Making sense of fashion: a critical social-ecological approach

Abstract

Transdisciplinary studies and sustainability transformations of fashion are hindered by the gaps between social and biophysical conceptualizations of fashion. Using a critical realist metatheoretic approach we examine fashion as a social-ecological system and we show how big and deep these gaps are. In our indicative review of key contributory fields of study of fashion and the textiles industry, we find stark absences in current conceptualizations of social and biophysical issues, and we discuss how these missing links affect understanding of the global fashion system’s unsustainable dynamics.

Keywords: Fashion, Social-ecological system, Critical realism, Sustainability, Transdisciplinarity