Author(s): Hanna Kuliesh

Abstract: The global fashion industry has moved during the past decade away from a narrow Eurocentric repertoire of beauty toward a wider vocabulary that admits a broader range of bodies, ages, ethnicities, and gender expressions. This article examines the sociocultural dynamics behind that shift. The argument draws on Bourdieu’s field theory and on the social-constructionist tradition, which together frame the change as a contested reorganisation of symbolic capital inside the field of global fashion. The study uses a qualitative, multi-case design that combines discourse analysis of advertising campaigns with structured comparison of four representative brand cases between 2021 and 2025. The analysis identifies four interlocking drivers, which are globalisation and cultural hybridisation, digital platforms and algorithmic visibility, body-positivity and inclusivity movements, and the rise of sustainability as an aesthetic value. Each driver enlarges the repertoire of legitimate aesthetic positions, and at the same time each generates new exclusions and commercial pressures, among them performative inclusivity, algorithmic homogenisation, and the commodification of ethical concern. The article contributes to fashion studies and the sociology of culture through a unified framework that integrates these drivers and through a clearer specification of the conditions under which aesthetic pluralism becomes durable at the level of structure and does not remain confined to reputation.

Keywords: aesthetic standards, body positivity, cultural diversity, fashion industry, globalisation, social media.

Article Info: Received: 05 May 2026; Received in revised form: 28 May 2026; Accepted: 04 Jun 2026; Available online: 09 Jun 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.113.57