SKK Graduate School of Business, Korea, Republic of
The role of gatekeepers in reducing market uncertainty for both producers and customers is well established. Less is known about their role in talent retention and departure. Using data on all fashion houses and designers in the global high-end fashion industry (1969-2010) and Vogue, the most prominent gatekeeper in fashion, we theorize about the effect of its coverage on the retention and departure of designers, both employees and founders, to either conventional employment or new fashion house founding. We argue that Vogue coverage enables designers to learn about their own and their house’s market desirability and that employees are more sensitive to this information than founders are. Ultimately, we find that coverage of a fashion house has a retaining effect on employees, as does coverage that co-mentions an employee and their current fashion house, while coverage of an employee increases departure to founding.
