The Emperor's New Clothes: A Sociological Analysis of Fast Fashion's "Democratizing" Myth

1. Introduction

The Danish author Hans Christian Andersen never said, “imagine the emperor without his clothes!” Indeed, we wear clothes every day, we bring fashion everywhere. Fashion is long robes with extravagant cuts, heavy belts made of leather and gold, and ornate silken dresses colored in white (Figure 1). It is new designs generated every second, different outfits worn every day, and countless clothes purchased every week (Figure 2). It is organic fibers extracted from bamboo, dyes distilled from plants, and knitting done by 3D printers (Figure 3). These descriptions, although rarely associated with each other, epitomize the evolution of fashion over three distinct stages, namely haute couture, fast fashion, and sustainable fashion (Postrel, 2021).

Before fast fashion emerged in the 1990s, the dominating form of fashion was haute couture; exclusive, custom-fitted “high” fashion decorated elegantly and exorbitantly (Rosa 2013). The upper classes exploited it to distinguish themselves from the lower classes (Aspers and Godart, 2013). Fast fashion, on the contrary, refers to cheap “low” fashion relying on heavily exploited labor, rapidly changing styles, short-lived garment use, and recurring frequent consumption (Cline, 2013; Ertekin and Atik, 2015; Anguelov, 2021a). It attracts customers, often possessing varying economic power and diverse social status, with frequent novelty in the form of low-priced, trend-led replicas of the latest haute couture cuts, thereby enticing them into alarming levels of overconsumption (Plank and Staritz, 2016). As fashion brands and factories are "chasing the cheapest needle” while customers are disposing of clothes at an accelerated rate, fast fashion entails concerning, if not devastating, environmental and humanitarian repercussions, leading to the recent rise of sustainable fashion (BSR, 2012; Hobson, 2013), with ethical fashion shows hosted around the world (Guedes, 2011; Striet and Davies, 2013). Sustainable fashion — encompassing a variety of concepts including eco, green, organic, slow, ethical, sustainable, and fair-trade (Cervellon et al., 2010; Su et al., 2018; Anguelov, 2021b) — underscores and then attempts to solve perceived wrongs in the fast fashion model and beyond, wrongs including pollution, labor exploitation, and mistreatment of animals (Bray, 2009; Bianchi and Birtwistle, 2010; Blanchard, 2013).

As fashion evolved from haute couture into fast fashion, its original circumscription of users expanded into the lower classes, resulting in an apparent democratization of fashion (Rosa 2013). As the fast fashion industry has thrived, however, its grievous consequences have surfaced, including excessive water use (Weinzettel & Pfister, 2019; Mogavero, 2020), water and air pollution (ILO, 1996; Bailey et al., 2022), and 10% of global CO2 emissions (UNECE, 2018; Niinimäki, Peters, Dahlbo, et al., 2020) on the environmental side, and child labor (Environmental Audit Committee, 2019), poverty pay (Oral, 2019), and exploitative workload (Plank & Staritz, 2016) on the social side. Consequently, the history of fashion could be perceived as a history of de-democratization as well: fast fashion exploits underrepresented, unskilled garment workers from newly industrializing countries (NICs), whereas its predecessor haute couture permits more bargaining power to highly skilled tailors.

Such correlations between the democratization of commodities and the pollution and labor exploitation it entails mark a variety of industries in addition to fashion, such as cosmetics and tattoos. (Parish & Crissey, 1988; Diana Draelos, 2000; Witkowski & Parish, 2001; Jain & Chaudhri, 2009). For example, as the de facto segregation of cosmetics ended when it became increasingly affordable, retailers were driving the prices down by adopting poisonous chemicals and exploiting cheap labor. Why could these industries not become democratized without environmental and humanitarian devastations?

Although this paper draws an exclusive focus on fashion, examining fashion through sociological lenses could yield critical insights into cosmetics and tattoos as well, since these artifacts share remarkably similar social properties: the adoption of fashionable styles, expression of aesthetic dispositions, conformation with prevailing trends, and conscious (and temporary) modification of the appearance of the self, all of which are performative acts, perceived by external actors and conditioned by the sociotechnical dispositif (Aspers & Godart, 2013; Rosa, 2013).

But what does being fashionable entail? When do the customer’s preferences and dispositions materialize? Why should individuals conform to the prevailing trends? And how are the users’ appearances modified? This paper then suggests that to truly establish a comprehensive framework in understanding fashion’s nature, science and technology studies (STS) approaches are indispensable. Recognizing the lack of STS literature in contemporary fashion studies, this paper uses the lenses of sociology, social constructivism, actor-network theory (ANT), and attachment theory to analyze fashion as a symbolic, discursive, material, and attached object, respectively, and aims at investigating how these perspectives elucidate different aspects of the evolution of fashion. Essentially, this paper shows that whilst the sociological and social constructivist approaches highlight fashion’s nature as a social product shaped by behaviors, class, tastes, and sensibilities, therefore changing and fluctuating as a result of public engagement, the actor-network theory and attachment theory allow an understanding of fashion’s agency in not only representing but also reproducing and mediating behaviors, class, tastes, and sensibilities. This realization, ultimately, would yield both methodological implications for future researchers by unveiling fashion’s nature as a multiple, and empirical insights into how fashion serves as a tyranny in determining our personal tastes, restricting our self-expression, and, therefore, diminishing our freedom.

2. Analytical Framework

Fashion has prompted considerable academic interest across a variety of fields, including philosophy (Kant, 1798), economics (Veblen, 1899), geography (Scott & Power, 2004), and cultural studies (Wilson, 2003). Three modalities of fashion can be isolated from its convoluted history: haute couture, fast fashion, and sustainable fashion. Adopting various approaches, this paper uses both literature review and empirical interviews to trace fashion as it passes through these stages.

Aspers and Godart (2013), adopting a sociological standpoint, comprehensively reviewed relevant literature across disciplines, incorporating previous findings into the sociology of fashion. This paper thus starts by drawing on a sociological analysis of fashion, which regards fashion as a symbol, designed, used, transformed, and disposed of for humans and by humans. The paper will then move to analyze fashion through STS lenses, starting with the social constructivist approach, which sees fashion as a discursive object. Then, the paper will use the actor-network theory to highlight the materiality of fashion, before employing the attachment theory to view fashion as a passion. This paper, then, is essentially structured as a staircase that resembles the chronological order of the development of sociology and STS theories, with each step being a different approach. At the end of each section, we will stop and reflect upon the strengths and limitations of the perspective being used, finding doubts, unanswered at first, gradually resolved as we move up the staircase, finally reaching the contemporary frontline of STS theories. However, that is not to say that the four approaches applied by this study progressively follow, or even complement, each other; rather, they coexist, and each of them is a tool appropriate for certain circumstances. Using different methodological tools elucidates different objects, answers different questions, and generates different explanations. Throughout this paper, it will be critical moments in fashion change unexplained by the approach at hand that drives us to explore other theories and additional possibilities and climb the staircase that marks not only the course of this paper but also the history of STS.

2.1 A sociological perspective and fashion as the symbolic

In this section, Aspers and Godart’s (2013) analytical framework will provide the background for further elaboration, as well as vocabularies that describe mechanical concepts and processes initiated, directed, and completed with human actions, including distinction, vertical diffusion, and imitation. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that Aspers and Godart’s (2013) work implies a homogenous continuum of socioeconomic status, which risks exaggerating social mobility and overlooking the existence of class distinction; hence, this paper complements their definitions by underscoring relevant sociological concepts such as social universe as in a form of social taxonomy (Lenski, 1994) and institutions as social spheres (Abrutyn et al., 2021). This is appropriate in the case of fashion, as there is a single, conspicuous social taxonomy, namely, the social (and economic) hierarchy, that could be accurately portrayed as interconnected yet distinct social universes, each situated on top of the other. This configuration could then be perceived as a spatial organization of spheres espousing different trends and designs, fitting Abrutyn el al.’s (2021) definition of the institution. Therefore, in the first section, this paper defines distinction as differences between characteristics of various institutions and social universes; vertical diffusion as the dissemination of a design from an authoritative institution/a higher social universe to a less authoritative institution/a lower social universe; and imitation, which is the sole mechanism of vertical diffusion, as an institution/social universe’s act of adopting designs of a more authoritative institution/a higher social universe.

