Global Networks 8, 3 (2008) 261–280. ISSN 1470–2266. © 2008 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd & Global Networks Partnership 261 Shifting global supply networks and fast fashion: made in Turkey for Marks & Spencer NEBAHAT TOKATLI, * NEIL WRIGLEY † AND ÖMÜR KIZILGÜN ‡ * Milano Graduate School, New School University, New York, NY 10011, USA tokatlin@newschool.edu †School of Geography, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK n.wrigley@soton.ac.uk ‡ Portakal Çiçeği Sokak, 10/2, 06540, Aşağı Ayrancı, Ankara, Turkey omur.kizilgun@gmail.com Abstract In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was noted that retailers in Britain had started providing increased variety and fashionability to their customers, had added mid-season purchasing to their previous two-season calendars, and that a high fashion and low price ‘throwaway market’ had appeared on the retail scene. Since then mid-season purchasing has evolved into purchasing throughout the year; and the ‘throwaway market’ (now called fast fashion) has become almost the norm. Here we revisit one of those British retailers (Marks & Spencer) together with its Turkish suppliers and observe a trend towards the diffusion of design capabilities to suppliers that is more widespread than is suggested in the literature. We also consider the question of how most appropriately to conceptualize the nature of these retailer– supplier relations in today’s circumstances. We especially look into the manner in which these relations are reflected in price negotiations, the eventual distribution of the value-added, and the nature of everyday interactions such as accreditation and reclamation practices. We conclude that even though Turkish suppliers seem to be successfully upgrading into design – a high value-added activity – the question of whether or not this development has entailed a renegotiation of power between retailer and supplier remains a complicated one. Keywords CLOTHING RETAILERS, CLOTHING MANUFACTURERS, GLOBAL SOURCING, RETAILER-SUPPLIER RELATIONS, POWER RELATIONS, DESIGN, MARKS & SPENCER, TURKEY In the late 1980s, as clothing retailers changed their strategy towards increased variety and fashionability, a potentially favourable opportunity for a more balanced relationship between powerful retailers and their relatively powerless manufacturing