From Sustainable to Responsible Fashion: Managing Semantic Tensions in Fashion Communication

In recent decades, the fashion industry has attracted mounting attention due to its considerable social, environmental, and cultural impacts. A substantial corpus of academic research has examined these issues, employing terms such as “ethical,” “sustainable,” and “responsible fashion” to describe models that transcend a solely profit-driven logic. These labels, however, are not inherently fixed in meaning and are subject to continuous evolution through public and professional discourse. What, then, do these terms mean? To address this question, the study examines how responsible fashion is defined and framed, drawing on 34 qualitative biographical interviews with Italian fashion communicators. The findings indicate that they ascribe divergent meanings to the concepts of “sustainable” and “responsible” fashion. Sustainability is commonly depicted as an unattainable or utopian objective, whereas responsibility is characterized as more pragmatic and achievable. It is linked to reflexivity and gradual enhancement rather than comprehensive transformation. Even though certain critical viewpoints have called into question the compatibility of fashion with responsibility in itself, the analysis indicates that communicators predominantly construct and negotiate responsibility through specific discursive repertoires. In this regard, responsibility is framed as a compromise, that is, a way of resolving competing demands.