No. 5 (2025)
Essays

Styled for Dissent: Fashion as Embodied Resistance in Contemporary Protests

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  • Elisa Fiorilli,
  • Tannaz Rahmani,
  • Zeynep Karlidag
Elisa Fiorilli
Politecnico di Milano
Zeynep Karlidag
Politecnico di Milano
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3622

Published 10-12-2025

Keywords

  • Protest Fashion,
  • Emotional Collectivity,
  • Aesthetic Resistance,
  • Commodification,
  • Symbolic Dissent

How to Cite

Fiorilli, E., Rahmani, T., & Karlidag, Z. (2025). Styled for Dissent: Fashion as Embodied Resistance in Contemporary Protests. Fashion Highlight, (5), 44–53. https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3622

Copyright (c) 2025 Elisa Fiorilli, Tannaz Rahmani, Zeynep Karlidag

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper explores how fashion functions as a multidimensional form of protest that transcends symbolic expression, positioning clothing as an affective, spatial, and political infrastructure of dissent. Through detailed case studies; Pussy Riot’s neon pink balaclavas, the “Protect the Dolls” T-shirt campaign, and the Pikachu protester during Turkish demonstrations; it demonstrates how garments evoke emotional collectivity, reshape public space, and challenge power structures. Protest fashion emerges not as passive symbolism, but as an embodied, performative act that generates solidarity, disrupts norms, and navigates global media. However, the global circulation of these sartorial symbols also risks depoliticization, commodification, and exclusion. The paper ultimately argues for a critical, context-sensitive understanding of protest fashion as both a powerful and precarious mode of aesthetic resistance.

Pdf

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