These processes, as we will see throughout the first section, result in such moments as the generation of trends and the dissemination of designs. With sufficient knowledge regarding the purpose and mechanism of fashion, this paper then proposes two alternative theories of fashion that could emanate from such a sociological perspective. The fundamental thread underlying these narratives is informed by Rosa’s (2013) work on the four stages of fashion change, driven by the emergence of anti-fashions: first, the upper classes, with the intention to preclude the lower classes from using fashion, artificially produce unique yet impractical “high” fashion designs. These designs are, consequently, used by the upper classes exclusively, and thus become a symbol of socioeconomic status, highly desirable among all classes. Second, because of “high” fashion’s desirability, the lower classes imitate such designs, resulting in their vertical diffusion into less powerful institutions and a merging of social universes, as “high” fashion no longer distinguishes or separates them. Third, as the lower classes start embracing “high” fashion designs after vertical diffusion, they eventually realize these designs’ artificiality and un-wearability, resulting in, fourth, the almost spontaneous emergence of a wearable, natural, and practical anti-fashion initiated by the lower classes.

This paper draws a comparison between the concept of anti-fashion and antiprogram, first coined by Bruno Latour (1992), since anti-fashion is, by definition, an antiprogram specific to the case of fashion. The program, as Latour (1992) put it, is “the answer to an antiprogram against which the mechanism braces itself.” In the case of fashion, Rosa’s (2013) theory of fashion change could be understood as a continuous and recurring, yet by no means constant or homogenous, process in which the program, namely fashion, is taken over by its antiprogram, namely anti-fashion.

By the end of the first section, it will be apparent that analyzing fashion as a symbolic object has limitations, so this paper moves on to propose STS approaches for further inquiry.

2.2 An STS Approach

Fifty years of Science and Technology Studies (STS) have proved fruitful, with ever-changing frontlines of theoretical and methodological discussions. From the debate oriented around technological determinism to the discourse over the source of actions, this interdisciplinary field has seen the development of numerous theories, the most prominent of which are social constructivism, the actor-network theory, and the attachment theory, in chronological order of their development and of their position in this paper.

2.2.1 Social Constructivism and fashion as the discursive

First coined by Bijker (1995), social constructivism seeks to illustrate the evolution of artifacts from the view of relevant social groups, for a social group is a fundamental unit in which a unanimous interpretation of an object is attained and subsequently presented to the negotiation between different competing perceptions and demands. As such, a social constructivist approach entails analyzing fashion as a discursive object.

The analytical ground for social constructivism is as follows. The analyst pays special attention to disturbances: moments when problems are identified, when some problems are selected for solutions to be proposed, when some solutions are selected for new artifacts to be designed, and when some new artifacts are finally selected and thus become popular. To analyze an object, the analyst would first deconstruct it into several artifacts, each constituted by a relevant social group, thus demonstrating interpretive flexibility and setting the stage for sociological explanations. Interpretive flexibility, in other words, is what allows an artifact to be deconstructed into multiple artifacts constituted by different interpretations. For the analyst, then, “working” and “nonworking,” while being socially constructed, serve as explanandum instead of explanans of artifacts (in the deconstructed sense). After such deconstruction, closure and stabilization eventually occur, resulting in the social construction of the technology into its stable, contemporary form. Closure, resulting from a convergence of the interpretations of a technology, refers to the decrease of an artifact’s interpretive flexibility among different relevant social groups, whereas stabilization, traced by analyzing the number of “definitions, specifications, and elucidations” incorporated into statements about an artifact within a social group, describes how the technology is communicated with increasing ease and conciseness in society. Closure and stabilization, ultimately, are two aspects of the same process, since both are signs of a technology’s maturation.

Theoretically, Bijker’s social constructivist approach is impressively appropriate in fashion studies in two ways.

First, tracing the evolution of fashion, the sociological section of this paper notices the overarching similarity between haute couture and fast fashion, which raises the doubt as to why the “fast fashion,” resembling neither its predecessor haute couture nor its successor sustainable fashion, developed. A critical review of this question’s premise from the social constructivist standpoint, however, reveals the “implicit assumption of linearity” engrained in the sociological narrative. The sociological analyst retains, retrospectively, knowledge of all technological developments prior to the contemporary moment, whereas the relevant social groups guiding and propelling such developments were unconscious of the consequences of their acts, since the complexity of the sociotechnical dispositif can render rigorous predictions of future events into mere speculations. Consequently, as the analyst imposes contemporary standards when evaluating historical (technical) processes, some significant developments would inevitably be regarded as failures and thus less prominent as a result of this retrospective distortion. Bijker’s model, focusing on the properties attributed to artifacts by relevant social groups, ameliorates this bias, since it recognizes the interpretations and motives of actors driving the artifacts’ change.

Second, fashion’s evolution proceeded in multiple directions; it first evolved towards increased availability as fast fashion replaced haute couture, but then shifted its course to pursue sustainability and exclusivity as eco-fashion emerged. Social constructivism explains this apparent “detour” by pointing to the continuous yet by no means constant nature of sociotechnical change, since from its perspective, the evolution of technology is not a smooth progression of an apparatus but rather a procession of artifacts driven by disturbances. As such, the reversal of closure and stabilization are possible, which is exactly what occurred with fast fashion.

With its focus on the negotiation, be it literal or figurative, direct or mediated, vehement or subtle, between different relevant social groups, Bijker’s social constructivist theory serves as the analytical framework of the second section of this paper. Before this section comes to an end, this paper will critically reflect on the constructivist approach and identify factors that make it appropriate for this specific application, as well as the insights that it yields. Notably, the sociological and social constructivist approach highlight fashion as produced by society. However, if we hope to understand fashion’s agency in producing society, we need to equip ourselves with the actor-network theory and attachment theory.

2.2.2 Actor-Network Theory and fashion as the material

This paper moves forward to adopting the actor-network theory, underscoring fashion’s materiality.

The focus on the materiality of the object is informed by de Laet and Mol’s (2000) work on the nature of actors, in which they challenged the conventional philosophical “Rational man” definition by pointing to the agency of nonhumans, in particular technology. Bruno Latour’s paper (1992) on the indispensable roles technology plays in society echoes with this STS definition of actors, as it identified instances when technology shapes human behaviors, social interactions, and thus norms and normativities. Dumit and de Laet (2014) empirically demonstrate this point in their case studies of the calories and baby growth charts, both of which shape, perpetuate, and strengthen norms regarding the human body by imposing standards on nutrition intake and child development.

This acknowledgement of technology’s role in producing normativities allows for an analysis of fashion’s agency in reproducing elements of society, thus revealing the two-wayed traffic between technology and society, so intense that the boundary between them is in fact dissolved.

Ultimately, it is the actor-network theory that evinces the underlying properties of fashion enabling its capabilities, for it considers fashion’s materiality. ANT thus shifts our concern from how fashion represents society to how fashion reproduces society. However, ANT does not fully unveil the strengths of fashion and of the dispostif it passes through, which is why this paper will keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of STS, to clear up the last doubts.

2.2.3 Attachment Theory and fashion as the attached

The last section of the body of this paper takes up Gomart and Hennion’s (1998) theory of attachment, which indicates that a list of events, including “passion, emotion, being dazzled, elation, possession, and trance,” take place without the presence of actions. Among these events, passion, emotion, and possession, which could be summarized as attachments (Gomart and Hennion, 1998), come closest to representing the social relationship between fashion and its users. Thus, this section analyzes fashion as an attached object.

