Products as fashion

This editorial introduces the Special Issue ‘Products as Fashion’ and suggests that many product decisions are shaped by both functional requirements and fashion evaluation. Across the six contributions, the issue treats ‘fashion’ as the ways products are assessed, circulated and interpreted in everyday life, and it emphasizes researchable processes that connect production and market positioning, branding and heritage narratives and context-driven decision-making. The collection further shows how embodied constraints such as fit, interactive structures that shape use, and community norms influence what is recognized as acceptable or desirable in different settings. By bringing together historical and contemporary cases across diverse objects and practices, the Special Issue develops a shared lens for fashion studies and product design research and points to future comparative work across categories and regions.