
commercial diplomacy, fashion, France, haute couture, history, nation branding
Introduction
This article is an investigation into the role played by fashion in nation branding endeav-
ours. More specifically, the goal of this article is to study the case of France’s 1968–81
aid-to-couture plan from a historical perspective mobilising primary sources to under-
stand the political and diplomatic motivations behind state sponsorship of haute couture
promotional events. That is, what are the expectations – in terms of policy objectives – of
the French authorities regarding the influence of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s?
*Vincent Dubé-Senécal is now affiliated to Collège de Rosemont in Montréal (QC), Canada
Corresponding author:
Vincent Dubé-Senécal, University of Oslo, Niels Henrik Abels vei 36, Oslo 0313, Norway.
Email: vincent.dube-senecal@iakh.uio.no
1123506IRE0010.1177/00471178221123506International RelationsDubé-Senécal
research-article2022
Article
568 International Relations 38(4)
In so doing, this article connects the perspectives of diplomatic history, fashion studies
and nation branding to shed a new light on France’s post-war prestige-based commercial
diplomacy while contributing to integrating the role of fashion for diplomacy and, recip-
rocally, the perspective of diplomacy and nation branding to fashion studies.
The advent of ‘nation brand’ as a concept, first coined in 1996 by Simon Anholt, a
British policy advisor,1 has not only contributed to opening a new field of study and
practice but has had a significant influence on the field of public diplomacy. While the
distinction between traditional diplomacy and public diplomacy was largely consensual,
with the former encompassing formal relations between state representatives and the lat-
ter studying the relationship between ‘the government, the media and public opinion’,2
the ‘nation brand’ – and ‘nation branding’ – contributed to the discussion on what Jan
Melissen outlined as the ‘new public diplomacy’.3 In this regard, Nicholas J. Cull most
clearly distinguishes between the updated terminology associated with this ‘new public
diplomacy’ explaining that ‘the language of prestige and international image has given
way to talk of “soft power” and “branding”’.4 In turn, this merging of nation branding
and public diplomacy generated a debate on the nature of their relationship that has yet
to reach a consensus.5 As Gyorgy Szondi explains in detail in his 2008 paper for the
Dutch Clingendael Institute, the debate has not subsided with some arguing that nation
branding is a tool of public diplomacy, some affirming – to the contrary – that public
diplomacy is a tool of nation branding, and some contending that while both are related,
they refer to distinct enough realities as to make them separate concepts.6
However, beyond these debates on the operationalisation of nation/place branding,
the nation brand has started to be studied from a historical perspective in recent years.
That is, what Jessica Gienow-Hecht explains to be a ‘history of nation branding avant
la lettre’.7 In 2018, Gienow-Hecht co-directed Nation Branding in Modern History
(New York: Berghahn) with Carolin Viktorin, Annika Estner and Marcel K. Will. As
explained by Mads Mordhorst, while this collective volume used nation branding as an
analytical concept to look at its history avant la lettre it simultaneously recognised
nation branding as a ‘time- and context-specific concept’.8 It is here that Mordhorst – in
line with Gienow-Hecht’s work – highlights the fact that ‘the nation-building process
has been going on for centuries concomitantly with an integrated process of what we
today call brand building’.9
As such, nation branding avant la lettre constitutes the framework of this article,
which looks at the paradox that was the second aid-to-couture plan by the French govern-
ment from the end of the 1960s throughout the 1970s. There are three main reasons why
this article looks at this subsidy scheme within this framework. First, these two decades
see the parallel implementation of both a French and an Italian subsidy scheme aimed
towards high fashion, the French plan being implemented from 1968 to 1981 and the
Italian plan organised by the Centre for the Development of Clothing and Haute Couture
Exports (CITAM) being implemented from 1965 to the end of the 1970s.10 However, the
major difference between the French and Italian fashion systems at the time revolved
around the centralisation on Paris in France compared to the Italian decentralisation,
fashion regionalism remaining the norm until the mid-1960s with Milan and Rome shar-
ing the leadership of Italian fashion afterwards.11 In this article, the case of the Italian
subsidy scheme is briefly mobilised to look at its main differences and similarities when
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