The Cultural Identity of a Country as a Competitive Factor in Fashion Design: The Impact of Academic Education on the Construction of National Brands

This research is about cultural identity and fashion, study and understand if the symbolic character present in a culture has a functional dimension without losing its meaning. The question of identity, central to the construction of society, it seems not to concern the national fashion designers. The older generations of fashion designers are more interested in having some portuguese culture identity in their brands, such as traditional techniques or local iconography, than the youngest generation, the ones that started their brands on the second decade of this century, and have more school education, do not consider important to work or to include in their brands portuguese culture identity. The study is carried out with a mixed methodology, interventionist and non-interventionist. On one hand, it is developed a research based on bibliographical collection, on the other hand, in a second phase, the interventionist methodology is developed in a case study, specifically, the work of the designer Nuno Gama.