Affective Fashion Trends: Aesthetic and Digital Affects from Nostalgia to AR

Responding the digitalization of the fashion industry, technological innovation, the acceleration of trends, the article identifies a tendency toward affect and discusses the potential of affective fashion trends. Selected cases are examined: from the pandemic-born nostalgia aesthetic on TikTok, and ASMR videos, to digital fashion and the use of augmented reality to push the boundaries between human body and adornment. Through an analysis grounded in a multi-disciplinary theoretical framework, we identify a shift in the cultural Zeitgeist toward emotions, feelings, sensations, and bodily experience. We stress the need for an affective, rather than purely visual perspective on aesthetics and argue for the potential of technology as a vehicle for affect in fashion and popular culture more broadly.