Communicating Sustainable Luxury: A Netnography of Indian Fashion Brands’ Posts on Instagram

The present article aims to develop an understanding of how sustainability is depicted in the Instagram posts of Indian sustainable luxury fashion (ISLF) brands. Since sustainability and luxury are two diverse and distinct fields, luxury fashion brands must tread carefully in their communications to avoid greenwashing accusations. Consequently, we analyse the Instagram posts of five ISLF brands, namely, Grassroot by Anita Dongre, Fabindia, No Nasties, Nicobar, and The Summer House. For this end, the article uses the netnography approach, examining the Instagram posts as a visual document and captions and hashtags attached to them to fully comprehend the characteristics of cultural intermediaries. The findings show that images are the most preferred choice for ISFL brands, and it depicts how they are able to generate user engagement based on them. The study also highlights relevant implications for social media managers, ISFL brands, and consumers, which is useful for an emerging economy like India.