Karafan Journal

Karafan Journal

Defamiliarization and Its Role in the Formation of Differences Between Clothing, Dress, Fashion, and Sustainable Fashion

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Art Department, Art faculty, Arak University, Arak, Iran.
Abstract
In everyday life, objects and practices become normalized; defamiliarization offers a transformative pathway. This study explores the role of defamiliarization in the ontological shift from clothing to dress, fashion, and ultimately sustainable fashion. Its goal is to clarify how defamiliarization functions across these domains. Methodologically, the research is applied-developmental, using documentary and library methods, analyzed through a descriptive-analytical lens. Defamiliarization emerges in three layers. At the linguistic level, clothing is defamiliarized and reinterpreted as dress, introducing epistemic value. The second layer involves disrupting conventional dress design principles, resulting in avant-garde forms that reflect social value. The third layer, at the conceptual-artistic level, defamiliarizes dominant norms of fashion, connecting it with scientific fields and highlighting ethical value. Here, the boundary between fashion and dress becomes clear, and a shift toward sustainable fashion occurs—marked by new norms and ethical frameworks. Each layer of defamiliarization introduces distinct values: epistemic (dress vs. clothing), social (emergence of fashion), and ethical (rise of sustainable fashion). Creativity is the core of this process, generating values that redefine and distinguish clothing, dress, fashion, and sustainable fashion.
Keywords
Subjects

Volume 22, Issue 4
Agriculture / Art and Architecture
Autumn 2025

  • Receive Date 23 January 2025
  • Revise Date 20 July 2025
  • Accept Date 28 September 2025