Framing Sustainable Fashion Concepts on Social Media. An Analysis of #slowfashionaustralia Instagram Posts and Post-COVID Visions of the Future

The global fashion industry poses a significant threat to sustainability, occasioning the emergence of sustainable fashion concepts such as slow fashion. However, sustainability as a principle is mostly established in corporate communication and reporting and sustainable fashion is mostly debated from a marketing and consumer perspective. The study at hand fills the existing gap in research on how slow fashion is portrayed on social media, focusing particularly on slow fashion, Instagram, and an Australian context. An explorative content analysis was conducted following the hashtag #slowfashionaustralia; open-coding methods were employed to enable three thematic frames to emerge from the data; namely, slow fashion as Business 2.0: An eco-marketplace, as an authentic experience of self-expression, and as a community value. Further analysis of the identified themes yielded the framing process of slow fashion on Instagram, mainly representing empowerment for women. Methodological limitations are outlined, as well as new research potential in the area of sustainability communication.