Fashion Capitals
Fashion capitals are cities where dressing is civic duty and shopping is architecture, calendar and sport at once. Come for the flagship streets, stay for the way the whole city walks.
A fashion capital is a city where clothes are manufactured, traded and decided — not merely worn well.
The supply chain is local. Milan sits an hour from Biella's wool, Como's silk and Vicenza's gold, and the shows exist because the factories do. Düsseldorf hosts the trade fairs that supply most of German retail, which is a less glamorous and more accurate description of a fashion capital than a shopping street.
The calendar is the year. Fashion weeks, trade fairs and delivery windows determine hotel prices and restaurant tables far more than tourism does, and the portraits give the dates.
The street is evidence. These cities are worth visiting for what ordinary people wear on a Tuesday, which is the only honest measure of whether the reputation is current.
Not the same as expensive shops. Any city can have the same twenty boutiques. This type is for places that decide what the boutiques will sell.
Go during a trade fair, or deliberately not.