Fashion discourse analysis framework

This chapter establishes the theoretical and methodological framework for analysing fashion discourse beyond specialised fashion media. The chapter integrates social constructionism, semiotics, and the theory of power relations to examine how fashion meanings are constructed and circulated in public discourse. The chapter explains how fashion&s;s language creates consumer desire through linguistic construction, based on Barthes’ concept of “written clothes” and his semiological analysis of fashion as a sign system. The framework incorporates Lotman&s;s semiosphere theory to understand fashion as a semiotic system with boundaries where meaning-making processes are most dynamic. Foucault&s;s concepts of power relations and the order of discourse provide analytical tools for examining who has authority to speak about fashion and how discursive practices control what can be said. Building on these theoretical foundations, the chapter introduces Critical Discursive Matrix Analysis, a two-phase methodological approach developed by the author. This method combines systematic corpus analysis with interpretive depth, which enables examination of fashion discourse as it appears in mainstream media when addressing marginal topics. The chapter explains the rationale for the case study&s;s choices and outlines how critical discursive matrix analysis captures both regularities and discontinuities in fashion&s;s public discourse.