Fashion consumption in digital media: Multiple practices and new identities

Abstract

It is possible to assert that the fashion system constitutes a complex device that determines consumption agendas. Fashion clothing is massively consumed, and consumer habits are deeply affected by online advertising. These consumption practices are not simply passive, sometimes they are creative, yet they are still part of the fashion disciplinary device. In these consumption practices, a range of expressions and discourses between individuals may be detected as well as multiple subjectivities under construction within contemporary societies. The intention of this article is to shed some light on the role of online fashion consumption practices within our societies, which are traversed by daily and prevailingly online advertising and encourage increased consumption. ‘Influencers’ are one novel example of how online advertising is subtly influencing fashion consumption. Even though consumers show certain tendencies in acquiring fashion clothing from specific brands, via different digital media outlets depending on their socioeconomic status and their peer groups, their consumption practices may try to subvert the conventional formats through which fashion clothing has been consumed traditionally. Nevertheless, as much as these practices seem to promote freedom, they might confirm the tactics of the system and just be a part of the algorithmic logic that imposes certain products, reproducing established categories.