Volumen 12 (2022): Edición 1 (November 2022)

The COVID-19 pandemic turned the spotlight on the inequalities and the vulnerability of the global supply chains. It showed the serious dependency and the asymmetrical power relations among the stakeholders of the fashion industry. The relocation tendencies – as fashion brands are trying to break up with Asia and move production closer – have already started, and the pandemic can give a boost to it. The Central-Eastern European region can be a possible destination. The shorter supply chains are not just a tool for resilience but are told to serve sustainability as well. My hypothesis is that even though the geography of fashion industry is changing, power relations are not, and the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic has even increased dependency among the different players. Power relations are important among the region’s production and the clients if relocation is to work out, as there is need for inclusive, fair, and decent employment, which is rarely guaranteed by fashion brands. Without it, sustainability cannot be achieved. In this paper, I focus on the examination of socio-economic processes in contemporary fashion such as the relocation tendencies and the power relations among the stakeholders, mainly fashion brands and production companies as subcontractors of the fashion industry. Especially, I examine profit and risk as factors within the relations. The critical essay uses literature review and document analysis to investigate a possible change in the current role of power relations and to examine the hypothesis.

The present study is an attempt at mapping the Romanian society’s attitudes towards sustainable fashion. Our analyses are based on the European Commission Eurobarometer 92.4 (2019) data relevant for Romania. We have looked into ten Likert-type variables focused on consumer attitudes regarding sustainable fashion. As a first step, we created a sustainable-fashion attitude scale, followed by an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) aimed at investigating the inner structure of the variables. Thereafter, we employed a linear regression analysis in a bid to answer the question as to which are the variables that account for commitment to sustainable fashion in Romania. Inter alia, our results suggest that positive attitudes towards sustainable fashion are most enhanced by awareness about environmental issues and sensitivity to environmental protection in general and are weakened most significantly by poor financial situation measured in terms of difficulty in paying the bills.

Besides gathering information on environmental protection from traditional media (the press), relying on Internet sources in this respect also increases support for the transition to a more environmentally conscious textile industry. Our analysis touches upon research limitations such as the attitude–action gap.

For a long time, fashion was only a novelty, an aesthetic pleasure, a means of individual self-expression, a possession (Veblen 1899), and a means of separation (Simmel 1904). In the last more than thirty years, following a change of attitude, fashion has also become interpretable as a medium of social activism. It no longer seeks to shape only wearable products and the style of their wearers but also the world (Fuad-Luke 2009). This essay interprets the career of British fashion designer Katharine Hamnett and her 1984 media scandal as the starting point for a shift in attitude, when fashion and social engagement became organically linked and dress became a means of bringing social and ecological issues into focus, beyond itself. Drawing on case studies, the essay explores the changing narrative around clothes, raising current issues such as the importance of using organic cotton as a raw material, the role of the active citizen, the limits of growth, or the meanings constructed by marketing. Although Hamnett’s work has received undeservedly little discussion, she has an undeniably important role to play in changing this narrative. Today, thanks to her activist design, social responsibility has become a fundamental principle in branding. We can never talk about fashion in the same way as before Hamnett.

The article focuses on fashion consumption patterns emerging from prominent TV series that have created generational fandoms. Three series (Sex and the City, Girls, and Euphoria) representing the three most important generations (Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z) present in contemporary US society and global popular culture highlight the most mainstream contemporary fashion attitudes. Based on a deductive approach-based thematic analysis with focus on the semantic role of the dress played in the visual narrative, the research considers how fashion is used in building characters and their fashion- and clothing-culture-related values. The analysis concludes that the most important features of the generational fashion attitudes are as follows: materialist individualism for generation X, irony and anti-fashion for generation Y, and psychological coping mechanism for generation Z.

It is said that due to the social and economic effects of the recent pandemic, fashion has been caught in a destructive position. One aspect is the material change of the fashion objects and the strong pre-eminence of the so-called “stay-at-home collections” against the earlier dominance of the ready-to-wear and haute couture garments intended for social events. An important feature of recent fashion changes is their reliance on current pandemic rules and the related political decisions. In my presentation, I will focus on an interesting example of these pandemic changes: Moschino’s 2021 Spring/Summer Collection. Moschino’s “Marionette Performance” is a perfect example for infelicitous performativity where the show is created in a per(ver)formative (in the Derridean sense) act in the catwalk space. I intend to show that performativity is broken at every step of the show. In this spring collection, not only are the mannequins substituted by dolls but the viewers – some are well known (e.g. Anna Wintour) – are also transformed into marionettes by Jeremy Scott. With a self-ironic gesture, anyone of us from the possible audience can be changed into a puppet. To analyse the performative character of the show, I use deconstructive approaches and ideas. I wish to emphasize the interweaving performative dimensions that, in a sense, preclude each other with the help of Paul de Man’s interpretation of Kleist’s Über das Marionettentheater. I want to point out the mechanical, meaningless materiality appearing in the marionettes’ movements on Moschino’s special catwalk. My lecture argues that in the movements of the marionettes the possibility of the clear manifestation of performativity becomes uncertain.

The fact that perfumes have been regarded as enhancing one’s appearance opens up questions about knowing and wearing fragrances. The connections between fragrances and fashion are being reviewed first according to the notion of embodiment as applied to the understanding of clothing fashion (Entwistle 2000, 2015); then, the lens of “mediatization”, as applied by Rocamora (2017) to grasp the contemporary entanglement of fashion and digital media, further serves to turn to digital perfume communities. These constitute an essential resource to the extent that they share experiences while producing data about wearing and collecting fragrances. By tracing the recent insurgence of perfume criticism and by mapping certain techniques of entering into relation with fragrances through community members’ perfume reviews as well, the study argues that their idiosyncratic and often artistic language is countering the impersonal language of perfume advertising; ultimately, the study suggests unravelling perfume consumption patterns via an aesthetics of attention.

The research presented in this paper examined the structure and consistency of the digital brand identity of the fast-fashion brand Zara. The research was based on the content analysis of Zara’s brand page, the website of Zara’s owner Inditex, and Zara’s Instagram page. The analysis of Zara’s digital brand identity was divided into two parts: on the one hand, the communicative aspects of the brand site and the Instagram page were examined to verify the conditions of the digital brand experience, and, on the other hand, the structure and consistency of the brand identity on all three digital platforms were considered. Among the brand identity elements, mission, values, personality, and offers were present on all three digital platforms, while the competence element was mostly absent. This gap calls into question the credibility of the brand identity, which in turn makes it difficult for Zara to become a strong brand. Zara’s digital brand identity has proven to be consistent towards customers but incomplete towards employees and other stakeholders.

On a global level, the analysis of the well-being of countries and ethnic groups is receiving increasing attention. As part of a larger study, we used the Global Well-Being scale among Hungarian residents in the Szeklerland region¹ of Romania. The scale aims to measure the well-being experienced emotionally, psychologically, socially, and spiritually (Oláh–Kapitány-Fövény 2012). The study was conducted using an online questionnaire filled out by 1,117 persons aged from 16 to 89, from 286 settlements in Harghita, Covasna, and Mureş counties. The results show that the global welfare indicators have average or above average values among the respondents from Szeklerland. The emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being are above the cut-off score. The well-being of the young age group and that of women is higher. In rural regions, the spiritual well-being is also higher.