Fashioning the digital self: a critical examination of identity and sustainable user practices within digital fashion ecosystems.
McSorley, Jade (2025) Fashioning the digital self: a critical examination of identity and sustainable user practices within digital fashion ecosystems. PhD thesis, University for the Creative Arts.
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‘Can digital self definition help save the planet?’ Belk’s (2013: 492) provocative question argued the need for further research on his concept of dematerialisation, already posing concern over the impact and value of digital goods. Despite existing digitally, with emergent technologies offering digital tools for unbound fashion expression, there is still little research or evidence that fully answers Belk’s question. To date, digital fashion, avatars, and the metaverse have generated significant publicity within the fashion media and are often marketed as tools for innovation and sustainability. The dematerialisation of fashion could offer a new way of dressing with the potential for environmental, psychological, social, and cultural impact. However, despite the rapid arrival of Web3 technologies, there is little understanding of digital fashion as an end product within the current Web 2.0 discourse. A holistic and mediated approach viewed through the lens of sustainable development is required for fashion and technology sectors to responsibly collaborate and innovate while considering the future of digital fashion with a key stakeholder in mind— the user. Adopting the sustainable development goals as a framework for contextualisation, this research includes a critical review of existing literature on digital fashion, identity and sustainability, supplemented by established video game theory, and an account of the author’s own experience of being digitised. It further explores two novel studies focusing on prominent users of DF: fashion models (Study One: Digital Bodies) and fashion consumers (Study Two: Digital Dressing). Within Study Two, participants were required to create and dress their digital selves during observational interviews. While grounded in the present, participants speculate on plausible, near-future scenarios where creating and dressing digital bodies becomes an essential extension of self, bringing both opportunity and risk. Key findings suggest that digital fashion augments rather than replaces physical fashion, serving to foster authentic representation through bolder experimentation or enabling style expression via idealised versions of the ‘default’ self. A digital sustainability paradox is implied, whereby users of DF are torn between feeling inspired and inadequate, with the potential to affect offline consumer behaviours. The creation of digital bodies within the DF journey may make users susceptible to body dissonance, and there is a wider risk to digital well-being, which requires industry responsibility. Additionally, issues surrounding digital ethics and autonomy for future fashion stakeholders are highlighted as societal implications, based on participants’ moralistic views of the digital self. 2 Traversing both online and offline worlds, this research aims to reframe and remediate the relationship between fashion and identity for generations that will never know a world without technology. To stay on the path of sustainable development within a blurred digital/physical fashion landscape, this thesis provides practical tools for the fashion and technology sectors to embed responsible innovation practices, thereby contributing to the emerging field of DF and sustainable development.
Thesis submitted in partial requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
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