Branded on Instagram: Navigating Co-created Aesthetics and Narratives through Critical Fashion Identity Practice

This dissertation interrogates the role of fashion aesthetics in supporting sociality and postmodern identity construction in digital spaces with a particular focus on Instagram. Employing actor-network theory, it explores fashion’s critical role in forging social connections and shaping online identities. Central to this investigation is a concept I have labelled the aesthetic-narrative imagination (ANI) principle, a novel analytical framework designed to illuminate the complex social and cultural forces at play as users engage with and create fashion-related content on Instagram. Through multiple ethnographic methods, this study traces the trajectory of the RÆBURN fashion aesthetic from its conception in the brand’s studio to its reimagining by consumers in the digital realm. This journey highlights how the RÆBURN aesthetic becomes subject to fluid and unpredictable spaces beyond the designer’s control when it enters the “intermedial wild.” My analysis focuses on how Instagram content creators reinterpret fashion by engaging with and reshaping the RÆBURN aesthetic in the context of their social histories and cultural trajectories. By exploring the symbiotic relationship between human and non-human actors within a fashion aesthetic network, the research unveils the transformative potential embedded in the creation of digital content for Instagram. It situates the RÆBURN fashion aesthetic as part of a nexus of social connections and identity performances, highlighting the implications of fashion aesthetics for digital sociability and the construction of postmodern identities. This dissertation advances understandings of fashion’s evolving role in the digital age while also underscoring the capacity of fashion aesthetics to be transformed on their journey to the digital realm, highlighting how various actors in the network contribute to that transformation.