Unravelling the media representation of circular economy for fashion education

In the fashion industry, the circular economy (CE) may be mobilised for many agendas, from a superficial approach to reducing waste and using recycled materials to a more radical proposition for societal transformation towards sustainable production and consumption. For fashion educators, the CE is, therefore, an important new facet of sustainability education and one that must be approached with critical nuance, as the representation of the CE in the media have the potential to frame students’ understanding. To evaluate the discourse created around fashion and the CE in the mainstream media, 476 published articles were analysed between 2016 and 2020. The findings revealed that the media sidelined cultural perspectives of CE while promoting its technical dimension. The concluding part of this paper makes suggestions on how best to engage students in the CE conversation with a critical approach that considers pressing consumption issues in fashion.