The attachment theory reorients the analyst’s priority away from the action and its source to the attachments established spontaneously as objects and mediators pass through sociotechnical dispositifs, structures and networks that exert forces and impose constraints on elements they comprise. This approach reveals the passages, or continuums, that connect what was widely regarded as sociological dichotomies: the recurring oscillation between “agent/structure, subject/object, active/passive, free/determined” is unnecessary and impossible within the attachment theory, as the reality is often simultaneously both, to some degree.

In this last section, it will be apparent that fashion’s user behaviors resemble the mechanisms described by the attachment theory: the amateur, conditioned by the sociotechnical dispositif, acquires skills and learns procedures that potentialize fashion before carefully setting up intricate conditions to allow fashion to seize, dominate, and move them. Since there exists a proclivity to emphasize the amateur’s own skills and experience, this section more heavily relies on interviews, done both by the author and by authors of peer reviewed studies. Ultimately, this approach, informed by the attachment theory, furthers our understanding of passion’s agency, as we would understand how users actively submit themselves to fashion, allowing fashion to make their bodies, shape their behaviors, and dictate their activities.

3. Methodology

Fashion is subject to numerous academic discourses and intense theoretical debates, resulting in a rich pool of fashion studies literature. Moreover, the contemporary and widespread nature of fashion entails the viability of rigorously empirical field research. Hence, this paper employs both interviews and literature review as its main methodologies.

3.1 Interview

The researcher interviewed a sample of 15 middle school and high school students in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The interviews are semi-structured, with a pre-written list of 10 open-ended questions but also the flexibility and ability to ask questions outside of the guide (Bryman and Bell, 2011). This method is appropriate for the exploratory nature of this study, since it assists the researcher to hold focus of the discussion while permitting investigating interesting topics worth pursuing.

Since fast fashion is the dominant modality of fashion at the time of writing, the interview guide is constructed with a particular focus on fast fashion, with moderate exploration concerning sustainable fashion towards the end, to better understand fashion’s social life. To test the effectiveness of this guide, the researcher first interviewed a high school student individually and subsequently made slight modifications to the order and wording of questions. The researcher then interviewed the other 14 interviewees in pairs to facilitate spontaneous conversations between interviewees, with the hope that the topics at hand are deemed most important by users of fashion, as the aim is to understand fashion’s social life. These interviews averaged between 20 to 50 minutes in length, reflecting the flexible nature of semi-structured interviews.

3.2 Literature Review

The interviews serve to provide an empirical understanding of fashion at work, whereas the literature review sets up the analytical framework, provides the ground for examining haute couture, fast fashion, and sustainable fashion, and allows for a comprehensive portrayal of fashion's evolution. Drawing on over 40 peer-reviewed studies, this paper integrates theories, methods, and findings from a variety of disciplines with a unique STS perspective, thereby adding an STS voice to contemporary fashion studies.

4. Fashion as a symbolic object

“You know those people who’d [dress up] in fancy clothes on a casual day and then walk past literally everywhere you could imagine...as if they must announce to everyone that they have a purse big enough to keep a king’s ransom to spend on makeup and apparel.”

—Interview with a middle school student, who could spend 800 RMB (equivalent to 112 USD as of July 1st, 2023) on clothes every month

Fashion symbolizes. It symbolizes social status when members of the less powerful classes were prohibited from retaining clothes fabricated with certain textiles, shaded with certain dyes, or shaped by certain cuts. It symbolizes economic power when only those consumers who possess prodigious wealth could afford ostentatious apparel. It symbolizes the lack of financial obligation to work when wearing an ornate ball gown precludes its wearers from performing physical labor (Figure 1). Why should fashion symbolize these qualities? Or, more accurately, why should these qualities be desirable? As the famous haute couture designer Karl Lagerfeld (2011) put it, “[fashion] is supposed to be into exclusivity, unapproachable.” Emanating from the heart of fashion, then, is an inherently social phenomenon: distinction. Hence, this section deploys a sociological analysis of fashion to unveil its symbolic nature.

4.1 Haute Couture

The first modality of fashion this paper discusses, haute couture, reflects two opposing forces in society: inclusion and exclusion, represented by unity and difference, respectively (Simmel, 1904 [1957]). Unity refers to the sense of belonging, in this case, to an institution, while difference is epitomized by the uniqueness that sets an individual apart from others. The upper classes, as Simmel pointed out, drive the fashion cycle for the sole purpose of excluding the lower classes; hence, the upper classes maintain their position essentially through manifesting the difference between them and the lower classes. Yet fashion also contributes to inclusion and unity, for members of the same social universe tend to dress in the same style, if not in the same cuts. This results in an interesting pattern, where inter-class discourse over fashion is dominated by the upper classes and concerned primarily with exclusion, whereas intra-class practice of fashion prioritizes unity with other members of the same social universe, with the aim of inclusion as the most important issue. Different styles of apparel thus came to symbolize different social classes, demonstrating intra-class unity. Opting for a broader picture, fashion, in the form of haute couture, also symbolizes the exclusivity of the upper classes and thus the distinction between different social universes.

Constructing a detailed classification of modes of diffusion, Roger (1983) identifies imitation as the sole mechanism driving the vertical diffusion of designs and styles across social universes, often with adaptations that aim to improve the wearability of clothes. Adaptation is a crucial step in the expansion of a design’s consumer junction, as couture designs are highly unpractical for the lower classes when fabricated in the social universes of the upper classes. Are haute couture designers, then, essentially producing apparel that is virtually useless for the largest social universes? Yes. Importantly, yes. Not only are they producing apparel that cannot be outright adopted by less socioeconomically advanced social universes, they are doing so deliberately, for in this way, fashion emerges as a symbol equipped with forces for distinction: it symbolizes the upper classes, as it treasures what cannot be adopted by the lower classes; it symbolizes economic power, as only the affluent are capable of affording its cost; it symbolizes the lack of obligation for physical labor, as wearing such designs would render movements impossible; and, better, it symbolizes the lack of financial need to perform any labor at all, for being in certain dresses would make doing any kind of work extremely inconvenient, effectively establishing the law of the excluded middle, meaning that no one could possibly be working and dressed up in couture clothes simultaneously. Haute couture maintained its status as a symbol adeptly with its studious institution of this law of the excluded middle, until fast fashion started gaining ground.

4.2 Fast Fashion

Based on the aforementioned knowledge regarding haute couture, we could devise two equally appealing, yet diverging interpretations when tracing the development of fast fashion, both incorporating Latour’s (1992) idea of program and anti-program, or, in this particular application, fashion and anti-fashion (Rosa, 2013).

4.2.1 Fast fashion as strengthening the program of fashion

Seeing fast fashion as an expansion and enhancement of fashion automatically entails a few methodological concomitants. First, this view must assume a shared goal for haute couture and fast fashion, since any contradiction or discrepancy in this part of the narrative would effectively render the view of a united program awkward and unwarranted. Second, the analyst would have to identify a shared antiprogram against which the united program of fashion, constituted by haute couture and fashion, braces itself. Third, as the analyst outlines the translation diagram as Latour (1992) did, they must consider fast fashion and haute couture as a single program/entity, with elements of fast fashion building onto or complementing the couture model. Whereas the significance of the second point will not be revealed until we proceed to section 4.3.1, the first and third will be important to the next stage of our narrative.

Remaining coherent with the first methodological procedure, the role of being desirable is delegated to and thus represented by fashion, at this stage being haute couture. Couture happens to symbolize and prescribe back to its users a certain socio-economic status, thereby excluding the lower classes from its circumscribed users. With technological advances and the advent of fast fashion, however, the price of fashion was reduced (Taplin, 2014), with consumers “purchasing a few items, each costing under a hundred RMB (equivalent to 13.8 USD, as of July 1st, 2023) every two weeks” (interview; high school student from a middle-class household). The law of the excluded middle is demolished: he/she who is dressed up in fashionable apparel does not have to be rich anymore, does not have to belong to the upper classes anymore, does not have to be non-working anymore. Consistent with the third methodological obligation, these characteristics of fast fashion pushed forward the “front line” delineating the program and its antiprogram. This adjustment of the front-line enhanced fashion’s skill to symbolize the desirable as its circumscription of users was expanded to accommodate the lower classes, resulting in a democratization of fashion.

