Conclusion

This conclusion synthesises empirical findings from five case studies examining fashion discourse at the margins of the industry, where it intersects with animal welfare, disability, sustainability, repair practices, technology, and digital innovation in the general public media. Drawing on Lotman&s;s concept of the semiosphere and its periphery, the chapter argues that when fashion discourse moves from specialised fashion media to mainstream publications, it undergoes a fundamental transformation. Instead of creating desire (fashion&s;s core semiotic function as theorised by Barthes), fashion discourse in general media becomes colonised by other discursive systems (medical, civic, financial) and mainly serves to maintain boundaries and reinforce marginalisation. The study shows that fashion industry voices are largely absent from public discourse on fashion-related social issues, replaced by NGOs, activists, and other external actors who instrumentalise fashion for non-fashion purposes. While fashion&s;s structural elements persist in these peripheral spaces, they operate with reversed polarity: rather than generating aspiration, they produce aversion or indifference. The chapter concludes that fashion&s;s retreat from public discourse, while maintaining its mythology in specialised media, is unsustainable as peripheral discourses increasingly threaten to restructure fashion&s;s meaning-making system. This indicates that fashion must develop new languages capable of genuine interdiscursive engagement or risk becoming culturally irrelevant.