An inclusive system for fashion criticism

This paper serves to uncover fashion criticism as a discursive network which situates fashion in the system that goes alongside but is also different from art. In developing a cogent discourse, three types of elucidation are suggested. First, the authors identify topographies of fashion as they evolve as aesthetic components inherent in the structure of fashion. Notably, these topographies are socio-economic structures of collective fashion agents within the fashion system and are eventual cultural discourses. Second, fashion criticism is defined as linguistic analysis and interpretation of a variety of discussions around fashion and an aesthetic analysis of it. Against a lack of critical approaches to fashion, we argue that fashion criticism should be systematised as existing alongside art criticism and be reflective of fashion’s multiple facets. Third, the authors suggest an inclusive criticism model for fashion that incorporates aesthetic, socio-economic, and cultural perspectives.