Abstract
Overconsumption of fashion is becoming unfashionable. The latest distinction is our responsible stance towards the ethic dimensions of fashion consumption. "Buy less, choose well, make it last".
These Vivienne Westwood famous words are the formula for new representations of fashion as emotionally durable and meaningful. How the conscious choice of the recycled clothes, preowned fashion, secondhand and vintage clothes can be the latest form of status seeking? What approaches are used to represent the "better fashion" as not only the better ethic choice, but first of all the better aesthetic choice? This paper explores discourses about sustainable and long-lasting fashion on social media.
The research starts with searching Instagram for publicly available content hashtagged with #sustainablefashion, #buylesschoosewellmakeitlast, #preownedfashion, #vintage, #secondhand and #betterfashion and choosing "aesthetic" and "inspirational" content for the analysis. As the illustrative examples of the aestheticization of "more sustainable" fashion, this paper has chosen the Instagram account of the digital fashion magazine Make it last (@wemakeitlast) and of its co-founder, influencer and stylist Emma Elwin (@emmaeelwin).
Using tools of multimodal critical discourse analysis (drawing on the work of Kress and van Leeuwen) the paper explores verbal and visual strategies of the aestheticization employing in these Instagram accounts. The paper analyses how particular semiotic choices signify "more sustainable" style as more aesthetically pleasing style.
Imperative "make it last" stands for a "good taste", personal style, ethical and aesthetical elitism. It represents the belief that when we make conscious choices and choose fewer clothes, we have intimate attitudes to clothes and the clothes truly represent who we are.
Verbal and visual modes of analysed Instagram accounts signify emotional attitudes to consciously chosen clothes, sincerity, comfort and confidence of the wearers. As this paper argues, to represent and promote "more sustainable" fashion as aesthetically valuable, fashion should be approached in the dimensions of feelings.
The paper introduces list of characteristics of verbal and visual representations of aesthetically valuable ethical fashion.