4.2.2 Fast fashion as an antiprogram

Situating fast fashion as an antiprogram to haute couture also requires methodological considerations. First, given the definition of antiprograms, fast fashion and haute couture must be attributed diverging, contradicting, and conflicting intentions. Second, given the clear delineation of the program and its antiprogram in Latour’s (1992) semiotic translation diagram, haute couture and fast fashion would have to accommodate different groups of circumscribed users. Third, when portraying the shift away from fast fashion, there must exist an antiprogram against fast fashion but not necessarily haute couture. The first two points will surface during this narrative, even though a clear, definitive separation of circumscribed users of couture and fast fashion is only a theoretical possibility.

Before fashion was democratized, the upper class delegated the work of manifesting superiority and wealth to haute couture (Kapferer & Bastien, 2009). Couture thus inscribes people of the upper class as its users and prescribes upon them the state of having abundant time and money to spend on fashion, effectively excluding the lower classes. Rosa (2013) illustrates how the evolution of fashion is driven by the emergence of anti-fashion: fashion was first created by the upper class to distinguish themselves; in response to this artificiality, a new style with functionality emerges as the anti-fashion/antiprogram (jeans in the 60s is a case). “Principle of differentiation” and “negative imitation,” collectively resulting in a current that goes against the prevailing trend rather than simply following and accepting fashion (Simmel, 1904), drives the emergence of anti-fashion, and, in this case, fast fashion, which is the anti-fashion to haute couture.

Fast fashion, as an anti-fashion, merges the social universes in terms of fashion, as fashion became oriented less on socioeconomic status. With increased affordability, more people were able to express their individuality following the democratization of fashion, albeit de facto occurred a decrease in distinction, as “fashion,” now available to most consumers, became less of a distinguishing force, for “[when] everyone’s different...no one’s distinct, [when] everyone’s distinct...no one’s notable” (Interview with a high school student, from a middle-class household). Hence, as fast fashion emerges, fashion is de-skilled in terms of symbolizing any exclusive class and thereby making distinctions (between gender, class, race, individuals). At the same time, however, women, especially those belonging to the lower classes, became skilled in expressing themselves, which, in turn, re-skilled fashion itself in symbolizing its users. Fast fashion thus builds on haute couture by institutionalizing the desire to express the self with intricately designed systems that produce small amounts of each design, and changing the designs offered at a high rate to allow a high volume which nonetheless exhibits diversity (Bruce & Daly, 2006). When fashion is de-skilled for making distinctions while women are re-skilled for expressing themselves, there exists a disagreement between what was deprived of the object and what was, in turn, accorded to the humans, reflecting the transformation of skills and functions. It is at this point where the skill of making distinctions no longer exists that fashion becomes democratized.

4.3 Sustainable fashion

In section 4.2, we have seen two alternative views about the emergence of fast fashion, as well as its nature as either a program or antiprogram. As the methodological implications of both perspectives suggest, these different views lead to diverging narratives on the development of sustainable fashion. Whilst seeing fast fashion as strengthening the program of fashion would immediately mean that sustainable fashion would be an antiprogram to both haute couture and fast fashion, which together form the program of fashion, analyzing fast fashion as an antiprogram to haute couture would designate sustainable fashion as an antiprogram exclusively to fast fashion. Picking up both narratives, we will finish the sociologist’s history of fashion with this final subsection.

4.3.1 Sustainable fashion as an antiprogram to fashion as a whole

If fast fashion strengthens the program of fashion, then haute couture and fast fashion are stages in fashion’s development as a program, whereas sustainable fashion would be situated as the antiprogram to both. As such, sustainable fashion would pressure the frontline between fashion and its antifashion “adversely,” excluding the lower classes and separating the once merged social universe, since it decreases both the affordability and variety of clothes. Fashion is therefore re-skilled in terms of symbolizing economic power and social status, albeit being dressed up in sustainable fashion does not contradict working a job, for sustainable fashion designs tend not to restrict movement. The law of the excluded middle is partially restored. Hence, while sustainable fashion is a democratizing force in that it considers the needs, demands, and rights of the once exploited garment workers, it also de-democratizes fashion, as less people have the choice to freely express themselves.

4.3.2 Sustainable fashion as an antiprogram specifically to fast fashion

Fast fashion, as we have discussed, results in a lack of distinctiveness (Rosa, 2013), with multiple interviewees echoing this point by proclaiming “if everyone’s doing it, then what’s the point?” Interviewing over 40 consumers frequenting sustainable fashion shops in-depth, Lundblad and Davies (2015) conclude that for sustainable fashion users, the principal values of sustainable fashion are the timelessness and distinctiveness prescribed back to its users, which explains why, employing the means-end theory to analyze consumption motivation and behavior, Lundblad and Davies found egoistic values to be the most prominent incentives to purchase sustainable fashion. This result might seem unexpected, as consumers put less value on social and environmental responsibility that is widely delegated to sustainable fashion, revealing the need to reconsider and critique the prevailing literature on sustainable fashion as a symbol of eco-friendliness and fair-trade initiatives (Cervellon et al., 2010; Su et al., 2018; Anguelov, 2021b). Indeed, when asked for what constitutes sustainable fashion, 9 out of 15 of my interviewees pointed to what would be better summarized as sustainable style. “[If] fast fashion...relies on the frequent change of styles, then I suppose sustainable fashion would mean [a cut] that survives many seasons,” said one of my interviewees (a middle school student from a middle-class household), whose view was immediately affirmed by the other interviewee in the pair (middle school student from a rather well-off family).

The interviewee’s answer, although somewhat unrelated to the conventional definition of sustainable fashion in existing literature, underscores sustainable fashion’s position as the opposite of fast fashion. As such, sustainable fashion could be seen as the antiprogram of fast fashion. As sustainable fashion emerges, fashion is re-skilled in terms of making distinctions, but if this form of fashion is to gain further ground and become more prevalent, women, especially those with lower socioeconomic status, risk being de-skilled in terms of expressing their individuality. What we perceive in both narratives in this section, then, is ultimately a trend reversing the democratization of fashion that occurred in the 1990s as fast fashion started dominating this industry.

4.4 Discussion

Viewing fashion as a program faces a few limitations. First, this purely sociological approach does not account for the general direction in which fashion evolved, as well as how one form of fashion prevailed at a certain time. Specifically, there exists notable similarity between haute couture and sustainable fashion, as both prescribe certain socioeconomic power back to their circumscribed users and serve as tools for manifesting distinctions; however, between haute couture and sustainable fashion, the industry experienced a conspicuous “detour,” a period dominated by fast fashion models. This stage of fashion’s evolution is problematic for sociologists, as the approach in this section does not sufficiently explain this convoluted “detour.”

Second, it remains unclear why fashion was transformed at particular times and moments. For instance, while the mechanism of change through antifashion, identified by Rosa (2013), existed as early as the 1960s with the example of jeans, it wasn’t until the 1990s that fast fashion became prominent (Bruce & Daly, 2006; Bhardwaj & Fairhurst, 2010).

Third, it is unclear how haute couture effectively excluded the lower classes, although we are conscious that it resulted in inter-class distinction.

A purely sociological view of fashion, then, might have neglected significant aspects of its evolution. We thus continue our journey up the theoretical staircase constructed in the second section and enter the realm of STS in search of clues that would clear doubts unresolved by the symbolic object of fashion.

5. Fashion as a discursive object

“Of course, you’re gonna see environmentalists marching on the streets to protest fashion. But even those [environmentalists] wear clothes with their slogans on them when they march. Or at least they don’t just go naked, do they? After all, who could blame someone for expressing themself using fashion?”

