Mediatized Fashion: State of the art and beyond

Mariachiara Colucci; Marco Pedroni

doi:10.6092/issn.2611-0563/13118

Authors

Mariachiara Colucci Università di Bologna

She is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Bologna, where she lectures on strategic management and management for fashion companies. Her research interests focus on interfirm relationships, creativity, sustainability, with a focus on the fashion industry. She is the author of several articles published in refereed journals, such as the International Journal of Research in Marketing, the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Business Strategy and the Environment. She is also the author of the book I confini dell’impresa di moda. Tra sviluppo interno e brand licensing (McGraw-Hill) and a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Creative Industries (Oxford University Press).
Marco Pedroni Università degli Studi di Ferrara

He is an Associate Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Ferrara (Italy). He is the author of Coolhunting (FrancoAngeli, 2010), a co-editor of Moda e arte (Fashion and Art, FrancoAngeli, 2012) and Fashion Tales: Feeding the Imaginary (Peter Lang, 2017), and the editor of From Production to Consumption: The Cultural Industry of Fashion (Interdisciplinary, 2013). He is a co-editor of the International Journal of Fashion Studies. His works have been published in peer-reviewed journals like Fashion Theory, Poetics and Film, Fashion and Consumption. As a fashion scholar, his research interests range from trendwatching to digital media, creative professions and cultural intermediaries, with a special focus on bloggers and influencers.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/13118

Keywords:

Mediatization, Fashion Brands, Digitization, Authenticity, Fashion Communication

Abstract

The concept of mediatization concerns the role and influence of the media in both society and the fields of cultural production. Fashion has witnessed several processes of mediatization, exemplified by the rise of fashion bloggers and influencers and the emergence of several online activities — e.g., broadcasting fashion shows — alongside or in place of those that previously took the form of face-to-face interaction. Such a mediatization has then accelerated rhythms of fashion communication imposed by the new digital environment. Moreover, thanks to the role of legacy and digital media, fashion as a cultural industry has been increasingly able to fuel global social imaginaries. This article briefly reviews the state of the art of studies on mediatization in the field of fashion, with a focus on the role of fashion brands. The essay also considers the Covid-19 pandemic as an accelerator of digitization processes, and proposes a number of valuable questions to investigate the future of mediatization in fashion. First, how do fashion brands, whether mass-market or high-end, interface with their audience, advertise their products, reach their targets, finalize the sale, and retain consumers? Second, how has digital technology changed the format and meaning of fashion shows and catwalks? Thirdly, how do fashion brands cooperate with, defend themselves against or exploit new digital intermediaries such as bloggers, influencers and content creators? Finally, how do brands pursue the quest for authenticity, as a value and a rhetoric construction, through digital channels? The contributions of this special issue provide, through the study of empirical cases, elements to answer these questions.

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Mediatized Fashion: State of the art and beyond

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