Guest Editors: Valeria M. Iannilli, Alessandra Spagnoli, Politecnico di Milano

Fashion consumption is an active mode of relating not only to fashion items but also to the community and the world through the generation and sharing of signs and meanings (Baudrillard, 1970) permeating the very essence of thinking, producing, wearing, and experiencing fashion. However, fashion consumption today takes on a different relevance in the light of the transformations of social, cultural, and economic dynamics that impose on the creative, manufacturing, distribution and communication systems, and, not least, on the 'final consumer', a critical reflection on the role and impacts of the fashion system.

The term ‘consumption’ is inherently multivalue and nuanced. Its very etymology holds several facets: consumption means the ‘transformation’ of natural resources into fungible goods, but also of signs and symbols into signifying and value systems; it means ‘destruction’, that is, the reduction to the nothingness of tangible or intangible elements, making them, in turn, unusable through the very act of use; and, obviously, in its most ordinary meaning, it stands for ‘use’ or ‘utilisation’ which indeed consists in the activity of making use of a tangible or intangible element, but also, in a broader sense, in the act of enjoying services, experiences, or activities that do not entail transformation or destruction. The fashion system has always entwined its practices and processes with this multivalue universe constituting the consumption system landscape of both the creative, material and human resources along the entire fashion supply chain and the fashion object itself, its images and projections. In the current digital and sustainable transformation context, this entanglement opens up ample space for reflection on the practices, processes and impacts of consumption with a more critical and responsible approach. If, on the one hand, attention towards more sustainable forms of natural resource exploitation promotes new business models and new circular forms of production, more concerned with the reduction, recovery and reuse of finished products and their waste, on the other hand, new forms of consumption emerge, collaborative, addressed to extend product life cycles through the adoption of care, re-signification and re-thinking practices fostering more active and conscious consumers participation.

The third issue of Fashion Highlight intends to investigate the dynamics, practices, and impacts of fashion consumption in the light of the transformations taking place, questioning the role and potential that creative communities, players in the - long and complex - fashion value chain, consumers and education can express. Authors from different disciplinary fields are invited to propose critical and theoretical reflections and applied contributions using different approaches and methodologies to provide an original perspective on the proposed topic, including the following trajectories:

. Fashion consumption, investigating the impacts of overproduction and hyperconsumption at an environmental, social and cultural level within a district, national and global perspective; the activation of new processes of fashion distribution, retail and communication.

. Consumed fashion, regarding emerging approaches to the purchase, use and disposal of fashion such as slow fashion, lowerism, or sustainable anti-consumption, and their impacts on the dynamics of creation, production, and distribution; design-for-longevity strategies and caring practices.

. Consumer communities, considering transformations of consumption processes promoted/to be promoted by new, local and global communities; orientation towards more responsible forms of consumption, underlying motivations and future trajectories.

. Consumer culture, concerning the dynamics, approaches and practices through which fashion is narrated, conveyed, and experienced; narratives for/about fashion and recent evolutions in terms of languages, contents, and formats.

We welcome full papers in English for submission by the 14th of April 2024 with a range length of 3000-4000 words, notes and bibliographical references excluded. It is highly recommended APA STYLE as a formatting guideline. Authors will indicate their affiliation, contact email and ORCID ID in that same file.

Submissions should be uploaded by the website.