—Interview with a high school student who could spend around 650 RMB (equivalent to 91 USD as of July 1st, 2023) on fashion per month

Fashion is discursive. If you listen to the voices of the upper classes, fashion is the exclusive fashion, distinguishing the upper classes from the lower ones as only socioeconomic elites could expend time and money necessary for the purchase and use of haute couture. If you talk to the lower classes, fashion is unwearable fashion, being exorbitant, taking excessive time, preventing movement, and thus the performance of physical labor. Could we thus conclude that the notion of fashion is perceived differently in different social contexts? No, not quite. Rather, fashion is constructed differently by different social groups, not only resulting in different artifacts but also demonstrating the interpretive flexibility of the object, since these artifacts bear inherently different objectives, designs, and usages (Bijker, 1997). In this section, we trace the development of fashion chronologically, starting with haute couture anew, adopting Bijker’s social constructivist approach.

5.1 Haute Couture

As Bijker (1997) suggested, identifying relevant social groups is the first step towards the deconstruction of artifacts and the demonstration of interpretive flexibility. In the case of haute couture, five social groups involved are discernible: users, nonusers, couture designers, “low” fashion producers, and couture producers. Of this rich variety of stakeholders, only two social groups are truly relevant.

Having much spare time and no need to work, the users of haute couture belong to the upper class (Perrot, 1995), and see haute couture as a distinguishing, distinctive fashion that differentiates them from the lower classes (McNeil, 1993; Aspers & Godart, 2013; Linden, 2016). “Exclusive fashion” is working when two conditions are fulfilled simultaneously. First, the style was produced recently and is thus adopted by a very small group of people; and second, the design lacks functionality and thus could only be worn by people who have spare time and no need to work. These two prerequisites point back to the nature of fashion as a tool for exclusion, echoing Rosa’s (2013) claim and thus reflecting the view of fashion’s nature as a social product, expressing and manifesting identity, socioeconomic status, bodies, and passion.

Often having little choice other than working a busy job for a living, nonusers of haute couture belong to the lower classes, and generally view it as an unpractical, unwearable fashion that is uncomfortable and unfitting for work. Hence, the central function of unwearable fashion is evaluated with the standards of practicality, availability, and affordability. This seems to be an outright contradiction to the sociologist’s view of fashion, which holds that a certain desirability is delegated to couture designs. Yet, it is exactly fashion’s exclusivity that produces its desirability and induces the lower classes into adapting artificially produced couture designs towards the end of wearability. “Unwearable fashion,” then, is nonworking when “exclusive fashion” is working, making the process of adaptation, which again results in a negotiation of reality, necessary.

The couture designers create elegant, exorbitant clothes for the users; therefore, they see fashion as “unique fashion,” as the couture designers aim at creating new designs that are distinctive enough to satisfy the users’ need for “exclusive fashion.” Hence, the social group of designers is essentially made by the users of couture, since it is serving the needs of the users instead of innovating and inventing clothes as a device for exclusion. Thus, the couture designers and users now constitute the same artifact, namely the “exclusive fashion,” merging them into a single relevant social group.

The same could be said about haute couture producers, skilled laborers who make clothes for a living. They produce clothes, the physical embodiments of exclusive fashion, with expensive, rare materials, and apply wasteful cuts. Thus, a critical analysis of the role of couture producers would categorize them as belonging to the same relevant social group of users and designers.

“Low” fashion producers make wearable garments worn by the lower classes, but often imitate the designs of “high” fashion. They are more often identified as women making apparel for the household or factory workers producing ready-made clothing. The users of apparel produced by them are mostly the nonusers of haute couture, and, as the “low” fashion producers are not the principal innovators of such a concept or model, the two groups constitute a single artifact and are thus, in effect, a single relevant social group.

The dynamic negotiation between the two relevant social groups, users and nonusers, becomes apparent at times of disturbance (moments when problems are recognized, and when solutions are formulated), confirming Bijker’s methodology. As couture designs are disseminated to the lower classes through vertical diffusion by limitation, which occurs when “low” fashion producers adapt and adopt couture cuts, “exclusive fashion” becomes nonworking while “unwearable fashion” begins to prevail as clothes evolve towards wearability, the primary concern of the couture nonusers (Rosa, 2013). In response, the couture designer would generate another “high” fashion design, re-skilling “exclusive” fashion, leading to a self-propelling cycle. Yet as the relative speed and efficiency of vertical diffusion accelerated and exceeded a threshold, fast fashion started to prevail.

5.2 Fast Fashion

Fast fashion, as a product of the negotiation between the relevant social groups of haute couture, emerged as unwearable fashion eventually prevailed over exclusive fashion, and fashion was designed towards increased variability, functionality, availability, affordability, and desirability (for a comprehensive chart of haute couture and fast fashion as the discursive, see fig. 4). Fast fashion retailers often adapt the latest haute couture trends into their own designs, thereby producing cheap replicas of popular, trendy cuts, explaining the prolonged presence of vertical diffusion and pointing to couture designers as the ultimate source of fashion change.

With the increasing prevalence and expanding influence of fast fashion, the interpretive flexibility over fashion was diminished as it was constructed into the unwearable when it experienced closure and stabilization. However, the social construction of fashion was reversed as new relevant social groups emerged: users, nonusers, producers, and retailers of fast fashion. Notably, the new social group of sustainable fashion users could be separated from the group of nonusers, once sustainable fashion gained ground.

Users of fast fashion regard it as “entertaining” fashion, “confidence-evoking” fashion, and “distinctive” fashion. Covered with trendy apparel “boosts [their] confidence...makes [them] happy...expresses [their] individuality...and improves [their] impression on others” (interview with a middle-schooler from a rich family). Hence, fast fashion could be deconstructed into numerous artifacts even if we consider the group of users only, suggesting that this relevant social group could be further separated and delineated; however, while these artifacts are different, the users are more or less the same. That is to say, multiple artifacts could be constituted by a single user, and that user may utilize multiple artifacts simultaneously, being confident, happy, distinctive, and good-looking at the same time by embracing fast fashion, thereby diminishing the practicality of further delineating sub-groups within this social group. Consequently, the border of relevant social groups, as well as the artifacts they constitute, is unclear and constantly changing in the case of fast fashion, reflecting fast fashion’s fluidity and multiplicity, terms first coined by Mol and Law (1994) and by de Laet (2017), respectively. Given the multiplicity and low price of fast fashion, it is possible to conclude that fast fashion was in fact a solution to the “expensive” problem of haute couture but less of a solution to the “inconvenient” problem, although in making clothes cheaper (and in making cheaper clothes) fashion inevitably became less impractical, whether because of the application of less wasteful cuts necessary for decreasing production price, or of the financial practicality of frequently purchasing apparel.

Nonusers of fast fashion perceive it as “wasteful” fashion and “pointless” fashion (it is possible to separate from this group a smaller group of users of sustainable fashion). For nonusers in general, fast fashion is problematic because it “takes time...costs money...and results in unnecessary waste,” be it a waste of money or textile (interview with a high school student from a middle-class household).

Users of sustainable fashion, slightly different from the rest of nonusers, see fast fashion as a “wasteful” and “polluting” but not necessarily “pointless” fashion (Su, Watchravesringkan, and Zhou, 2018). For the users of sustainable fashion, fast fashion is problematic primarily because it results in unnecessary material but not financial waste, and thus is environmentally unfriendly and entails exploitation of labor (although labor exploitation is an issue recognized and valued to a lesser extent). Thus, the users of sustainable fashion could be distinguished from the nonusers of fast fashion, as the former group does not identify the cost of keeping abreast with the newest trend as a pressing issue of fast fashion.

Figure 4 Artifact-Social Group-Problems-Solutions-Chart of fashion

5.3 Sustainable fashion

In response to the problems identified by nonusers of fast fashion, especially pertaining to “unnecessary waste” and “pollution,” sustainable fashion developed. However, sustainable fashion has not experienced high levels of closure and stabilization; hence, the contemporary landscape is still dominated by the dynamic negotiation between the “wasteful” and the “entertaining” fashions. Although it is in an early stage of development, three potential relevant social groups of sustainable fashion can be identified.

