Emotional configurations and brand positioning in fashion startups

Purpose This study aims to examine how fashion startups strategically configure emotions in brand-authored language. While prior research has largely focused on consumer emotional responses, limited attention has been paid to how brands themselves construct emotional structures within their communication. This study addresses this gap by analyzing the emotional architecture embedded in fashion startup brand websites. Design/methodology/approach Using an emotion-lexicon–based text mining approach, the study analyzes About and Brand Story texts from 16 global fashion startups. Emotional distributions, category-level emotion profiles and sentence-level emotion co-occurrence patterns were identified using the NRC Emotion Lexicon. Findings Fashion startup brand communication is predominantly structured around positive emotions, particularly trust and anticipation, while selectively incorporating negative emotions to frame social, ethical or industry-related challenges. Emotional configurations and co-occurrence patterns differ systematically across brand categories, revealing distinct strategic positioning logics embedded in emotional communication. Originality/value By shifting the analytical focus from consumer reactions to brand-authored emotional structures, this study advances emotional branding research. It introduces emotion co-occurrence as a strategic narrative device and provides a structured framework for understanding how startups recurrently employ emotional configurations within positioning- and legitimacy-related brand communication in competitive markets.