Fashion Literacy: A Conceptual Framework
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-gjefm/V2E6/2026-06Keywords:
fashion literacy, sustainable consumption, sociocultural literacy, fashion and sustainabilityAbstract
The global fashion industry occupies a paradoxical position in contemporary life: it is one of the most culturally pervasive systems of meaning-making through which individuals construct identity and communicate social belonging, yet it is also one of the most environmentally and socially damaging sectors of the modern economy. Addressing this paradox requires not only systemic reform but a fundamental transformation in how individuals understand, evaluate, and act within the fashion system, capacities that, taken together, constitute a form of literacy. This article develops a conceptual framework for fashion literacy by bringing into sustained dialogue two bodies of scholarship that have rarely converged: the sociocultural and multiliteracy traditions in literacy studies, and the social, cultural, and sustainability-oriented theories of fashion. The article argues that literacy, understood as a situated, ideologically inflected, and culturally embedded social practice, provides the appropriate theoretical foundation for conceptualizing fashion competency in its full cultural, aesthetic, environmental, and ethical dimensions. Building on and extending the most influential prior frameworks for fashion literacy, it proposes a working definition of the construction as a situated, reflexive, and critical social practice encompassing three interrelated dimensions: knowledge of the fashion system and its environmental and social implications, attitudes and values oriented towards responsible and sustainable consumption, and practices across the full garment lifecycle. The framework is distinguished from prior formulations by its applicability to the general consumer population, its explicit integration of the sustainability imperative, and its grounding in the critical and transformative dimensions of the multiliteracy tradition. Implications for education, empirical research, and sustainability policy are discussed.
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