The groups of inventors and producers of sustainable fashion differ from those of haute couture and fast fashion, as they actively engage in the invention and innovation of environmentally and socially responsible apparel, oftentimes utilizing cutting-edge technologies and practices (Waheed & Khalid, 2019). Scaturro (2008), for example, explored how the “democratic rationalization” of contemporary technical advancements, such as genetically modified cotton, lyocell fibers, and closed-loop manufacturing systems, could be utilized in formulating a sustainable blueprint of apparel’s global commodity chain. Yet, opting for a critical, comprehensive analysis of the reality of sustainable fashion, this paper recognizes deviations from the scientist’s scheme. Lundblad and Davies (2015) examine sustainable fashion at work, paying attention to the retailers and consumers. They found unexpected and drastic inconsistencies between the scientist, the retailer, and the customers’ interpretation of sustainable fashion, which guide the further detachment of relevant social groups.

Scientists adhere to the definition of sustainable fashion, stated in the introduction, most strictly and accurately. Although a single, short, and definitive definition of sustainable fashion does not exist (owing to its low level of stabilization within the sphere of scientists), it is frequently associated with eco, green, organic, slow, ethical, sustainable, and fair-trade values (Cervellon et al., 2010; Su et al., 2018; Anguelov, 2021b). While each scientist might focus on one or a combination of the elements listed, it is impossible to further separate smaller social groups from the group of scientists, since these smaller spheres would overlap. Hence, collectively, scientists see sustainable fashion as the “eco, green, organic, slow, ethical, sustainable, and fair-trade” fashion, meaning that they work to improve fashion towards these ends by inventing new materials and production methods.

Retailers initially belong to the same social group as scientists, as they also identify environmental and social responsibility as the principal labels of sustainable fashion. However, when they discovered differing opinions from customers, they were more than ready to shift the focus from the sustainability of apparel to the sustainability of the design. This will be clearer as we give a portrayal of the users.

The users of sustainable fashion, as Lundblad and Davies (2015) concluded after interviewing more than 40 eco-fashion consumers, value its “timeless cuts,” “premium price,” “unique styles,” and “natural materials,” indicating that their perception of sustainable fashion is, in fact, indistinguishable from that of sustainable style. This understanding is confirmed by my interviewees, with a typical response quoted in section 4.3.2. Hence, the artifact constituted by the users should be referred to as the “timeless” or “unique” fashion, which was adopted by the group of retailers too.

The group of nonusers, like the users, also recognizes the high price of sustainable fashion. Interestingly, they tend to believe that fashion items should be sustainable if they are expensive, but not vice versa. For instance, a high school student, female, who could spend around 1000 RMB (equivalent to 137.9 USD as of July 1st, 2023) on clothes per month, stated that she “would naturally think that those [retailers] selling expensive clothes...like a few thousand RMB per item...has the [responsibility] to ensure that their products are...environmentally friendly. But if I’m just buying from [a shop] that’d sell me an item for forty or fifty RMB (equivalent to 5.5 and 6.9 USD, respectively), then I wouldn’t complain about it even if it’s not...sustainable.” For nonusers, sustainability is dependent upon price, but price is not necessarily determined by sustainability, demonstrating the deeply ingrained idea that all sustainable fashion brands sell expensive apparel. Nonusers, thus, see sustainable fashion as “exorbitant” fashion, with its sole issue being the high price.

5.4 Discussion

The social constructivist approach to fashion has a few strengths. First, it demonstrates that the so-called “detour” in fashion development is an essential and natural element of fashion’s evolution. Second, it articulates how fashion experienced closure and stabilization, but the ground was then re-opened for interpretive flexibility, thus contributing to the overall direction towards which fashion changed. Third, since the nonusers of haute couture are the users of fast fashion, the two sociological narratives would be reduced to one, as fast fashion is definitively the antiprogram of haute couture, whereas sustainable fashion is an antiprogram to fast fashion because the nonusers of fast fashion constitute the users of sustainable fashion.

Together with the purely sociological analysis, the social constructivist approach underscores how fashion is, in essence, a social product shaped by class, tastes, and sensibilities, as well as how fashion fluctuates as a result of public engagement, motivated by the collective urge to be individualistic, to “stand out in the crowd.”

However, this standpoint also confronts limitations. First, it is still unclear why fast fashion emerged in the 1990s. Second, how haute couture came to exclude the lower classes remains unresolved. These two shortcomings stem from the third and most fundamental limitation: both the sociological and social constructivist approach ignore the technical factors at work within the network of fashion, along with fashion’s agency as a material and attached object. Therefore, we proceed to the next step of our methodological staircase and adopt the actor-network theory, focusing on the materiality of fashion.

6. Fashion as a material object

“You just can’t imagine how anxious I was when I bought a blouse on [an e-commerce platform] but can’t put it on because I WAS TOO FAT. But the good thing is...I exercised more and kept a record of my calorie intake [ever since] ...and I now have a healthy, lean body!”

—Interview with a high school student who could spend around 2000 RMB (equivalent to 280 USD as of July 1st, 2023) on clothes per month

Fashion is material. Haute couture is made with expensive garments cut into convoluted shapes that restrict movement, thereby enacting its users as those who need not work. Fast fashion retailers sell apparel of slim sizes, thereby enacting their customers as those with lean bodies. Sustainable fashion retailers advertise their premium prices and comfortable texture, thus enacting their users as those who retain considerable financial capability. Fashion is material, and realizing this opens the gateway to understanding the agency of fashion.

6.1 Haute couture

Haute couture’s material reality assists it to achieve its purpose and reproduces social phenomena. Clothes are made of expensive, fragile textiles such as silk. The cuts are designed in a way that necessitates wasting a great deal of fabric. The final shape of the clothes, such as the ball gown depicted in Figure 1, restricts movement. This leads to a few consequences favored by the upper classes, as they are oriented around the exclusion of the lower classes. First, fashion becomes expensive, so only the upper class has the economic power to purchase them. Second, being fashionable becomes impractical for work, so only the upper class, who has a large amount of spare time, can wear them. In this process, haute couture gains agency. Clothes now make the upper class, since the upper class are the ones wearing couture designs, and the ones wearing couture designs belong to the upper class; hence, clothes ascribe the abundance of spare time, lack of need to perform physical labor, and economic power to the upper social class. They reproduce the upper class as consisting of people who wear haute couture, and thus make the social hierarchy, serving to link economic power to social status, and vice versa.

6.2 Fast fashion

Using the extended definition of the “actor” in ANT, we now consider the nonhuman, technical actors within the network of fast fashion, for fast fashion consists of a specific combination of technology. Communication technology accelerates the dissemination of information about fashion, allows retailers to gather information efficiently, and increases the scope of advertisement. Logistic technology fosters outsourcing and the emergence of sourcing companies, and ultimately facilitates the rationalization of the supply chain and decreases in the price of fashion production (Taplin, 2014). Finally, transportation technology facilitates labor migration, outsourcing, the distribution of manufactured apparel, and frequent restocking (Plank and Staritz, 2016).

