The Aesthetic Character of Age in SoMe Fashion Practice

Abstract

This study examines the aesthetic character components of ageing models in the practise of fashion branding on Instagram from an interdisciplinary humanist perspective. The purpose of the analysis is to show how the aesthetics of age is applied in SoMe branding. Do the posts communicate age as copy of youth, or do the mature models result in a renewed aesthetic character of age? The study has a social constructionist framework with a sample of photos from international fashion brands’ visual discourse, and it is processed in two steps. The first step identifies the aesthetic themes of age in a two-level procedure. As a second step the aesthetic themes are discussed from four sensory dimensions, and then analysed in detail from an aesthetic perspective. Subsequently, the aesthetic character in the themes of age is elaborated. The analysis shows that the sample’s aesthetic character of age varies. It is unfolded as an aesthetic intensifier, an element of distinctive cool, and as a celebration of the aging body which becomes brand capital. There is no one single aesthetic character but there is a common integration of age as aesthetic capital into the SoMe fashion practise.