Surface Sustainability: Mapping Climate Chic Eco-Aesthetics on Digital-Only Fashion Platform DRESSX
Adil Boughlala
Published 30-05-2026
Keywords
- dematerialisation,
- e-commerce,
- fashion ecosystem,
- platform capitalism,
- post-physical
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2026 Adil Boughlala
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This article explores the digital-only fashion platform DRESSX and its prominent role in shaping the narrative of sustainable innovation within the fashion industry. It investigates how DRESSX constructs and communicates its sustainability claims through aesthetic, discursive, and platform-mediated strategies. While digital fashion is often celebrated as an inherently sustainable alternative to physical garment production, this article questions the cultural and ideological assumptions underpinning such claims. Rather than treating DRESSX merely as a digital marketplace, the article approaches it as a curatorial and commercial ecosystem that performs sustainability through its interface and branding practices. It asks how sustainability is imagined, aestheticised, and commodified in a dematerialised, platform-based digital fashion economy.
Drawing from fashion media studies, critical platform theory, and innovation studies, this article maps the ways DRESSX blends commerce, curation, and affective visuality to promote “green” values tied to the digitalisation and so-believed dematerialisation of fashion. Through a mixed-methods approach combining platform analysis, interface reading, and discourse analysis, it reveals how sustainability operates more as a surface strategy than a systemic solution. The study ultimately questions whether the dematerialisation of fashion via digital platforms leads to a more ethical industry or simply a digitally displaced version of fast fashion.
References
- Baek, E., Haines, S., Fares, O. H., Huang, Z., Hong, Y., & Lee, S. H. M. (2022). Defining digital fashion: Reshaping the field via a systematic review. Computers in Human Behavior, 137, 107407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107407
- Boughlala, A., & Smelik, A. (2024). Tracing the History of Digital Fashion. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887302X241283504
- Che, S., Wen, L., & Wang, J. (2024). Global insights on the impact of digital infrastructure on carbon emissions: A multidimensional analysis. Journal of Environmental Management, 368, 122144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
- jenvman.2024.122144.
- Choufan, L. (2022). Fashion You Do Not Own, Fashion You Cannot Feel:x Toward a New Paradigm of Sharing Fashion in the Digital Age. Fashion Theory, 26(3), 307–328. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2021.1912954.
- Creangă, R. (2019). Fashion Sustainability in the Digital Realm. In N. Kalbaska, T. Sádaba, F. Cominelli, & L. Cantoni (Eds.), Fashion Communication in the Digital Age (pp. 198–208). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15436-3_18.
- Evans, C. (2013). The mechanical smile: Modernism and the first fashion shows in France and America 1900-1929. Yale University Press.
- Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Polity.
- Fletcher, K. (2014). Sustainable fashion and textiles: Design journeys (Second edition). Routledge.
- Foucault, M. (1972). The Archeology of Knowledge (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). Tavistock Publications.
- Galloway, A. R. (2012). The interface effect. Polity Press. Niessen, S. (2020). Fashion, its Sacrifice Zone, and
- Sustainability. Fashion Theory, 24(6), 859–877. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2020.1800984.
- Park, J., & Chun, J. (2023). Evolution of Fashion as Play in the Digital Space. Fashion Practice, 15(2), 256–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2022.2149837.
- Periyasamy, A. P., & Periyasami, S. (2023). Rise of digital fashion and metaverse: Influence on sustainability. Digital Economy and Sustainable Development, 1(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44265-023-00016-z.
- Ramos, L., Rivas-Echeverría, F., Pérez, A. G., & Casas, E. (2023). Artificial intelligence and sustainability in the fashion industry: A review from 2010 to 2022. SN Applied Sciences, 5(12), 387. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-023-05587-2.
- Riemens, R. (2024). Fixing the earth: Whole-systems thinking in Silicon Valley’s environmental ideology. Internet Histories, 8(4), 294–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2024.2416295.
- Riemens, R. (2025). Platform Earth: Ecomodernism in Tech-on-Climate Discourse [Doctoral Dissertation]. Radboud University.
- Rissanen, T., & McQuillan, H. (2023). Zero Waste Fashion Design. British Film Institute. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350241862.
- Rocamora, A. (2013). New Fashion Times: Fashion and Digital Media. In S. Black, A. de la Haye, J. Entwistle, A. Rocamora, R. A. Root, & H. Thomas (Eds.), The Handbook of Fashion Studies (pp. 61–77). Bloomsbury.
- Schauman, S., Greene, S., & Korkman, O. (2023). Sufficiency and the dematerialization of fashion: How digital substitutes are creating new market opportunities. Business Horizons, 66(6), 741–751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2023.03.003.
- Srnicek, N., & De Sutter, L. (2016). Platform capitalism. Polity.
- Van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & De Waal, M. (2018). The Platform Society (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190889760.001.0001.
- Vänskä, A., Rauti, S., Heino, T., Carlsson, R., Mickelsson, S., & Särmäkari, N. (2024). Fair Data is the New Black: Online Shopping, Data Leaks,
- and Broadening the Understanding of Sustainable Fashion. Fashion Theory, 28(3), 305–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2024.2339251.
- Verhoeff, N. (2012). Mobile screens: The visual regime of navigation. Amsterdam University Press.
- Xin, B., Song, Y., Tan, H., & Peng, W. (2025). Sustainable digital fashion in a metaverse ecosystem. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 82, 104099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.104099.
- Zhang, Y. (2022). Clothes with no emperors: The materiality of digital fashion. AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/17124.