Book excerpt: The importance of fashion and design in an events context remains under-researched, despite their ubiquity and significance from a societal and economic perspective. Fashion-themed events, for example, appeal to broad audiences and may tour the globe. Staging these events might help to brand destinations, boost visitor numbers and trigger popular debates about the contributions that fashion and design can make to identity. They may also tell us something about our culture and wider society. This edited volume for the first time examines fashion and design events from a social perspective, including the meanings they bestow and their potential economic, cultural and personal impacts. It explores the reasons for their popularity and influence, and provides a critique of their growth in different markets. Events examined include fashion weeks, fashion or design themed exhibitions, historical re-enactments, extreme/alternative fashion and design events, and large-scale public events such as royal weddings and horse races. International examples and case studies are drawn from countries as diverse as the USA, UK, Germany, Bhutan, New Zealand and Australia. These are used to develop and critique various thematic concepts linked to fashion and design events, such as identity, gender, aspirations and self-image, commodification, authenticity, destination development and marketing, business strategy and protection/infringement of intellectual property. Fashion, Design and Events also provides a futurist view of these types of events and sets out a future research agenda. This book has a unique focus on events associated with fashion and design and features a swathe of disciplinary backgrounds. It will appeal to a broad academic audience, such as students of art and design, cultural studies, tourism, events studies, sociology and marketing.