Recognizing the participation of nonhuman actors results in a full picture of fast fashion’s development. The availability, variability, and affordability of clothes increased when the aforementioned technological breakthroughs were adopted by the fashion industry. In particular, the decrease in apparels’ prices, coupled with increased disposable income, facilitated frequent consumption. As consumption and thus disposal became more frequent, the need for sustainable, or long-lasting, fabric decreased. Thus, fast fashion retailers increasingly relied on short-lived garment use, which further encouraged frequent consumption since clothes become worn out after a short period of time, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The ANT approach to fast fashion allows it to gain agency. Fast fashion shifts the focus away from the response of others and towards the feeling of the self, as it allows more people to freely express themselves (since there are more choices). As an interviewee (middle school student from a middle-class household) of mine stated, “what other people see isn’t that important, but...I like it when I dress up [in] the way I want.” Additionally, fast fashion prescribes back to its users a certain amount of spare time, the habit of frequent consumption and disposal, as well as an emphasis on the appearance of the self. In this sense, it “does” the consumer, the fashionable consumer, and renders those who do not fulfill all these conditions as “unfashionable.” This becomes apparent, even conspicuous, when another interviewee (a high school student from a rather rich family, studying in an academically rigorous school) expressed her appreciation of those who wear a different design every day, stating that “I honestly admire those who have time to put on the makeup [which fits the dress] and carefully choose the combination of clothes to wear...I would’ve [done the same] every morning had I had enough time...I mean, who wouldn’t want to be fashionable?” In addition, interestingly, fast fashion also “does” the body, as it is no longer custom-fitted, as haute couture was, and fast fashion retailers tend not to provide clothes for large body sizes. Thus, it normalizes the weight, height, and size of the body of a “normal person,” too, evoking anxiety when one finds their body cannot fit within the largest size available. “You know, like, I was...shocked and overwhelmed [when I found that] I couldn’t...fit in the M-size and had to [ask for] a XL sized shirt...It was embarrassing,” recalled an interviewee (high school student, female, from a middle-class family), who became upset because she needs an “extra-large” sized shirt, illustrating how fast fashion retailers have reproduced the ideal, “normal” body size as one that could fit in size M clothes.

But fast fashion’s agency does not end with physically shaping the body of consumers: it reproduces, or more accurately, mediates, bodies and tastes. Fast fashion retailers utilize communication, information, and logistic technology to collect and detect “consumer preferences,” measured in terms of the numbers of a design sold, and then adapt latest haute couture designs to fit the uncertain, ever changing market demands (Taplin, 2014). Hence, when a customer purchases a fast fashion item s/he regards as fitting for his/her individuality and personal taste, s/he is essentially confirming and reflecting the aesthetic preferences of the couture designer and of other fast fashion consumers. Thus, fast fashion also makes individuality, or, rather, the illusion of individuality, for personal taste is a heavily social phenomenon, conditioned by the sociotechnical dispositif. In other words, fast fashion retailers set a constraint on individuality and personal taste, as they offer a finite number of clothes, which are replicas of couture cuts adapted to resemble the consumers’ collective inclination in favor of certain designs. Hence, after all, the personal tastes of fast fashion customers are enacted to resemble those of couture designers and others around them, and they are never free to be individual or distinctive.

Hence, the perceived shift away from the feedback of others to the choice of the self is also an illusion accompanying fast fashion, as the self is, after all, conditioned by the sociotechnical dispositif. Illusion? Not quite, since fast fashion does not reorient our attention towards the self either. Clothes on, clothes off, fast fashion makes individuality, and it also makes the individual; it becomes one of the most conspicuous features of a person for not only beholders but also the person him/herself. As an interviewee of mine, a university freshman studying in the United States, put it, “certain designs make you look professional, and you bet what impression you'd make on...professors and interviewers...you actually become professional. Others make you look chill...and you feel relaxed in these clothes since they’re actually smoother and more comfortable.” Fast fashion enacts apparel as a label and the individual as a commodity defined by its label, thereby reconstructing the relationship between apparel and the self. The condition of the self becomes inaccurate in describing the state of individuals, for the condition of apparel conditions the state of the self.

The condition of apparel, however, is itself conditioned by the sociotechnical dispositif: the styles available at a shop are determined by the collective taste of consumers in the region and “high” fashion designers, for fast fashion products are a combination of the two. The fibers used in an item are determined by the item’s price and the technology available to the retailers, for manufacturers have to swiftly assemble cheap clothes with short-lived materials while keeping the enterprise profitable. The apparel purchased, or that could potentially be purchased, by a customer is dependent on his/her socioeconomic status, willingness and ability to expend money and time on fashion, as well as the need to appeal to his/her environment. In a narrower sense, one’s occupation influences and limits clothing choices, as exemplified when white-collar workers exhibit the proclivity to acquire clothes that appear professional, and in a broader sense, one’s sociocultural sphere influences and prohibits clothing choices, as seen in the case of Islam. Hence, fast fashion is an actor and a mediator. It mediates between the lone actor and the surrounding sociotechnical dispositif. While these aforementioned networks and constraints are present throughout the history of fashion, they are particularly noticeable in the configuration of fast fashion, as, supposedly, more choices are available and affordable when there is a decrease in individuality and distinctiveness. Therefore, the conclusion that apparel is a mediator is not confined to fast fashion but appertains to the entire history of fashion.

6.3 Sustainable fashion

Technical actors also constitute important parts of sustainable fashion. Together, Scaturro (2008) and Waheed and Khalid (2019) provide a comprehensive list of machines, materials, and methods utilized, or with the potential to be utilized, by sustainable fashion producers. These include sustainable textiles, natural dyes, and digital technology, which are used for advertising and raising awareness of issues surrounding fast fashion.

The effects of these actors’ presence are as follows. Sustainable fashion is more expensive because of the use of chemically complicated materials and production methods; its items are longer-lasting, in terms of both the design and the garment; and clothes are advertised as natural, healthier (for the customers), and more comfortable.

In this process, sustainable fashion’s agency reveals itself. It, much like haute couture, prescribes certain financial capability back to its users. It then “does” the environmentally and socially responsible consumer, for this concept, in the domain of fashion, is essentially interchangeable with the term sustainable fashion consumers. Since sustainable fashion distinguishes itself with premium prices, natural materials, and timeless cuts, environmentally and socially responsible consumption automatically manifests the socioeconomic status of the customers, thereby enacting the rich as the “responsible.”

Sustainable clothing, finally, “does” comfortable and healthy clothing, enacting them as clothes made of organic fibers, dyed with organic dyes extracted from plants, and fabricated with extra care, heavy involvement of manual labor, and unique methods. This diverges from and even contradicts the initial cause of sustainable fashion, but nonetheless allows sustainable fashion to emerge as such concepts pass through the sociotechnical dispositif.

6.4 Discussion

An actor-network theorist’s approach explicates the technical and material properties of fashion, which is what enables its capabilities and actions. This clears a few doubts. First, by identifying the technical components of fast fashion, we now understand that the fast fashion model was not viable before the 1990s, for these technologies were not in place yet. Second, as we recognize the materiality of haute couture, it is clear how haute couture excluded the lower classes using wasteful cuts and expensive textiles as well as the production of impractical designs. These two benefits emanate from the third: we now notice fashion’s agency in reproducing and mediating class, identities, bodies, and sensibilities.

However, none of the three aforementioned approaches explain how fashion, from haute couture to eco-fashion, is pursued by people and thus shapes their behaviors. To examine this aspect of fashion and fully reveal the power of fashion as an actor, we move up to the final step on our methodological staircase and keep abreast with contemporary STS frameworks by adopting the attachment theory, analyzing fashion as a passion, an object of the attached.

7. Fashion as an irrational object

“You walk past a clothing store [and] say to yourself ‘I just bought an outfit two weeks ago’ and then keep walking, you walk past another one and think ‘oh maybe that outfit is outdated’ because you can’t find any designs similar in any of those stores, you walk past yet another clothing store, and you just can’t resist the urge to go in and buy something new.”

—Interview with a high school student who could spend around 650 RMB (equivalent to 91 USD as of July 1st, 2023) on fashion per month

How does fashion shape our behaviors? This paper suggests that the answer could be found with the attachment theory, which is concerned with passion, emotion, and, in essence, events rather than actions. As Godart and Hennion (1999) pointed out, when characterizing and qualifying passion, as well as the sociotechnical dispositifs that generate it, the analyst needs to adopt the same narrative as the amateurs, employ the same vocabularies, and dedicate the same effort to describing the event. To illustrate, this section will feature interviews conducted by both previous researchers and the author.

