Marketing has been developed and revalued the last years. The consumer today is moreeducated and is therefore able to have higher demands. These requirements together with theincreased competition is forcing brands to find creative ways to reach their target market.Fashion has throughout history contributed to, and been influenced by, changes in society.Through all times, people have used fashion and clothing as a way to demonstrate their socialidentity and to be accepted. Companies in the fashion industry can be successful if theydevelop brands that attract consumers. To achieve this, companies must find newcommunication tools to reach out to the consumer, among these tools, we find the fashioneditorials.Our aim is to investigate whether product placement occurs in Swedish fashion editorials.Through our thesis we want to explore how consumers perceive the editorials and alsowhether if they are used as a marketing channel.The method is qualitative and the study is based on semi structured interviews and a focusgroup interview. To get several opinions of the problem area, the issue is discussed from twodifferent perspectives. According to the hermeneutical approach, with interpretation in focus,the empirical material has been analyzed alternately with theory. The theories have thereforebeen reviewed during the process.Our conclusion is that all respondents experience that product placement occurs in fashioneditorials. It is also clear that there are differences between the interview perspectives. Theoccurance of product placement in fashion editorials is percieved in different ways. The maindifference is that the fashion industry operatives can see the press offices as messengers forthe brand's image. The consumer, on the other hand, is completely unaware of their existence.Furthermore, readers believe that the content is selected by someone who is an interpreter inthe fashion area and therefore it is accepted. Readers can see the fashion editorials as a sourceof inspiration when shopping. The fashion brands that frequently appears in fashion editorialsbecome top-of-mind of the consumer/reader. Our results suggest that consumers actually areshopping garments from the brands that appear in editorials. Fashion editorials can thus bedescribed as an important part of a fashion company's marketing. Finally, we discuss thefuture of fashion magazines as internet and blogs are changing the conditions to attract theconsumer. / Program: Textilekonomutbildningen

Cette thèse examine l’image de mode éditoriale en contexte(s), au sein de la presse magazine américaine entre les années 1960 et les années 1980, à travers une étude de cas sur les publications mainstream Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar et un nouveau magazine, Interview. On postule que la production photographique de ces trois titres représente à la fois le cœur de leur activité et de ces objets matériels, en raison de leur positionnement, de leurs codes et de leurs objectifs. On étudiera comment, dans ce cœur et à travers ses « grandes » séries éditoriales, se dégage un certain rapport à l’image comme plateforme entre une production collaborative et des réceptions, ainsi qu’une fonction de négociation par rapport au contexte historique. A travers l’étude des conditions de production des images, puis à travers leur analyse, et enfin par l’examen de leurs circulations, on démontrera l’existence d’une norme mainstream manifestant un certain conservatisme. Puis nous nous interrogerons sur les négociations éventuelles avec cette norme, sans cesse contestée, changeante en surface mais tenace.Un examen attentif de l’ensemble des tensions et des compromis au fil des moments de flottement que sont les décennies 1960 à 1980 nous permettra d’aboutir, sur la période étudiée, au constat qu’il existe bien un système articulé autour d’un discours hégémonique très difficile à questionner tant il est puissant et, en fin de compte, fermé. Ainsi, de manière transversale à tout notre travail, il émergera que l’ensemble des images de mode éditoriales est varié, mais lissé par un discours des magazines construit sur le long terme. Pourtant, il offre aussi bien des modèles que des contre-modèles, des contre-discours et des contre-points qui tous se déploient dans un cadre strict et souple, fermement orienté et adaptable, même s’il comporte quelques possibilités de subversion, toujours exercées à la marge. On conclura, en définitive, à la puissance de ce système, normé quoique toujours à l’équilibre entre des tensions contradictoires, structuré autour d’un format très fort, se nourrissant et s’exprimant par l’image de mode qui reste son fleuron. / This doctoral thesis examines fashion editorials through a case study of three American magazines in context, from the 1960s to the 1980s: Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, two mainstream publications, and a new magazine then, Interview. It is postulated that the photographic editorial production of those magazines is central to them – as material objects, and as the core of their activity as well, both aspects enabling and unfolding their positions, their codes and their purposes. By looking at major editorial series, I explore how these images stand out as "contact zones" between a highly collaborative production process and their receptions, and how their function is also one of negotiation with regards to its context.A close analysis of the conditions of production, the content and the circulations of these images demonstrates that magazines express undeniable conservatism through the perpetuation of a mainstream norm. However, as this norm constantly changes on the surface, I argue that conditions regularly emerge for it to be negotiated. An attentive study of the tensions and compromises unfolding in the « uncertain moments » that characterize the period running from the 1960s through the 1980s demonstrates the existence of a powerful system. Structured around a coherent and hermetic narrative, it proves indeed hard to challenge. Yet, as this thesis argues, the ensemble of editorial fashion images homogenized by these long-term processes is in fact varied and diverse. If these images construct models, they also offer counter-models, counter-narratives and counter-points. All these possibilities converge into a strict but agile framework, firmly oriented by its producers but adaptable, even though its subversive potential is only realized at the margins.This system—structured around a powerful format—is highly restrictive yet it still performs a constant balancing act between conflicting tensions and goals, fueled by and unfolded in the fashion images at its core.