Fashion Week: Lead or Be Led

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate in what ways sustainability is communicated in the branding of Fashion Week, both in Paris, France, and Copenhagen, Denmark. To achieve the purpose of the thesis and to answer the study's research question, a qualitative document study has been conducted by analyzing media content. The approaches applied for this thesis are the hermeneutic and ontological approaches. Grounded theory and coding have been used to investigate and interpret the various aspects of the media content.The theory section, titled literature review in this paper, includes previous research on branding, sustainability in Fashion and Fashion Weeks. The empirical foundation for this thesis is derived from newspapers, magazines, academic journals and social media. Our findings show that the communication of sustainability by Paris Fashion Week and Copenhagen Fashion Week are perceived differently in the media landscape. The underlying reasons why are partly due to national culture.