The meaning of fashion: A qualitative study with students in Romania

Abstract

This article discusses the results of a focus-group-based qualitative study that was conducted with the students of two universities in Romania, with the aim to reveal their discourses regarding the meaning of fashion. The findings suggest that students define fashion through a complex semantic triangle of three inter-related concepts: fashion – style – being well-dressed. In this tripartite model, fashion receives mostly negative connotations compared with style, which is defined as a micro-level, personal take on fashion, i.e. it has agency, whereas fashion is defined as being at the macro-level and is accused of enforcing normativity and homogeneity. The meaning of being well-dressed refers mostly to dress codes and to the wearing of clothes that symbolize and signal social status, rather than to fashionable clothes. With such findings, it is possible to claim that the interviewees are ‘soft challengers’ of fashion: they are revolting against the normativity of fashion and seek to emphasize their agency when they put together an outfit. However, as much as possible, they try to respect the normative expectations of situational dress codes. When the three concepts were considered separately by the interviewees, each revealed several sub-dimensions/themes.