7.1 Haute couture

The collective urge to appear notable and different drives the upper classes to adopt haute couture. The sociotechnical dispositif conditions members of the upper classes in such a way that allows and even requires them to become attached to haute couture, as it equips them with not only sufficient wealth and spare time, but also the necessity to manifest them for identification within the social class and distinction from the lower classes. As discussed in the last section, haute couture makes and delineates socioeconomic classes with its unpractical, exorbitant materiality, which is exactly what members of the upper classes could afford whereas others could not. However, to assemble and embrace this unpractical, exorbitant mediator, the upper class has to painstakingly arrange the situation for an attachment to haute couture to emerge. The customer has to pay for the tailor, wait for his/her measurements to be taken, and select the design and fabric, before s/he can obtain the final product (Montagna, 2018). The procedure and dispositif created to facilitate the occurring of attachment to couture thus involves money, machines, garments, couturiers, and beyond.

Haute couture, then, serves as a mediator as attachment emerges. When the user is dressed up in haute couture, s/he is actively submitting him/herself to couture, which is conditioned by the dispositif. For instance, since couture designs, like the ball gown depicted in figure 1, prevents movements such as running or any kind of physical labor, they press their users into chairs or push them to balls, afternoon tea, and other events where the “formality” of the ball gown would prove appropriate and appreciated.

7.2 Fast fashion

The phrase “slave to fashion” perfectly reflects how passion in fashion entails social behaviors. Yet, in the case of fast fashion, customers frequently consume and dispose of apparel to become distinct rather than to conform, which paradoxically is also an act of conformation since they are also conditioned by the sociotechnical dispositif:

I want to see new things and styles that help me create and recreate my wardrobe and who I am. But I don’t want to look like someone else—so the limited edition satisfies this need to be unique. When I see it on the catwalks or in the magazines, I want it immediately. (Joy et al. 2010; 282)

The designs “on the catwalks or in the magazines” are replicated by fast fashion designers with some adaptation for regional consumption patterns (Taplin, 2014). The collective urge to not “look like someone else” then prompts the interviewee to embrace this dispositif by subjecting herself to the mediator of fashion, as reflected by the willingness to allow fashion to “create and recreate my wardrobe and who I am.” Immediately after one submits themself to fast fashion, they would be recreated, forced into recurring consumption of clothes.

The extensive process to establish the condition needed for such frequent consumption is often subtle:

...it was quite a process trying to convince my mom [to] gimme the money for dress and stuff...I mean, my mom gets to decide how much I could spend on clothes and pretty much everything and so I [turned to] my dad for more. (Interview with a middle school student who could spend around 3000 RMB (equivalent to 420 USD as of July 1st, 2023) per season)

You just can’t imagine how anxious I was when I bought a blouse on [an e-commerce platform] but can’t put it on because I WAS TOO FAT. But the good thing is, to fit into those beautiful dresses and blouses, I exercised more and kept a record of my calorie intake [ever since] ...and I now have a healthy, lean body! (Interview with a high school student who could spend around 2000 RMB (equivalent to 280 USD as of July 1st, 2023) on clothes per month)

[This academically rigorous school] is really different from the one I came from...and I just can’t afford the time to wonder around everyday...so I’d sit in front of my desk and finish a pile of weekend homework so that I’ll have time on Sunday to do what I want, perhaps buy a few...clothes. (Interview with a high school student who could spend around 1000 RMB (equivalent to 137.9 USD as of July 1st, 2023) on clothes per month)

So the customer obtains money, loses weight (so that s/he could fit into slim designs), and reserves spare time for browsing clothing shops. Fast fashion is thus potentialized since it has the capability to induce the customer into overconsuming garment products and expending time and efforts to dress up in distinctive ways:

I’ve had an awesome time putting together this show. I’ve had so much fun combining these outfits in distinctive ways. What makes it even more fun is that you can’t copy these runway looks hahaha! I love that you can’t find them and copy me, because by the time you get to H&M, the Gap, TopShop...They will be gone. No one puts outfits together like me—enjoy. (Miller 2013; 167)

So the customer purchases the latest designs and combines them with care. The entire process is finished: the customer, conditioned by the sociotechnical dispositif, constructs conditions to potentialize fast fashion, which, in turn, forces the customer into recurring consumption and changing of styles. Fast fashion is a mediator in that it translates the voices of couture designs, collective preferences, technology, social structures, macroeconomic status, and, in other words, the sociotechnical dispositif into the concrete manifestation of garments, which was embraced by the lone actor for expressing individuality and differentiating the self from the collective. Fast fashion is a unique mediator in that it institutionalizes the collective urge to become distinct by increasing affordability while decreasing availability, as reflected by its frequent restocking, which is what made fashion distinctive in the above quote. Thus, after all, fast fashion does allow for more to stand out, to be different from the rest of the crowd, but it does not make them notable, nor does it allow the formation of personal taste. The elite classes, shaping the overarching trend in fashion through couture designs, still dominate this field, although in a subtler way.

7.3 Sustainable fashion

If fast fashion prompts frequent consumption, then sustainable fashion resists it. In Zhang and Lang’s (2018) study, for example, a strong negative correlation was identified between sustainable fashion consumption and the frequency of purchasing behaviors. Similar results were found in Lundblad and Davies’s (2016) interviews, with customers revealing how they purchased fewer clothes, as well as other commodities in general, to stay in line with sustainable fashion. Yet, considering sustainable fashion’s high level of fluidity and multiplicity, tracing the entire process of attachment to sustainable fashion inevitably risks speculation, which is why this paper leaves a gap for future researchers to elaborate on how sustainable fashion generates attachments and mediates between lone actors and the dispositif.

7.4 Discussion

Passion emerges as the active amateur, who initially exhibits “the technical mastery of time and organization,” allows themself to be passively swayed away by fashion, “losing control” in the process. Haute couture keeps its users nonmoving, fast fashion keeps them constantly purchasing, whereas sustainable fashion forces them to refrain from doing so. Fashion thus recreates acts and behaviors of lone actors, thereby mediating between the lone actor and the sociotechnical dispositif. Ultimately, even the elites driving fashion change and dominating society’s tastes are subject to the tyranny of fashion, since the dispositif orders them to submit to its constraints as well.

8. Conclusion

“...[the emperor] hasn't got anything on!” (Andersen)

The Danish author Hans Christian Andersen never said, “imagine the emperor without his clothes!” But we all know the story of that emperor without any clothes. Was the emperor fashionable? Yes. Moreover, the emperor has always been fashionable. He was fashionable when he wore clothes, for they were exclusively designed for him. He was fashionable when he did not wear clothes, for his “new clothes” are also exclusively designed for him. Either way, he is distinctive, the ultimate quality fashion seeks.

Fashion’s nature, then, speaks to the desirability and difficulty of being notable, for everyone has limited attention. Fast fashion, however, impressively institutionalized the desire to be notable, and “democratized” fashion as to increase the availability of distinctiveness. For the first time, the lower classes had the freedom to listen to their personal tastes and express themselves through apparel, a privilege previously enjoyed exclusively by the socioeconomic elite. However, accompanying this “democratization” of fashion as a commodity came the exploitation of labor and degradation of environment. Inspired by the correlation between “democratization” and its apparent repercussions, this paper contributes sociological and STS voices to contemporary fashion studies, aiming to forward the field’s understanding of fashion’s nature with the hope that enhanced knowledge would allow empirical insights into potential solutions of fast fashion’s problems. Utilizing both literature review and interviews, this paper demonstrates that sociology and social constructivism can be mobilized to understand fashion as a social product, whereas the actor-network theory and attachment theory are constructive in studying fashion’s agency in reproducing our society. Ultimately, this paper shows that fashion is a multiple: it is a symbolic, discursive, material, and attached object, all at once.

This fashion multiple, however, has always been dominated by the elite, since even fast fashion retailers are merely adapters of couture designs. But even the elite, just like the emperor with his “new clothes,” is subject to fashion’s violent overthrow, as the sociotechnical dispositif conditions them to submit to fashion. Therefore, fashion might as well never have been democratized, and we were, in this sense, never free to develop our tastes or express our individuality.

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