Contagion Imaginary: What do fashion trends and pandemics have in common?

[abstract] This research aims to shed light on the understanding of fashion trends and their diffusion in postmodern society through social contagion. Thus, under this perspective, the contagion theory and epidemiological studies give rise to the debate about the transfor-mations that a pandemic is capable of having on social effervescence. From this angle, cor-relating fashion and pandemic as the basic theme of this study, we realized that pandemics and fashion trends may have some similarities in their diffusion structures, since they share the dynamics of virulence. Thus, based on the Imaginary Theory, referenced by Gilbert Du -rand and Michel Maffesoli, the study proposed here aims to reflect on what fashion trends and pandemics have in common. In this context, it is proposed a comparative analysis of the structures of the dissemination of a pandemic in relation to the diffusion of fashion trends, having as methodological bias the imaginary theory. With this, it was possible to understand that pandemics and fashion trends can be understood as an intersection between the bio-logical and the social. And it is from these intersections that all the complexity of experience and effects of social, economic, political, cultural, and historical transformations are born. Therefore, fashion can be compared to a pandemic, because both have characteristics and macro impacts that affect everything and everyone, transforming everyday experiences and the social imaginary of those who are affected.